Terms of Reference for the Consultancy to Conduct the Midterm Review of the Country Strategic Plan (2022-2026) – Kenyan Nationals Only, ChildFund International

Background and Context

ChildFund is an international child-centered development organization. We are a member of the ChildFund Alliance; a global network of 12 organizations that assists more than 21 million children in 58 countries around the world. Our three-fold mission is to help deprived, excluded and vulnerable children improve their lives and become adults who bring positive changes to their communities: to promote societies that value, protect and advance the worth and rights of children: and to enrich supporters’ lives through their support of our cause. In Kenya, we work through 11 local implementing partners (LIP’s) and 2 directly implementation Program (DIPs) covering 27 of the 47 counties in Kenya.

Growing Connections Strategy

Overview

In the 2021-22 fiscal year, ChildFund International reached 21.5 million people with programs and services. To increase the number fivefold in the next 10 years, the organization recognized the need for better strategic focus and skill, as well as significant innovation and adaptation to the external shifts in the child development ecosystem. Thus, a 10-year global strategy the “Growing Connections Strategy was formulated. The strategy that runs from 2022 – 2030 outlines an approach for multiplying our impact that leverages both our existing strengths and the opportunities we are best positioned to take advantage of or create.

Impact in the Growing Connections Strategy is characterized in four key dimensions:

• The positive change we see in our core outcomes as measured by performance data.

• The feedback we receive from children, families, sponsors, partners and stakeholders.

• Improved outcomes due to our application of learning from what does and does not work.

• Our contributions to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Strategic Directions and Objectives

The goal of the Growing Connection Strategy is that by 2030, ChildFund will reach 100 million vulnerable children and family members annually to help children grow up healthy, educated, skilled and safe. This bold goal was to be achieved through 3 Strategic Directions and several strategic objectives:

Strategic Direction 1: Scale child centered programs: outlines how we planned, at great scale, advance programs that appeal to and effectively support children and address persistent and emerging issues in child development. This includes efforts to advance our current delivery model, develop novel delivery methods and enhance our ability to measure our impact with children across all methods. The objectives include support child health, education, skills and safety, expand program delivery methods and measure impact on children.

Strategic Direction 2: Influence child development ecosystem: recognizes that there are various factors that affect the environment where children grow and develop — home, school, local community, country and world — and reflects our intention to evolve our role to become a powerful influencer and partner. Related efforts include creating meaningful change to policy, practices and perspectives that impact children’s rights and well-being and enable ChildFund to reach more children and families. The objectives include influence government programs and policy, advance local ownership and work closely with ChildFund Alliance and partners.

Strategic Direction 3: Grow capabilities to scale impact: reflects efforts to intentionally develop critical capabilities necessary to create impact with 100 million vulnerable children and family members annually. It also reflects plans to invest in growing and diversifying revenue, our culture, competencies and inclusion, as well as in digital capabilities. The objectives include grow diversified financial resources, enhance culture of engagement and inclusion and improve digital capabilities.

The delivery of Growing Connections Strategy 2030 is in three phases:

Phase 1 – Roadmap to Scale: a pre-scaling phase of strengthening our core work, identifying our best pathways to scale, and preparing to scale.- 2021- 2022.

Phase 2 – Transition to Scale: an initial scaling phase of transition and adjustment that includes expanding our partnerships and funding to support scaling – 2022-2026.

Phase 3 – Impact at Scale: a scaling phase of expanding and sustaining our reach and impact – 2026-2030.

