1. Background about Oxfam in Uganda

Oxfam is a global movement for change that empowers people to create a secure future, just and free from poverty. We believe that everyone has a right to safety, security, a livelihood, and a say in decisions that affect them. 

In Uganda, our Vision is to see Uganda free of inequality and Injustice: A society where people, particularly women and young people, claim and exercise their rights and responsibilities and influence decisions that affect their lives. Our work is guided by the Country Strategic Framework (CSF) (2021-2030), organized around four themes: Governance and Accountability, Resilient Livelihoods, Humanitarian preparedness and response and Gender Justice and Women's Rights. All the themes work towards influencing policy and practice, youth and women empowerment, inclusive participation in decision-making at various levels, and capacity strengthening of national and local actors.

2. Information about the Project

The project aims to strengthen Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) in the Karamoja region (in all the nine (9) districts of Kaabong, Kotido, Abim, Karenga, Nabilatuk, Moroto, Napak, Amudat and Nakapiripirit) by leading a 9-month initiative to strengthen and link community-based mechanisms for a collective AAP approach and feedback mechanisms, leveraging existing systems and structures.

The complex humanitarian situation in Karamoja is operating alongside various development, peace and nexus assistance interventions, including an ongoing disarmament campaign. The population is highly vulnerable, with estimated 66% living below the poverty line and 45% of the population analysed (582,000 people) in June 2023 as facing high levels of acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or above). The project will target 5% of the total population of Karamoja (60,000 individuals), consisting of males, females, boys, and girls affected by the humanitarian crisis. 

In each district the project will work with approximately 6,600 individuals through the community-based structures including the social accountability platforms, farmers groups, Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) groups, Male Action groups, women's groups, groups of women and other persons with disability, youth and school groups, disaster committees, and other community-based structures, in addition to 200 humanitarian workers.

The project will use already established community-based structures including the social accountability platforms, farmers groups, Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA) groups, male action groups, women's groups, groups of women and other persons with disability, youth and school groups, disaster committees, and other community-based structures and connect them to decision making structures for the Karamoja Response, and establish complaint and feedback mechanisms by building the capacity of the above mentioned community structures to refer cases, enhance their means to report (i.e. phones for community group leaders etc) and provide information/referrals to the established GBV and child protection referral pathways, ensuring better access to protection and assistance. The identification of the mechanisms will involve community participation in selection of the mechanism (s) and their appropriateness to their context.

The approach to this project is to enhance accountability and empower communities through the implementation of a comprehensive collective AAP strategy and feedback mechanism in the Karamoja region. The key outputs and respective activities include; strengthened capacity of community-based structures in the Karamoja sub-region to participate in and play an active role in humanitarian and nexus decision-making, accountability platforms, and feedback mechanisms. To achieve this output, the project will: 

  1. Conduct an AAP self-assessment, identify and map existing feedback mechanisms, and existing community-based structures with whom the UN system and other humanitarian/nexus actors work - in particular groups which target women, youth and marginalized groups.
  2. Conduct consultations with community structures including the Social Accountability Forums, women and youth groups, District Local Government, and others to collect community perceptions and needs, preferred communication strategies and mechanisms for reporting sensitive matters (e.g., SEA and GBV), and other on localized approaches to AAP
  3. Build capacity of identified communities-based structures and humanitarian and development actors on IASC AAP actions and principles, including on PSEA, responding to allegations of GBV and VAC, and gender & inclusion
  4. Strengthen the link between community structures and existing complaint and feedback mechanisms
  5. Develop key messages and IEC materials, adapted and translated in local language, and disseminated through community structures, community radios, among others.
  6. Equip community-based structures and humanitarian actors (coordinated through AAP working group to HCT light and UNAC) for the collection of community perceptions to identify, standardize, gather, analyse and visualize data from community-based structures 

This will also equip existing and new structures to better handle and report individual complaints into established structures, triangulated with data from other feedback mechanisms, for effective decision making, course correction and to streamline accessible and rapid channels of communication between decision making structures (HCT light and UNAC) with affected populations. 

The project is being implemented by Oxfam together with UN Women and the Communication for development Foundation Uganda (CDFU) who together over the project period will:

  1. Design and implement inclusive monitoring tools and surveys using Kobo Toolbox for collection of perceptions and enable course correction through joint analysis of the data by the AAP WG of the feedback and used routinely in joint advise to the HCT light and Karamoja UNAC, to be administered at least biannually by trained community group leaders and supported by a local partner.
  2. Purchase hardware (phones and tablets) for use by community group leaders to enable better links to established feedback mechanisms (incl. hotlines, PSEA referral pathways etc) and for routine collection of perceptions from community members – in particular those groups with limited phone access or literacy. 
  3. Conduct capacity building/ training sessions for leaders of community-based structures and data enumerators on using the Kobo app on using the Kobo app, ethical data collection and gender
  4. Establish a public community voices and accountability dashboard to visualize the feedback collected
  5. Disseminate aggregated feedback collected through the same community groups and preferred community communication systems.

3. Purpose of the consultancy

Oxfam together with UN Women and CDFU would like to contract the services of a consultant to develop a Cost Effective and Sustainable Accountability of Affected Populations Strategy for Karamoja Region. The strategy will be used to influence, engage and operate, while providing opportunities for integration with already established databases, such as UNICEF's U-Report and WFP and partner hotlines. This will be used to strengthen inter-agency coordination for AAP, guided by the Inter – Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Collective AAP Framework for Karamoja region based on learnings from the pilot. The consultant will conduct consultative meetings with key stakeholders, working closely with the dedicated AAP Working Group, under the Uganda Humanitarian Country Team “Light” (HCT-L), and collaborating with the Inter-Agency PSEA Network, emphasizing strong engagement from diverse entities to develop the strategy. 

