Consultancy at Act Change Transform (Act)

Background

The goal of the PSS program is to support Kenya’s vision 2030 through enhanced security, peacebuilding and conflict management. For this change to happen, a key prerequisite or precondition will be improved capacity and effectiveness of civil society, government and security oversight bodies to address three persistent conflict drivers in Kenya today. Violent extremism must be effectively countered and political and natural resource conflicts must be prevented and mitigated. Act! and its sub-partners, have supported both the national and county governments to achieve this outcome through CSO capacity strengthening, technical assistance to government agencies and research on strategic conflict issues. The expected outcome of this Development Engagement is improved capacity and effectiveness of CSOs, government and security oversight bodies to counter violent extremism and prevent political and natural resource conflicts in Kenya.

It is against this background that, Act! is seeking to engage the services of a qualified and experienced consultant to document success stories that will highlight key results, innovative interventions, successes, lessons learned and challenges as well as future strategic direction of the program.

Overall Objective

The overall objective of the assignment is to document innovative CVE and conflict mitigation approaches, success stories and lessons that provide a clear, in-depth cases and compelling narratives on the efforts by the various actors supported by Act! so far with a focus on results achieved, applicable strategies and challenges faced in the implementation of the program and identify lessons learned and best practices for potential scalability of the program.

Specifically, the success/impact stories will highlight the following;

• The impact of the program in addressing conflicts and violent extremism in the target counties.
• The changes / outcomes that have occurred in the first phase of program implementation period in Kenya.
• The capacity and effectiveness of CSOs and government security agencies in responding to conflicts and violent extremism in Kenya.
• The role of women in fostering peace and security at the grassroots level, and how conflicts have impacted their livelihoods.
• The effectiveness of traditional mechanisms to resolve conflicts (Alternative Dispute Resolutions-ADR).
• Constructive engagement of the youth in promoting safe and peaceful communities in Kenya.
• The effectiveness of early warning, early response mechanisms to identify and respond to incidents and warning signs of political conflicts, violent extremism and radicalization in select counties.
• How the program used different peace actors to coordinate and respond to conflict situations in target counties.
• The role of community peace structures including council of elders, peace committees, nyumba kumi committees, religious leaders in fostering peace and security in Kenya.
• The use of evidence based research to inform initiatives, policies and strategies in mitigating conflicts and violent extremism.
• The impact of the program in promoting peaceful elections.
• Any outstanding or innovative CVE and or conflict mitigation strategy/initiative/intervention that merits replication and scalability.

Specific tasks for the Consultancy

In order to achieve the envisaged objectives, the consultant under the overall supervision of the Communications Specialist and with the support from the program teams across the counties will:

• Develop a compelling concept and storylines that capture the various segments of the program and at all levels of the implementation. This will involve performing desk review /literature review to understand the overall program objectives, target beneficiaries and expected results in line with the program’s theory of change.
• Determine the exact scope of the stories; identify and develop topics and agree on target beneficiaries to be interviewed to ensure shared vision and content in line with program objectives.
• Conduct data collection through small group discussions or key informant interviews with select program target beneficiaries and stakeholders to provide a clear and objective perspective on the impact of the program.
• Develop tools and formats that will be used for documenting the stories to be packaged in the agreed format(s).
• Capture high quality digital photographs that showcase the impact of the program to accompany the success stories.
• Provide periodic updates with the Act! Communication team, MERL team and Program Manager on the proceedings of the assignment.
• Have full control over the entire process of recording in terms of creativity, technical aspects, content, follow safe working practices and professional practice

Methodology

The exercise will involve site visits to the following counties namely; Nairobi, Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi, West Pokot, Kisumu, Laikipia, Isiolo and Garissa where the program is being implemented. The documentation will involve situational analysis, key informant interviews with both secondary and primary beneficiaries as indicated above.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables

The consultant will deliver to Act! the following:

·Inception report with a clear methodology, time frame and final checklist and the content of story themes and topics to be documented as best practices/lessons/case stories that show the impact of the program. The inception should also include tools, work plan and detailed budget.

• Well written stories that capture the voices from the field and that meet highest mark of editorial standards.
• Succinct synopsis of the outstanding and innovative CVE and conflict mitigation strategies/initiatives/interventions that merit replication and scalability.
• A photo album (maximum 20 high resolutions photos in JPEG format) of each impact stories documented and well captioned.
• A ready to print and professionally designed final booklets (success story, innovative CVE/conflict mitigation approaches booklets and photo book) comprising of case stories and photographs. The final products should be in line with the agreed specifications and within the specified timelines.

Expertise Required and Qualification

To be eligible to apply for this role the consultant/s must;

• Hold a degree in a relevant field: Communication, Journalism, Media studies, Fine Arts.
• Other team members where applicable should also hold relevant qualifications in any of these areas.
• Demonstrate experience in undertaking similar assignments by use of samples of completed work.
• Knowledge in conflict sensitive and gender sensitive reporting or writing.
• Have good knowledge of multicultural aspects in Kenya, cultural nuances, gender and crosscutting issues.
• 3-5 years of professional experience in documenting investigative and human impact stories.
• Possess excellent communication skills-fluency in oral and written English Previous proven experience in documenting donor supported projects.
• Clear articulation of capacity and skills, and innovative approaches to carry out the assignment; as well as ·a clear work plan and articulation of expected methodologies and outputs within the tight timeframe
• Ability to start immediately.

Duration and timing of services

The assignment is expected to take 30 working days from the date of signing the contract.