ChildFund Kenya Country Strategic Plan (2022-2026)

Kenya CSP focuses on the following key programming and advocacy priorities:

1. Strengthening Early Childhood Development and Education: – ChildFund will be known as a thought leader and key actor in both policy influencing/advocacy and programs working with multi-stakeholders on matters of children in their first five years. These are the most important years in a child’s foundational brain architecture formation. In the CSP, ChildFund Kenya committed to champion ECD in collaboration with key stakeholders- government, private sector, caregivers and children to strengthen access to quality Early Childhood Development (ECD). The Responsive Protective Parenting Model will be expanded and the ECD Franchising Pathway tested and piloted as an official pathway of the Growing Connections Global Strategy.
2. Child Protection and Advocacy: The CSP prioritized to be advocating against all forms of child exploitation and abuse, including Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA), retrogressive cultural practices, child rights budgeting, recognition of community-based child protection mechanism (CBCPM) in mainstream child protection systems and enactment of laws for promotion of child rights.
3. Youth Engagement and Participation: Focus will be on developing youth capacities in climate change adaptation through strategic training in climate-smart agriculture technologies and innovative technologies to enhance sustainable livelihoods. Kenya CO committed to strengthen youth capacity for their meaningful engagement in civil society leadership, communal resource driven conflict resolution and inclusive development particularly in ASALs.
4. Disaster risk reduction: Strengthening resilience capacity of households affected by disasters through sustainable DRR programs and approaches in schools and communities affected by climate crisis and related emergences.
5. Partnership development: Developing partnerships and growing connections with donors, resource persons, partners, youth, parents or caregivers, clergy and opinion leaders for children and young people across the 3 Life stages. Local partnerships are mission critical. The CO planned to utilize recommendations from the assessment study on 12 local partners’ governance and management to address existing gaps and scale up best practice.

Key Strategic shifts within the Kenya CSP included: –

• Emphasis on Scale and reach with a target of 7.5 million children and their families benefiting annually from our programs.
• Being bolder with more advocacy and influencing of decision makers to respond to children’s needs;
• More innovation led– shifting towards more innovative program models for sustainable impact at scale.
• The CSP intentionally planned to move from handouts to more market oriented sustainable livelihoods and resilience, forging strategic partnerships and harnessing the critical role of private sector in communities living in deprivation, exclusion and vulnerability (DEV).
• Developing a 10-year horizon phase out strategy from Narok, Nyeri and Meru counties and phase in strategy into West Pokot, Tana River and Kilifi counties for sustainability. The phase in and phase out strategy would be informed by poverty indicators with growth/graduation from extreme poverty as an end in mind. Phase out would consider milestones reached, presence of similar players and sponsorship and donor priorities. New communities would be mobilized and prepared for entry. The three counties have a unique mix of climate change-induced livelihood deprivation and violence and retrogressive socio-cultural practices that exacerbate child poverty and various forms of VAC.

Among the anticipated outcomes during the strategy period were

• An increase of 15% (baseline=81%) of male and female primary caregivers who have parenting skills and provide developmental stimulation to infants and young children aged 0-5 years in operation areas.
• An increase of 10% (baseline=2%) in the annual budgetary allocation to ECD by in the ChildFund program areas through joint advocacy initiatives.
• A decrease of 30% (baseline=67.9%) of children and young adolescents in ChildFund program areas who report that they witnessed physical, verbal, sexual abuse by staff and peers at school level.
• An increase of 35% (baseline=55.4%) of children and young adolescents who feel valued, confident, and have a sense of belonging at school, home, and community.
• An increase of 30% (baseline=21%) of youth who graduate from basic training programs on entrepreneurial and technical skills in ChildFund program areas.
• An increase of 35% (baseline=15.8%) of youth in ChildFund program areas who engage in civic behaviours
• An increase of 20% (baseline=7.9%) of household’s economic resilience in ChildFund program areas

CSP Mid-term Review

Rationale of the Review

The review and update of the CSP is necessitated by the fact that it’s been two and half years of implementing the CSP and it is prudent to review our accomplishments and outcomes against planned targets, challenges faced, evaluate what was working and what needs to be changed, assess new developments in the country and reflect the changing context. The MTR will reflect on internal and external trends and operational challenges that have impacted or may impact the CSP in the remaining period of its life, incorporating new trends and priorities and aligning our strategic objectives to the organization-Growing Connections Strategy and theory of change. The review will be done in consideration of the dynamic nature of the socio-economic and political environment in Kenya as well as the changing needs and aspirations of children and youth; the emerging global, regional and local challenges, such as pandemics, humanitarian response, climate change, and economic shifts; and the need to align with the Global strategy-Growing Connections (phase II), the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), National Development Plans of each country, and other international development frameworks. The CSP mid-term review process and outcomes should facilitate collective learning, and generation of innovative ways that can significantly contribute to the Growing Connections target.

