Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK)

TERMS OF REFERENCE (TOR)

Consultancy on Results-Based Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) services for Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) and its partners

  1. Introduction:

Project Name / Strengthening Democracy by Promoting Human Rights Culture in Bangladesh
Project Location / Bangladesh – Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chittagong, Barisal, Tangail, Satkhira, Hobigonj, Kustia, Jhenaidha, Gaibanda, Kishorgonj, Naogaon districts
Project duration / 05 Years, started from 1stJanuary, 2017 to December, 2021 (for System Development)
Donors / Consortium Partners: Embassy of Switzerland, Embassy of Denmark, Embassy of Sweden
Implementing agency and partners / The project is managed by Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK)
Duration of Assignment / 03 months, starting from 15 December, 2017 for system development but contract period up to March, 2022.
  1. The contracting Organization: Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK)

Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), a national legal aid and human rights organization, was established in 1986. Over the last thirty years ASK has evolved a comprehensive approach to the promotion and protection of legal and human rights. Its strategies promote human rights awareness and community activism; offer legal aid through mediation and litigation, while clients are given psycho-social counseling; investigations into human rights violations and their documentation are supplemented by research which together lead to media campaigns to defend human rights, and public interest litigation for law and policy reform. Being committed to attaining gender equality at every sphere of life, ASK’s activities have special focus on women but providing legal aid to victims/survivors of arbitrary arrest, preventive detention and taking stand against unlawful evictions, extra judicial killings, torture and death in custody, condition of the prisoners and interests of the religious and ethnic minorities very much are its concerns. ASK’s advocacy is carried out both at the national level and international level. ASK’s publication are an important means of disseminating information and knowledge.

ASK implements activities through direct implementation and partnership with the like-minded local NGOs, CBOs and Local Cultural Organizations. ASK is the lead partner of this programme along with key 11 local NGOs, 20 High Schools, 5 human rights theatre groups and 10 Human Rights Defenders Forum (HRDF). ASK projects are financed by consortium and individual donor partners.

From January 2017, ASK is implementing a five years programme titled “Strengthening Democracy by Promoting Human Rights Culture in Bangladesh “supported by a consortium of donors- the Danish Embassy, Embassy of Switzerland and the Swedish Embassy, Dhaka. With the three main goals/impacts, ASK has embarked this programme for contributing to improve the human rights situation, improve conflict resolution situation in the formal and informal system for the poor and State institutions are proactive for ensuring human rights and gender equality. ASK will facilitate access to justice, litigation, public interest suits, investigations, legal advocacy, training, community activism, publication, documentation, and international lobbying, and ultimately improve the capabilities of relevant institutions and capacity of citizens to promote the HR culture in Bangladesh.

In order to ensure the timely achievement of the project’s results, one consultancy firm will be contracted to carry out the Result Based Monitoring (RBM) work including the tasks specified below and will report to ASK. During 2014-2015, with the technical assistance of Switzerland Embassy, ASK developed a RBM system for the one component and prepared an implementation guide of RBM. However, the whole programme was not included in the system, ASK did not implement it and produce the reports. ASK has the developed RBM system in MSXL and the guideline. The consulting firm can start from that.

  1. Objective of the Work

It is expected that the Consultancy firm will develop a results-based M&E system for ASK and its partners as well as software to enter, process data and automatically develop a bi-annual and annual reports.