4. Objectives of the strategy 

Specifically, the consultant will:

  1. Generate evidence to inform the development of an effective and sustainable AAP strategy for Karamoja region through consultative meetings with key stakeholders, literature review, among others to gather information
  2. Identify and document cost effective and sustainable procedures (AAP Technical working group, UNAC, UNCT, PSEA Network), to relay information with key stakeholders in Karamoja region
  3. Propose recommendations on how to engage on the strategy with the respective stakeholders including a clear policy influencing framework that can be used by AAPs for meaningful engagement 

5. Scope of Work 

The strategy development will focus on the Karamoja sub region, located in the north-eastern Uganda, covering nine (9) districts of Kaabong, Kotido, Abim, Karenga, Nabilatuk, Moroto, Napak, Amudat and Nakapiripirit. The consultant will engage with different stakeholders in all the Karamoja districts, and develop ways in which to better operate through the structures to engage and influence decision making in the region. 

The consultant will engage several stakeholders including government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) at the national and local government level; non government organizations; development partners and community members, both in Karamoja region and others outside the region that directly work with AAPs at the national and local government level. Consultation with key structures including UNAC Karamoja, PSEA network and TWGs including the AAP Working group for Karamoja will be key stakeholders to engage during the strategy development. 

The strategy will be applicable up to 5 years of operations of the AAP mechanisms in Karamoja region.

6. Methodology 

The expected methodology will include both qualitative and quantitative approaches in generating primary and secondary data for analysis. The consultant is expected to articulate the research design and provide details of strategy development approaches that will be applied. The methods should be sensitive to the target population (unit of analysis), and robust enough to provide adequate responses to the stated research questions. 

The methodology will be developed by the consultant in consultation with Oxfam and the AAP working group, covering details of strategy development, design and approaches for preparation and completion, emphasizing on quality assurance and ethical considerations. The consultant will also provide all relevant tools presented in the inception report. The data collection should include the use of a number of approaches to gain a deeper understanding of the outcomes of the project, including;

  • Desk Review: Review existing literature, reports, and data on peace and conflict, gender relations, and overall situations in Karamoja sub region.
  • Stakeholder Consultations: Engage with diverse stakeholders through interviews, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews.
  • Gender Analysis: Apply gender-sensitive analytical frameworks to assess the gendered dimensions of conflict and peacebuilding including dimensions of age, disability and inclusion analysis.
  • Data Collection: Conduct surveys, interviews, and focus group discussions to gather primary data on gender-specific experiences and perceptions.
  • Data Analysis: Analyse collected data using qualitative and quantitative methods, with a gender-sensitive lens, to identify existing mechanisms, their composition and the work they do
  • Validation workshop: The consultant will present the draft strategy to various teams through validation workshop/meetings to ensure effective review, input and approval of the AAP strategy 

The selected consultant will prepare a detailed methodology and share for review and approval through an inception report. Oxfam will coordinate the work of the consultant together with the AAP Working group and review the draft and final strategy developed by the consultant.

7. Outputs/Deliverables

The consultant will be expected to develop and present

  • Inception report detailing how the work will be done
  • Draft strategy including presentation for validation to the AAP working group
  • Final copy of the AAP strategy
  • Final strategy presentation to the Uganda Humanitarian Country Team “Light” (HCT-L)

Note: 

  1. All clean dataset(s), transcriptions and other materials MUST be handed over to Oxfam in Uganda 
  2. Each of the strategy versions submitted will have; a standard cover sheet; executive summary; description of objectives, methods and limitations; findings, conclusions and recommendations.

8. Timeframe and estimated working days

The assignment will be undertaken in October 2024, lasting a total of 20 working days from the date of signing the contract. 

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9. Qualification and experience of the consultant/team

  1. The consultant/ team of consultants should be qualified and experienced with a background in Social Sciences, Economics, Public Policy Management, Governance and development studies. A Masters Degree in a relevant field will be an added advantage
  2. The consultant should present experience working in humanitarian, resilience and peacebuilding/complex emergency settings, with previous experience in policy development and formulation
  3. Experience in programming especially developing and implementing cost effective and sustainable strategies
  4. Experience working in Karamoja region will be an added advantage

10. Proposal study criteria

The technical proposal will be evaluated based on the Quality Cost-Based Selection (QCBS) Criteria: 

  1. The individual general reliability as well as experience and capacity in the carrying out the assignment (30%).
  2. The approach in responding to the TOR with a detailed work plan (45%).
  3. The qualifications and competencies of the proposed personnel for the assignment (25%).

Proposals obtaining more than 70% of the technical points will be considered technically suitable and qualify for financial assessment.

11. Supervision/management of the assignment

The consultancy work will be managed and supervised by the Finance for Development Coordinator. The work will be participatory with the Oxfam team and AAP Working Group in all the activities at every stage. 

The consultant will be responsible for planning the activities in a timely manner and informing the Oxfam team and AAP Working Group in advance to ensure their participation. 

12. Payment

The consultant/s will be paid in 02 instalments i.e. 20% will be paid after approval of the inception report and 80% after approval of the final strategy. The consultant/s will be responsible to remit taxes that relate to the study.

13. Submission of Technical and Financial Proposal: 

Interested candidates are invited to submit the following application documents:

  1. A technical proposal detailing their understanding of the Terms of Reference and how they plan to execute the assignment, with the consultants’ relevant experience
  2. A financial proposal providing availability and financial considerations to execute the assignment

• A copy of the curriculum vitae of the consultant/s who will be assigned to conduct the work.

Please send your applications by 6th October 2024 to ugandalogistics@oxfam.org.