Purpose and objectives

The primary objective of this review is to assess progress, intermediate outcomes, challenges, key lessons learnt/practices and update the focus of CSP to adapt to the evolving needs of the vulnerable children, families, and the supported communities within the countries. The review will analyze the key changes in Kenya program priorities and make decisions on: What we will continue, and what we will stop doing. New innovations and approaches we will adopt to bring efficiency and effectiveness in program delivery and transiting to scale and impact.

Specific objectives of this MTR include:

1. Assess the extent of progress made towards achievement of the strategic plan objectives (effectiveness) and priorities set for the past two and half years based on set targets.
2. Assess intermediate outcomes that could have resulted from the last two and half year’s interventions, as such, review the key performance indicators and measure progress to achieving set targets.
3. Assess the extent to which the CSP objectives, strategies and interventions are consistent with agenda for development and the changing realities, reference National development priorities.
4. Assess the extent to which program implementation complies with organization basic program principles; basically, child participation “child-centered”, child-rights “rights-based approach” throughout the CSP implementation.
5. Assess what has worked well, what has not worked well, what needs to continue and what is no longer needed. Adopt new innovations that can support transition to scale.
6. Identify specific challenges that need to be addressed and document best practices, and lessons learnt during implementation of the strategic plans.
7. Reflect on internal and external trends and operational challenges that have impacted or may impact the CSP. Based on feedback of participants, identify priority issues that may impact the implementation of the CSP and actions to be carried forward.
8. Generate recommendations for possible adjustments on the CSP including identifying and prioritizing new programmatic areas and strategic approaches.
9. Review, Align and update CSP – Incorporating new trends, programmatic areas, strategic approaches, and priorities; and aligning the COs’ strategic objectives to the ChildFund Global Growing Connections Strategy and Theory of Change for ChildFund’s core program.

Methodology and approach

The mid-term review (MTR) will utilize a participatory approach.

• Review secondary data such as recent project evaluation reports, ChildFund Global M&E survey report, National statistics (for some proxy indicators), Statistics obtained from implementing LPs and functional departments (i.e., grant, finance, SR etc.) of the country office based on CSP’s Strategic Objectives, Local Partners’ annual progress report (success stories/narrative report), CO’s annual report and other relevant documents such as the ChildFund Kenya localization journey and the CSP alignment summary report and recommendations .
• Conduct community engagement meetings with children and youth in select partner areas
• Conduct participatory meetings with community leaders in selected partner areas
• Conduct 3-day workshop with selected partners and country office staff to reflect and make a synthesis on: –
• The progress made in line with the CSP midlife targets.
• Achievements, challenges and missed opportunities.
• Program quality achieved.
• Adaptability and resilience of the organization.
• Policy research and advocacy work (engagement and contributions to national and international level policy advocacy work).
• Geographical footprints and partners capacity.
• Innovative program priorities for the countries in the remaining years CSP.
• Fundraising and sustainability.
• Finance, contract, and grant management.
• Risk and assurance compliance.
• Human Resources and Organizational Development.
• Organizational Identity and Profile (including external communications, publications, and documentation; how others perceive us and what strategic links we have built with key institutions/partners; what has been the CO’s contributions national wide and what has been the influence?).

