Private Sector Assessment for the Kenya Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development Plus (RAPID+) Program- Millennium Water Alliance (MWA)

A. BACKGROUND

The Millennium Water Alliance (MWA) is a permanent global alliance of leading humanitarian and private organizations that convenes opportunities and partnerships, accelerates learning and effective models, and influences the WASH space by leveraging the expertise and reach of its members and partners to scale quality, sustained WASH services. Founded in the year 2002, MWA seeks to advance high standards for program quality, transparency and accountability and work with its members, governments, communities, private sector partners and other key stakeholders to bring to scale effective and sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene education solutions.

The Resilient Arid Lands Partnership for Integrated Development+ (RAPID+) program is convened and led by the Millennium Water Alliance with primary funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) alongside match and investment funds from private sector actors, implementing partners and participating county governments.

RAPID+ will provide first-time or improved access to water and rangeland services for more than 200,000 people in Garissa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Turkana, and Wajir counties. Key partners of this program include CARE (Garissa), Catholic Relief Services (Isiolo and Turkana), Food for the Hungry (Marsabit), World Vision (Wajir), the five County Governments, and four private sector partners. The first four partners listed (CARE, FH, CRS and World Vision) implement the program within the counties and are known as the County Coordination Units (CCU). RAPID+ builds on the successes and lessons learned from the initial phase (2015-2021) of the program to combine the opportunities presented by the national and devolved water sector institutions, the rangelands resource management capacities, and the assets and experience of the private sector to address the complex problems created by inadequate water access and poor governance of rangeland resources in the five target ASAL counties.

The goal of RAPID+ is improved access to safe and sustainably managed water and rangelands in RAPID+ counties that will contribute to resilient livelihoods for communities in a peaceful environment. This incorporates two objectives:

1) Pastoralist communities will have increased access to sustainable and safe water for multiple uses.

2) Pastoralist communities will have improved access to safe and ecologically healthy rangeland resources that promote greater integrity, social cohesion, and gender equity.

B. ASSESSMENT PURPOSE

The private sector has a critical role in ending extreme poverty and realizing sustainable development, specifically through job creation, technology development, and investments. Indeed, the private sector creates an estimated 90% of all jobs in developing countries. Further, the private sector typically accounts for 60% of gross domestic product and 80% of total international capital flows (including foreign direct investment, portfolio equity flows, commercial debt, and remittances) in developing countries. While the place for private sector in ending poverty is clear, attracting and sustaining long-term private sector investments remains a challenge for areas that need it the most – poor and often marginalized regions.

The five counties targeted by RAPID+ are among the poorest regions in Kenya. Considered as mostly Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs), the counties are characterized by low and erratic rainfall, low population density, low development indicators, high poverty incidence, food insecurity, weak institutions, and poor infrastructure. This combination of traits presents complex challenges that require creative and innovative approaches by both government and development partners to attract and retain private sector players. As demonstrated under Kenya RAPID, two key approaches may be adopted towards attracting private sector players. First is private sector engagement which in this context refers to a strategic approach in which a program seeks to co-create, co-finance, co-manage and co-implement with pre-identified private sector players for greater scale, sustainability, and effectiveness of development. The second approach is private sector development which involves facilitating the private sector parties within and outside the five counties to undertake some functions that may unlock the system to establish markets that function vibrantly and fairly, providing economic opportunities of quality to poor people at scale.

It is against this backdrop that RAPID+ is seeking to improve on and scale up private sector activities in the five counties. As part of ongoing baseline and inception activities for RAPID+, we are seeking a consulting firm to carry out a private sector assessment in each of the five counties of RAPID +.

C. METHODOLOGY AND SCOPE OF WORK

We expect the consulting team to predominantly use qualitative methods to conduct the private sector assessment. These will include Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) with various private sector entities and businesses, government personnel and community leaders within and outside the five RAPID+ counties. The consultant is additionally expected to extensively work with the County Coordination Unit (CCUs) teams on the ground to understand the special dynamics within each county. Bidders should also propose any additional methods they think are critical to achieving the scope of work and deliverables.

The firm is expected to:

1. Determine the barriers to private sector entry and engagement in each of the five counties of the RAPID+ program, specifically focusing on rangeland, livestock, and water markets. We expect that each county shall exhibit a unique set of barriers and constraint so in-depth analysis is required for each county. Part of this will also involve an analysis of relevant County policies, strategies rules and regulations to identify legal and regulatory gaps hindering private sector engagement.
2. Isolate and specify business opportunities in water supply, water resource management, rangelands and livestock and fodder production specific to each of the five counties. These should be clearly defined opportunities that the private sector can fill in both the short term (1-2 years) and the long-term (3-5 years). These could range from large business opportunities at an international level to small and local business opportunities at the county level.
3. List 15 or more successful county-based, national, and international private sector organizations or businesses in water supply, water resource management, rangelands and livestock and fodder production in each of the five ASAL counties and briefly describe their current business models. Describe each organization in 1 page and have an equitable mix of water supply, water resource management and rangeland/livestock private sector entities. Contact details for the companies should be provided within the company description. These should be ideally business or organizations that might contribute to or are interested in the work of RAPID +.
4. Identify Private Sector models that have been implemented in each county- Closely related to tasks 2 and 3 above is the identification of 2-3 successful and unsuccessful private sector business models implemented in each of the RAPID+ counties. The barriers and success factors for each model should also be captured.
5. Present the findings of the assessment to the MWA program hub, the county coordination units (CCUs), the private sector partners and other stakeholders for additional inputs and feedback and questions. This presentation will be either conducted physically or virtually.

D. EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

Successful bidders will be required to provide five main deliverables along the timelines specified in the table below.

Deliverables

Timelines

Inception Report/Assessment plan elaborating the methods that will be used for the assessment. This should be submitted alongside the tools that will be used to collect data during the assessment and the list of expected KII respondents.

10 working days after the assessment kick-off meeting.

Draft Private Sector Assessment Report. The report should be no more than 30 pages excluding the executive summary and annexes. It should be concise and well written. The report should focus on the outlining the barriers and opportunities around private sector engagement specific to each of the five counties. The key annex in the report should provide a detailed list and description of local, national, and international private sector companies operating within the five counties.

7 working days after the completion of fieldwork. Fieldwork is expected to take about 14 working days (including weekends)

Presentation of Private Sector Assessment findings to the county coordination units, the MWA program hub and private sector partners at RAPID +

The presentation shall be made 2 working days after submission of draft report. Please note that the consultant is required to submit a draft presentation to the core team 1 day after submitting the draft report for review before the actual presentation to stakeholders.

Final Private Sector Assessment Report. The report should be no more than 30 pages excluding the executive summary and annexes. It should be concise and well written. It should contain written reviews and feedback from the MWA team and other stakeholders.

The final version of the report should be duly edited with concise writing and no grammatical and spelling errors.

7 days after the presentation on the findings of the assessment.

Edited and Graphically Designed Report- The Consultant should ensure the final report is graphically designed to spruce up the outlook of the final deliverable for sharing with wide audiences.

5 days after submission of the final private sector assessment report.

All primary source data, including focus group discussion (FGD) sheets/reports/recordings and key informant interview forms/reports and related codebooks generated during the assessment must be provided to MWA in an electronic file in an easily readable format; organized and fully documented for use by those not fully familiar with the assessment.

E. ROLE OF MWA, PARTNERS AND CONSULTANT

The MWA together will collaborate with the selected consultant to undertake the following roles:

• Provide consultant with background documents, reports, and available secondary data for review.
• Arrange and pay for travel from Nairobi to the field county headquarters. Travel must be approved by MWA in advance of any booking.
• Arrange and pay for accommodation and per diems for the consultant during site visits for data collection.
• Organize validation and dissemination workshop for the presentation of preliminary findings to the program stakeholders.
• Review and provide input on all consultant’s deliverables.
• Ensure smooth flow of consultancy engagement processes including contractual obligations.
• Share the final assessment report with all key stakeholders, including key program staff, partners, donor representative, national and county governments.

The roles of the facilitating partners (the county coordination units) shall include the following:

• Facilitate the consultant’s travel and movement within each of the five counties.
• Support the consultant in setting up key informant interviews and focused group discussions.
• Support the consultant in community sensitization and mobilization of respondents particularly for FGDs.

The roles of the consultant(s) shall include the following:

• Conduct desk‐review of relevant program documents and other secondary sources.
• Develop an inception report, detailing the agreed upon study design, methodologies for data collection and analysis, indicators, data- gathering tools, work plan schedule and budget to carry out the assignment, in consultation with MWA.
• Develop or refine data gathering tools in consultation with MWA.
• Plan and coordinate data collection.
• Conduct training for the data collection teams including pre‐testing of data collection tools.
• Work with the facilitating partners in assessment planning and logistics.
• Review and analyze collected data.
• Incorporate data from other studies locally and globally on private sector entry into marginalized ASAL areas.
• Draft the private sector assessment report.
• Present preliminary findings and draft report to program stakeholders for validation.
• Incorporate input from program stakeholders and develop and submit the final private sector assessment report. The final report should be graphically designed and aesthetically professional.

F. EXPERTISE REQUIRED FOR THE EVALUATION

We expect the consulting firm to present a core team with the following qualifications.

No. of staff and Basic requirements

Team Lead- 1

• At least a master’s degree in a relevant field, with at least 8 years relevant experience.
• He/she must have experience of leading major analytical and advisory assignments to stimulate private sector participation.
• Experience in business and financial modelling will be an added advantage
• The team lead should have strong report writing skills.

Market System Development Specialist- 1

• At least a master’s degree in a relevant field (finance, investment, development, social entrepreneurship) with at least 5 years relevant experience
• He/she must have experience in successfully launching/supporting private sector business to expand their business to new sectors/regions/counties.
• He/she must be proficient in Market Systems Development methods.

Other requirements will include.

• A proven track record of professional execution of similar consultancies/assignments and demonstrable capacity to deliver high quality outputs within a short timeframe.
• Excellent analytical and deductions skills necessary for the review and development of business models.
• Excellent English report writing, and communication skills are required.
• Previous work experience and knowledge of the context of the five counties is preferred but not necessary.
• Consultants based in Kenya are preferred.

G. DURATION OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The private sector assessment will be conducted between April and June 2022 and is expected to take a maximum of 30 consulting days spread out over the 3 months.