Terms of Reference of the Development of an Advocacy, Communication, and Rightsholders Engagement Strategy for the Domestic Resource Mobilization Programme- Diakonia

1. Background and Context

Diakonia is a Swedish faith-based development organization that works to change unfair structures that generate poverty, inequality, oppression, and violence. Diakonia supports civil society organizations in about 25 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America and has its Head Office in Stockholm, Sweden. Diakonia works through capacity building of civil society actors in partnership with local and regional organizations and seeks to employ a rights-based approach to development in all programmes, including a special focus on gender equality.

The Africa Economic Justice Programme (AEJ) is a regional programme that has been supporting regional civil society organizations working in Sub-Saharan Africa since 2007. Over this period, AEJ has strategically created a platform where new practices and innovative ideas on social and economic justice and economic empowerment of women are tested and developed. AEJ works with regional civil society organizations because they complement the work of the national and local actors by providing linkage to the regional and global authorities including intergovernmental and non-state international actors. The programme is managed from the Diakonia Africa Regional Office since 2007. For more information please visit: https://www.diakonia.se/en/Where-we-work/Africa/Regionalprogramme-Africa-Economic-Justice-AEJ/

2. Domestic Resource Mobilization Programme (DRM Programme)

With support from the Embassy of Sweden in Addis Ababa, Diakonia is implementing a subprogram of the AEJ programme on Promoting Domestic Resource Mobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa which runs from July 2018-December 2022. This programme sits under the AEJ programme and recognizes that Sub-Saharan African countries need to increase their domestic resource mobilization to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union Agenda 2063. If successful, they will be able to put aid and loan dependency behind them, and allow every woman, man, boy and girl to live a life in dignity.

Inadequate domestic resource mobilization maintains African governments’ dependency on external resources, such as foreign aid and loans. The lack of domestic resources also leads to underbalanced national budgets where public services in health, education and social welfare receive fewer resources than needed to cater for the needs of the right holders, where women and children are extra vulnerable.

Despite the fact that most African countries stepped up their policy initiatives aimed at strengthening the mobilization and effective use of domestic resources, many loopholes still exist. The programme aims to address some of the causes for the inability to expand and realize domestic resource mobilization and is designed on the premise that Africa is facing challenges that can well be solved by cooperation between countries through regional integration.

The programme recognizes policy formulation, review, and implementation as a crucial strategy for development and aims to take advantage of existing regional policy frameworks to push for maximization of domestic resource mobilization. To achieve this, priority is to support and build the capacity of regional civil society organizations who lobby and engage key change agents at regional and national level to advocate for policies that support increased domestic resources.

The programme prioritizes five intervention areas linked to existing EAC, ECOWAS and SADC frameworks and policies. The intervention areas are:

1. Harmful tax competition between member states
2. Tax evasion and tax avoidance by individuals and companies (domestic and multinational)
3. Public debt management
4. Corporate transparency and accountability in the extractive sector
5. Institutional and programmatic capacity of regional CSO partners

In 2021, the AEJ conducted an evaluation of the DRM programme with the aim of assessing the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, and efficiency of the programme’s interventions. The evaluation covered the period of July 2018 to June 2021. It particularly focused on the adequacy of the programme’s theory of change, partners’ advocacy work around relevant Regional Economic Communities (RECs) frameworks and policies with additional focus on how the regional frameworks have been cascaded to the national level, and the roles each of the partners played in realizing results. Furthermore, the evaluation assessed the models of implementation and coordination within the programme.

Generally, the evaluation found that the unique programme design of working through RECs and regional CSOs and combining multiple DRM issues, is highly relevant to DRM’s complex context, the programme’s regional ambition, and the cross-border and multisectoral nature of the issues in focus. The modalities of working were found to be appropriate to the complex context and the multiple actors involved at different levels. And while the pace of policy
reforms may be relatively slow, a number of results and successes have been registered by the programme across the various themes.

Specifically, the evaluation uncovered the following concerning the programme design and implementation strategies:

Theory of change: Though the programme is relevant in targeting decision and policy makers at the RECs and national levels, because of the distance between RECs and rights holders, and the complexity of regional policy engagements, the DRM programme is grappling with finding the most effective way of involving rights’ holders in their activities to varying degrees of success. The evaluation recommended that there should be a systematic
programme-wide strategy of engaging rights holders while considering what is feasible in engaging with citizens to push duty bearers to action around various DRM issues prioritized by the programme.

Programme strategies for attaining results: the evaluation found that the programme does not have a standard advocacy and engagement strategy. It instead has a pragmatic approach to engaging DRM stakeholders where success depends on personalized individualized and institutionalized relationships with the targeted stakeholders, especially RECs institutions.

The evaluation recommended that the programme should design a joint advocacy strategy to support partners’ engagement initiatives, consolidate the programme’s presence, to ensure replication of its methods and approaches, and to sustain impact in case of personnel or institutional changes. This should also cover a communication approach and strategy to facilitate coherent messaging, enhance DRM programme visibility, and support partners in
their strategic dialogues with RECs and national-level institutions.