Key considerations

• This process should consider the principles of inclusion, transparency, and participation, putting people in the spotlight (with greater emphasis on children, young people, and women). Address gender disparities and promote equity throughout the updated CSP implementation process in the countries.
• Strengthen child protection mechanisms within the plan and advance the advocacy initiative. More LP staff and girls’ platform trained on child advocacy as well as empowered to advocate for the rights of girl child and human rights in general.
• Strengthen ability and skills in the use of the comprehensive approach to monitoring evaluation and learning (CAMEL), a MEL information management system and application of the results framework to track progress and impact that the programmatic activities have on the people in the intervention areas. The progress will be closely monitored to ensure effective utilization of resources with high quality delivery of services.
• Identify sustainable resource mobilization strategies to support the CSP through grant writing and strengthening partnership with existing partner institutions as well as establish new partnership with liked-minded institutions in the countries.
• Assess and value the effects of climate change on program implementation and life of the people, looking at the possible mitigation strategy at country level. It also reviews vulnerabilities and identifies the capacities of target communities to adapt to climate change in the support of the CSP in remaining years.
• Examine uncertainties associated with political and social instability, economic challenges, safety and security, and disaster risk that may have adverse effects on the wellbeing of the vulnerable while implementing the CSP and seek into possible mitigation so that the countries program will be as effective as possible.
• The MTR will also seek to gather information on the progress and opportunities for digitalization across our programs to avoid the duplication of efforts in programming.

Timeline

The review is expected to take 30 days in three phases: namely Phase 1: Inception and planning phase, Phase 2: Implementation and management of CSP review and Phase 3: reporting and close out phase.

Inception and planning phase – 10 days

• Form CSP midterm review team at CO level.
• And agree on processes, approaches, and next steps with relevant stakeholders (For instance Local Partners).
• Desk review of reference documents.
• Inception and design plan submission and approval by the SMT.

Implementation and Management Phase -15 days

• Consultation and data collection (Children, partners, CO staff, community and relevant stakeholders and other relevant reference groups).
• Two to three days reflection and synthesis workshop: validation of review findings, write up and submission.
• Sign off by SMT and CD.

CSP review Close Out Phase – 5 days

• Final meeting on findings and next steps (includes development of dissemination plans).
• Revision of the CSP and operational plans, as relevant and necessary.

Deliverables

The main products of the review process are:

1. The mid-term performance review and evaluation report of the CSP and the revised output be annexed to the main CSP document. (See annex 2)
2. The synthesis draft report of the 2-3 days review workshop should contain a maximum of 20 pages excluding annexes (Progress and performance update, priority areas, proposed action steps etc.) in line with topics covered in the review period.
3. The Revised Country Strategic Plan (See annex 1)
4. PowerPoint slides for dissemination on the findings of the mid term review and highlights of the revised CSP for stakeholders.

Ownership

All documents, project designs, and other information shall remain the property of ChildFund and shall be always treated as confidential by the consultant(s). They shall not be made available to any third party whatsoever, in any form, without the prior written approval of a properly authorized employee of ChildFund. The utilization of all proposals plans and reports and other information provided by the facilitators remains the property of ChildFund and the use thereof is solely at its discretion. All documents and other papers, whether in soft or hard copy and whether containing data or other information, provided by ChildFund shall be returned complete to ChildFund upon completion of the assignment.

Child Safeguarding Policy

All facilitators(s) shall read, and sign ChildFund Child Safeguarding Policy as fully understood and in agreement to in all respects and shall follow this in all and every respect during the term of the facilitation.

Qualifications of the consultants

• At least a Master’s degree in a relevant fields of Strategic Planning and Management, Organizational Development, Public policy or Development studies.
• At least ten years of professional experience in organizational change management, strategic planning and management for international development organizations preferably with child focused organizations. Proof would be required.
• Demonstrated experience in working with diverse stakeholders in the public and private sector, civil societies and international NGOs.
• Experience working with child focused civil society organizations international or national.
• Knowledge of the development context in Kenya in relevant child rights sectors.
• Experience using the balanced scorecard approach/tools.
• Strong facilitation and engagement skills for government and non-government stakeholder workshops.
• Superior written and oral communications skills in English and Kiswahili and report writing.
• Must be result-oriented, a team player, exhibiting high levels of enthusiasm, tact, diplomacy and integrity.
• Ability to work within strict deadlines/timelines with minimum supervision

Management and Coordination

The Consultant will report directly to the Country Director and work very closely with the Programs and Sponsorships Director and CSP MTR working group members. ChildFund Kenya will provide relevant background documents necessary for the assignment and shall be responsible for the coordination of meetings, mobilization of informants and other activities under the consultancy.