  1. Scope of the work
  1. To conduct extensive consultations with ASK and its partners to review and assess the need and to understand their M&E knowledge and experience;
  2. Identify and agree with ASK the key components of a Result Based Management system;
  3. To understand the developed RBM system and the guideline;
  4. To design the monitoring and reporting system and tools over the project period for four years;
  5. To develop a full M&E policy and manual on the RBM system to be applied;
  6. To develop an IT-supported system to enter, process data and automatically generate bi-annual and annual reports for providing guidance to ASK on steps to be undertaken if the achievements of the project deviate from the plan;
  7. To update and review the existing MIS system of ASK;
  8. To support, monitor and coach the staff of Monitoring, Knowledge and Learning (MKL) unit of ASK on RBM and its implementation;
  9. To conduct training on M&E and RBM concepts and tasks (objectives, responsibilities, process, outputs) to build the capacities of ASK and partners staff;
  10. To conduct Baseline surveys as per the logical framework needs using both qualitative and quantitative research methods;
  11. Over the whole project period, to conduct one-to-one orientation/consultation sessions, on a need basis, with implementing partners of ASK on how the RBM model works and on how to enter M&E data into the customized software;
  12. To carry out bi-annual follow-upon/report of the project’s progress against outputs and outcomes following the logical framework approach for four years;
  13. To coordinate with the head of MKL, ASK on the project’s progress.
  1. Expected Deliverables/Outputs from the Consultancy firm/expert team

a)Documents review

The consultancy firm is required to go through the necessary background materials, mainly the program documents (proposal, logical framework and budget).

b)Agreement on deliverables

The Consultancy firm is required to meet ASK management and to learn about their specific expectations in terms of deliverables and agree on the core outputs the proposed RBM model should deliver as well as on communication system between ASK and the consultancy firm. Conduct interviews with staff, senior management, board members, DPs and other key stakeholders.

c)Modeling a research and RBM framework

The Consultancy firm/ team will develop a research design and a monitoring framework. The team will use dummy data to test them to generate the type of information expected from RBM system. A manual detailing how the model works will be produced.

d) M&E Policy

To develop the M&E policy for ASK.

d)Presentation

The Consultancy firm will organize and conduct a presentation to ASK and all its partnerson the RBM developed model and invite comments for further improvements. If needed, another presentation may be offered upon changes. Appropriate time shall be allocated to this presentation.

e)Capacity building (support, monitor and coach) of MKL staff

Provide on job capacity building support to the staff of MKL unit for self-sufficient management of the RBM system.

f)RBM Training

The Consultancy firm will conduct and facilitate atraining on M&E and RBM concepts and tasks (objectives, responsibilities, process, and outputs) during which it will explain the content of an M&E manual. Appropriate time shall be allocated to this workshop.

g)Implementation of the M&E model

The consultancy firm will implement the M&E model during the project period.

h)Generating reports

The consultancy team will develop a mechanism to guide the staff members of ASK and its partners on interlinking the templates of research design, monitoring framework and report structure, so that IT-supported reporting is possible. ASK will approve a schedule to ensure all the reports requested by the donor are delivered on time by the consultancy firm (e.g. mid-year reviews, etc.).The consultancy firm will generate reports based on the monitoring findings on half-yearly basis and seeks consensus by the respective partners.

i)Follow-up

The consultancy firm will provide counseling and facilitation support after the first six months of the consultancy on a regular and need basis to implement the developed RBM system by ASK and itspartners. It will provide the necessary suggestions and revise the model if and when needed.

Over the whole process, the consultancy firm/expert team will regularly update ASK on the implementing status of its activities and on any challenge and obstacle which might arise.

  1. Required Team Composition source and Operational Modalities

Given the scope of the work, the work needs to be accomplished with a team of experienced professionals ranging their expertise from research methodology, M&E, RBM to database management to critical analysis. The Team Leader will be responsible for the overall quality of the work and for the team management. The consultant shall have (i) a proven experience in designing, evaluating and giving technical support on human-rights activism/social movements support programmes (ii) experience in designing and implementing participatory impact monitoring systems and organizational learning strategies (iii) A pertinent academic background in relevant field; (iv) proven capacity to facilitate active learning processes within organizations. Other team members should include in the following field of practices: NGO management; database; gender expert, monitoring, evaluation and RBM &MIS system development. Proposed team members should have experience of similar work with other reputed organizations.

The level of effort for each consultant has to be proposed based on objectives, methodologies and deliverables. The Team Leader will ensure that other team member’s works are integrated and coherent with the overall purpose of the mandate.

