ANCEFA Call for Proposals

01 February 2010

Introduction

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) is a leading regional non-profit human rights advocacy foundation, established in 1997. OSISA's headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa is supported by satellite offices in Luanda, Angola and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. In-country Programme Managers are based in both Swaziland and Zimbabwe .

OSISA's vision is that of a "vibrant inclusive society in which citizens, free from material and other deprivation, understand their rights and responsibilities, and are empowered to participate democratically in all spheres of life."

The Africa Network Campaign on Education for All, ANCEFA is a network of national education coalitions in 32 African countries whose mission is to promote, enable and build capacity of Africa civil society to advocate and campaign for access to free and quality education for all.

ANCEFA's vision is that of a united, strong, and effective African civil society committed to the promotion of free and quality universal education.

OSISA and ANCEFA jointly seek a consultant to carry out an evaluation of their collaborative project on ‘Capacity Building of National Education Coalitions in Southern Africa'.

Background

OSISA and ANCEFA seek to engage and empower civil society to advocate for and participate in providing better access and quality of education. In this regard, both OSISA and ANCEFA work to empower southern African civil society organisations to participate in, advocate for and monitor EFA processes at national and regional levels, while contributing to the development of analytical tools and methodologies that enhance the ability of this region to play a significant role in educational policy debates at the continental and global levels. Through civil society capacity development OSISA and ANCEFA seek to strengthen ordinary citizens' participation in and influence over their governments and other education institutions, so that there is effective, democratic governance in place with responsibility and accountability at all levels of the education system.

The OSISA education programme has been working collaboratively with the Africa Network Campaign on Education for All, ANCEFA Southern Africa Office to build and strengthen the capacity of education coalitions in the region. The partnership with ANCEFA dates back to 2000 during the initial evolvement of national education coalitions and the ANCEFA secretariat. It is however in the past three years that the relationship has been strengthened through financial support to both national coalitions and ANCEFA secretariat. In 2005, OSISA and ANCEFA collaboratively developed a capacity building plan that among other things supported the establishment of the Southern Africa support office with the recruitment of a coordinator.

In 2007, OSISA gave a grant of $195,000 to ANCEFA secretariat to support capacity building of ANCEFA Secretariat and National Coalitions in Southern Africa and the recruitment of a programme officer for the region responsible for capacity building of national coalitions. The main goal of this project was to build the capacity of ANCEFA-Southern Africa to enable it to engage in a serious process of coalition building in Southern Africa. On the same note over $500.000 was directly injected into nation al education coalitions to support advocacy for the promotion of Education. This evaluation seeks to evaluate the success of this partnership, projects implemented and the corresponding value of this strategic intervention i.e. support of national coalitions through the ANCEFA secretariat. This information will be vital for both the OSISA and ANCEFA Programme in improving the partnership and in deciding future interventions.

Output Description

It is envisaged that the evaluation will be an independent assessment, free of prejudice of the projects implemented by ANCEFA with funding support from OSISA in Southern Africa. It is expected that the evaluation will also assess the relationship of the partnership of OSISA and ANCEFA in course of implementing the projects.

At the end of the exercise the consultant is expected to compile a high quality narrative Evaluation Report that details the strengths and weaknesses, achievements and threats of the OSISA and ANCEFA partnership and the project for Southern Africa paying attention to its strategic vision and programme, financial and environmental conditions and offer sound, implementable recommendations/solutions.

The report will also include a detailed account of the evaluation methodology and process in the form of an overall project and partnership evaluation report. At the end of the exercise the consultant will be expected to make a presentat ion of the findings to both the OSISA Education Programme staff and ANCEFA before finalization of the final report.

Full terms of reference will be provided to the qualifying candidate in order for them to develop a comprehensive plan of how they intend to carry out the assignment.

Eligibility

The successful applicant must have:

Demonstrated track record in undertaking research assignments
Have research/publications record in this field
Be suitable qualified with at least a masters degree in a relevant field
Be familiar with civil society organizations work in the region
Be familiar with regional and international education policy frameworks guiding civil society work
Be prepared to travel to at least two countries in the region during the course of the assignment.

OSISA and ANCEFA will collaboratively make a decision on the consultant to be awarded the assignment based on the above mentioned criteria. OSISA and ANCEFA decision on this will be final and no negotiations will be entered into.

Applicants should email CVs and proposals of no more than 5 pages on how they intend to undertake the assignment to yvonnem@osisa.org no later than 3rd February 2010. For more information kindly contact Ms Yvonne Mathebula on +27 (0) 11 587 5000.

Download PDF