Payment details

Payment upon submission and acceptance of the Inception Report and stakeholder workshop conducted – 30%

Payment upon submission and acceptance of Draft Revised CSP and Midterm review report by ChildFund Kenya and stakeholder workshop conducted – 30%

Payment upon submission and acceptance of Final Revised CSP and Midterm Review report by ChildFund Kenya – 40%

The Consultant’s compensation shall be paid NET, within 30 days from receipt of a proper invoice unless otherwise specified. Payment will be made by cheque unless otherwise specified. The payment shall be subjected to 5% withholding tax and 16% VAT as required by the Law at the time of payment.

Annex 1: Revised Country Strategic Plan Template

Title

i. Table of Contents

ii. Executive Summary

1. Background and Contextual Overview – 1.5. pages

1.1 Background

The section focuses on the rational for the review, objectives and the process or methodology of the review.

1.2 Context Analysis (half page)

This section will look at the situation of children with a focus on what has changed. It will also briefly explain the achievement of the CSP and any emerging challenges.

Situation of Children – What Changed. A review of the contextual issues of the CSP and analysis of how they continue to affect the wellbeing of children will be analyzed for each life stage. The context analysis should also include current information related to the socio-economic and political situation in the country and government development plans/polices that may have an influence in the revised CSP execution, the safety and security situation in the country and how this affects children and ChildFund’s operations, as well as specific disaster risks in current and/or proposed operating areas. Emerging changes in issues affecting children and families, operation of ChildFund and any other policy issues will also be analyzed within the context on how they will influence the program priorities of the next CSP phase. Recent secondary data should be provided where necessary.

Achievement and Challenges: Focus should be on a reflection of what the CO achieved, and the progress made in realizing CSP objectives and key deliverables. Emerging challenges that may have hindered the execution of the CSP will be analyzed, with experiences on how some of the challenges were addressed/mitigated shared.

Moving Forward – Transition to Scale

Reviewed CSP’s Alignment to Transition to Scale

Provide an analysis on how the CO will contribute to the Growing Connection’s transition to scale over the next 2 and half years. The section will also focus on where the CO will direct its efforts in the country, given the changes outlined in section 3 and the CO’s programming aspiration and niche, revised geographic priorities.

Strategic Changes

COs should discuss key changes in their program priorities and why? What they will continue, and what they will stop doing. New innovations and approaches they will adopt to bring efficiency and effectiveness in program delivery and transiting to scale and impact.

Africa flagship program (ECD and Climate action): CO strengthen these two flagship programs as Africa niche and to reach more children and communities.

Appendices

Appendix 3.1: Program Priorities – Based on the conclusion of situational analysis, have you identified issues that have implication on the CO outcomes and outputs? If yes, please adjust to reflect the change on your current, outcomes, and outputs.

(a) Assess progress towards achievement of outcomes, outputs, and participant reach.

(b) Assess if outputs are sufficient to reach desired outcomes

(c) Identify barriers to achievement of outcomes

Geographical footprint and priorities: Where ChildFund will focus its programming, and the rationale for these geographic choices during 2024-2026: (trends for deprivation and exclusion, alignment with national and/or donor priorities, neglected areas, etc.). (1 paragraph, focus on changes)

Appendix 3.2: CO Objectives and Key Areas of Activity for the three remaining years (2024-2026) out of Five-Year Country Strategy Period (2022-2026)

Complete the table below with the results that contribute to achieve the CO strategic objectives for the remaining two and half years. Your responses in this table should show a summary of how each objective will be attained and should be used to help determine AOP and budget priorities. CO SMTs and RDs can also use this table and Section 6 (Operating Model and Human Resource Implications) to assess the extent to which the CO is on target in terms of its strategy.

Appendix 3.4: Funding Strategy and Targets- The first table should summarize the country strategy and what the CO knows about potential funding from its donor scan. It can be updated at regular intervals. Add lines as needed. The second table should indicate actual dollar value of needs to support the strategy.