  1. Child Protection Policy

The firm/organization/individual shall comply with the Child Protection Policy of ASK. Any violation/deviation is in complying with ASK's child protection policy will result in termination of the agreement.

  1. Disclaimers

ASK reserves the right to accept or regret any or all proposal without any reason what so ever.

  1. Time-frame and deadlines

The consultancy timeframe will start upon signature of this contract until three months after the end of the project (March 2022), considering the submission of the final reports.

  1. Required Inputs
  1. Consulting firm will be responsible for managing required resources.
  2. ASK will provide financial support for the agreed work on the basis of the financial requirements as determined in the below specified Terms of Payment.
  3. ASK will provide all the necessary informative materials and will provide the consulting firm with feedbacks on the deliverables, according to project objectives and ASK’s vision, mission and policy.
  1. The EOI should include:
  • Contact details
  • Up to date and detailed CV of the consultant(s) with brief descriptions of similar assignments (Maximum 2 pages highlighting relevant experience);
  • A clear overview of how this piece of work will be approached, the methodology proposed and the outputs generated, with a clear timeline for each of the specified activity;
  • A proposed budget for the assignment (Consultant fee for RBM framework and tools development, module and material development, facilitation of training and capacity building of ASK staff on RBM)
  • Two references

The EOI, excluding the consultant CVs, should not be more than - 8 pages long, should have 1.15 spacing, and use Times New Roman typeface with a minimum font size of 12.

  1. Selection Criteria

On receipt of the EOI a designated project management unit will evaluate the proposals including both technical and financial proposal to select the consultant/s/ agency for the assignment. Selection of the consultant/s/ agency will be based on:

Selection criteria / Scores
Proposed plan – well thought out, logical, strong methodology and approach, well-timed, level of details, would meet objectives / 20
Previous experience on framework & tools development, manual preparation, training conduction and MIS / 20
Experience on RBM system development, manual and guideline prepare and MIS review and update / 20
Scoring on CVs of the Resource Persons/Trainers / 20
Costs – value for the assignment / 20
TOTAL / 100
  1. Terms of Payment

Mode of Payment

  • Total fees for the assignment will be paid in three installments. The first installment (30% of the total fee) will be paid on signing the contract, the second installment (30% of the total fee) will be paid after submission of final module and training schedule, and the remaining amount (40%) will be paid upon acceptance of the final report after the completion of 7 (seven) batches training.
  • The payment would be made by means of account payee cheque in the name of the organization/individual.
  • Any VAT/TAX incurred from this assignment must be deducted at source as per government rule and policy.
  1. Taxes & Duties
  • VAT and Tax will be deducted at sources as per Government rules.
  1. General Terms and Conditions
  • ASK reserve the right to accept or reject any proposal without giving any verbal and/or written rationale;
  • All reports and documents prepared during the assignment will be treated as ASK property;
  • The reports/documents or any part, therefore, cannot be sold, used and reproduced in any manner without prior written approval of ASK;
  • ASK or its representatives reserve the right to monitor the quality and progress of the work during the assignment.
  • Terrorism and money laundering issues: If there any proof of engagement in any terrorism and money laundering issues, ASK reject the proposal without assigning any reason
  1. Application Procedure

ASK invites proposal from a consulting firm/agencyexpert/organization/experts team. Include lead consultant/team members brief CV highlighting related assignment completed and role in of the completed assignments; organization’s/Firm’s Certificate, TIN and VAT registration and documents in favor of the previous relevant studies. A complete technical and financial proposal in English, including detailed cost per major activity. The technical and financial proposal should be submitted in two separate envelopes. These two envelopes are then to be put in one larger envelope, which must be sealed with a cover letter addressing the Executive Director, Ain o Salish Kendra, 7/17, Block-B, Lalmatia, Dhaka-1207, Bangladesh. The proposal to be submitted at ASK office not later than 3rd December, 2017.

Contact person: Fatema Mahmuda,Sr. Deputy Director, Telephone: 8100192, 8100195, 8100197

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