3. Scope

Diakonia and partners have since agreed to have one comprehensive strategy developed that sufficiently covers the three key pillars i.e., advocacy, communication, and rightsholders engagement based on the recommendations from the DRM programme evaluation as highlighted above. Commitments have been made to have this developed by Quarter three of 2022, with the implementation of the strategy being reviewed during subsequent programmes from 2023 onwards.

4. Methodology

Diakonia will hire an external facilitator/ consultant to undertake this exercise. The facilitator will develop a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches that should include the following:

• A literature review of Diakonia and the partner organizations documentation e.g., Diakonia guidelines on advocacy, Diakonia and partner workplans, programme proposals, Baseline study for the programme, joint results framework, progress reports, DRM programme evaluation report, DRM programme evaluation management response, current AEJ and partner organizations strategies etc.
• Preparatory meetings and consultations with the Diakonia team and the reference team.
• Undertake interviews/Focus Group Discussions with:

o The Diakonia AEJ team.
o The Embassy of Sweden in Addis Ababa (back donor).
o Key staff of the respective partner organizations.
o Diakonia Head Office colleagues (Policy and Advocacy Department).
o Relevant Diakonia Africa Regional Office and Country Office staff.
o Selected rights holders (e.g., constituency members of the partner organizations).
o Duty bearers being engaged by partners.
o Other likeminded organizations, including funding institutions supporting partners.

These consultations will mostly likely be conducted in a virtual and/ or hybrid format.

5. Roles and Responsibilities

The consultant will be responsible for:

• Conducting the assignment and producing a comprehensive strategy to guide advocacy, communication, and rightsholders engagement efforts using various formats as appropriate within the programme.
• Developing tools required for data collection and for the coordination of data collection, compilation, and analysis exercises.
• Specify appropriate communication channels, dissemination channels to effectively communicate key messages to different rights holders.
• Ensuring the approach and methods adopted foster reflection, discussion, and learning.
• Facilitate a validation session to present the strategy, receive any comments, and incorporate the same in the final strategy.

Diakonia will be responsible for:

• Supporting the consultant where necessary to mobilize and coordinate the logistics for all aspects of the assignment. Where applicable, Diakonia will provide logistical requirements for any workshops/meetings required.
• Supervising the assignment. The facilitator will report to the Africa Economic Justice Programme Manager based in Nairobi or their designate.
• A reference team from Diakonia Regional Office and representatives of partner organizations will provide overall quality assurance of the strategy. This will comprise of the Executive Directors for strategic guidance, Programme Officers who lead the implementation of advocacy activities, and the Communications teams who provide technical support for communication.

6. Outputs and deliverables

The following outputs and deliverables are expected:

• An inception report detailing the process of the development of the strategy. Some key areas to be covered include introduction and background, methodology and approach, detailed work plan, and tools.
• An outline of the advocacy, communication, and rightsholders engagement strategy.
• A first draft of the advocacy, communication, and rightsholders engagement strategy.
• A final version of the strategy (20,000 words maximum).
• Other documents related to the assignment –raw and refined statistical data, interview notes, meeting minutes, etc.

7. Envisaged timeframes

The exercise is envisaged to take place from August- October 2022.

8. Qualifications

The Facilitator should have the following qualifications:
• Post graduate degree in Economics, Development Studies, Social Sciences or equivalent (with emphasis on research and analysis).
• Proven experience of at least 7 years in the development field working with Civil Society in Africa. Specific experience in Sub-Saharan Africa will be an added advantage. Consultants can pool expertise under one proposal to undertake this assignment but clearly demonstrate how the tasks will be distributed and executed.
• Proven progressive and advanced experience of at least 7 years in developing advocacy and communications strategy for similar regional programmes ideally in the development context.
• Proven knowledge about the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) of EAC, SADC, and ECOWAS.
• Possess excellent coordination abilities.
• Be an excellent team player.
• Proven understanding and experience of human rights-based programming, progressive theories of change, participatory approaches, feminist principles, gender mainstreaming, as well as environment and conflict sensitive approaches to development.
• Have excellent proven written and spoken English, and strong oral and written communication skills.
• A good understanding of thematic areas related to social and economic justice. This includes but is not limited to:

o Tax justice and illicit financial flows
o Public debt management
o Natural resource governance
o Inequality trends

9. Application Process

Applications shall be sent in soft copy on or before 5th August 2022 via the following email africa@diakonia.se

All applications should include the following:

Cover letter 200 words maximum.

A technical proposal (maximum 10,000 words): the technical proposal should include:
• A brief presentation of the consultant/firm’s qualification with emphasis on previous experience with similar assignments
• Profile of team member to be involved in the assignment
• Understanding of the Terms of Reference and the task to be accomplished
• Draft assignment framework and description of the proposed methodology to be used, with a clear work plan based on the timeframe provided.

A financial proposal (maximum 5000 words)
The financial proposal shall include:
• Details of all envisaged costs of the assignment not exceeding USD30,000.