Appendix 3.5: Operating Model and Human Resource Implications review- Operating Model (Organization Structure) Implications. What new positions will be needed to enable the CO objectives, will new reporting arrangements be required, will field offices need to be opened, closed, restructured? (1/2 page maximum – can append a revised organizational chart if required/applicable). Human Resource Implications Please recommend action to guide program staff through the last half of the CSP (IDEA, Safeguarding/PSEA, etc…)

Appendix 3.6: Update Risk Assessment- Please update the risk matrix based on the new environmental context since 2022 to 2023.

Annex 2: Mid Term Review Report Template

Summary of mid-term review

Top 5 major findings (bullet points)

2.CSP mid-term review next steps: stop, start, scale, accelerate

2.1 Stop

• Identify activities, projects, or strategies that are not yielding the expected outcomes or aligning with current priorities.
• Propose discontinuing initiatives that may no longer be relevant, cost-effective, or in line with the organizational goals. Describe plan to end initiatives.

2.2 Start

• Suggest new activities, projects, or strategies that are aligned with emerging needs, opportunities, or organizational objectives.
• Propose the initiation of innovative approaches or interventions that can contribute to the achievement of the CSP goals/Growing Connections’ bold goal.
• Use inputs from the roadmap to 100M templates (from October 2023) and its ecological model of expanding reach/impact through 1) current programs, 2) new geographies in countries, 3) new countries, and 4) regional/global influence.

2.3. Scale

• Highlight successful initiatives or projects that have demonstrated positive impact and propose strategies for scaling them up. Use the Innovation Pipeline Stage Gate to show how such initiatives have undergone a thorough process of discovery, definition, development and delivery.
• Recommend expanding activities that have proven effective, considering the potential for increased reach, impact, or sustainability.
• In scaling, it is important to identify target reach by year while for the innovation pipeline/new approaches- please indicate projected reach by year. There is no standard in calculating projected reach yet so it will be up to respective COs to indicate assumptions. These numbers are critical in supporting our Roadmap to 100M, particularly strategic objectives 1.1 and 1.2 respectively.
• Identify which interventions will be adopted by local or national government and include projected reach.

2.4. Accelerate

• Explore opportunities for acceleration within existing successful initiatives and projects.
• Identify areas where increased efforts or resources can expedite progress toward CSP goals and Growing Connections’ bold goal.
• Assess the feasibility of accelerating specific activities, projects, or strategies based on their potential impact and alignment with organizational priorities.
• Consider innovative approaches or interventions that can be fast-tracked to enhance overall effectiveness.

2.5. Safety and Security

• Integrate safety and security considerations into the decision-making process for new initiatives and new geographical areas, ensuring a proactive approach to risk management. Identify risks and mitigation measures.

2.6. Alignment with technical strategies

Based on the CSP mid-year analysis, identification of gaps and initiatives for scaling, which technical and though leadership strategies will be helpful to CO. Which are the top 3 priorities? How will you align with strategies? How will your experience further enhance the strategies?

Technical and Thought Leadership Strategies:

1. Child Protection and Gender and Social Inclusion
2. Health and Nutrition
3. Climate Action
4. Early Childhood Development
5. Education
6. Youth
7. Mental Health
8. Online Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children

How to Apply

Interested candidates should submit a concise technical and financial proposal. Evaluation of the proposals will be made by ChildFund Kenya who may engage in an interactive process with the would-be consultant to further specify the scope and methodology to be used as well as budget, deliverables and deadlines.

Technical proposal (not more that 25 pages)

• A one pager on how you meet the requirements of the TOR.
• A description of how to undertake the assignment and workplan
• KRA tax compliance, company registration details, CVs of team members
• Provide at least 3 references of similar INGO assignments s/he have successfully undertaken in the last 3 years

Budgeting/cost proposal

• Should be in Kshs in Excel spreadsheet format
• Include professional and administrative costs and all statutory taxes by the government of Kenya

The proposals should be submitted to kenyaprocurement@childfund.org by 12.00 pm on 20th March 2024 with the email subject “Consultancy – Midterm Review – Kenya Country Strategic Plan 2022-2026”.