Consultancy at Act Change Transform (Act)

Job Details

Terms of Reference Documentation of Score Success Stories and Strategies

Since 2014, Act! has been implementing the Strengthening Community Resilience against Extremism (SCORE) Program with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Kenya and East Africa Mission. The 5-year program integrates programming that seeks to address the root causes of conflict and violent extremism in the coastal region of Kenya. Key to this is the collaboration between communities at risk and the government (county and national government agencies); providing young people at risk with positive alternatives to enable them resist the lure of extremist groups; and building capacity of local civil society to mobilize communities against insecurity and violent extremism.

The main objective (goal) of SCORE is to address the root causes of conflict and violent extremism and to reduce the allure of potentially radicalizing messages. SCORE has three specific objectives. These are:

Strengthen community resilience against conflict and violent extremism.
Enhance institution functionality and technical capacity of targeted CSOs to address conflict mitigation and CVE in the context of devolution.
Establish a fund that can rapidly and effectively respond to incidences of violence, be it from community conflict or violent extremism.

Since its inception in October 2014, SCORE has supported 18 key organizations (Sub Awardees) spread across the 6 Counties in the coastal region of Kenya to mitigate conflicts and counter violent extremism (CVE). Currently, it is working with 14 of these sub awardees (partners) in the coastal region of the country to among other things strengthen community resilience against conflict and VE through various approaches such as interfaith dialogues and counter messaging, empowering women and girls to address VE and conflict, advocating for the strengthening and harmonization of policies on CVE and land to mitigate land conflicts, and youth empowerment by expanding economic opportunities and encouraging civic participation to reduce the allure of financial gain from VE and violence. For example, one of the SCORE sub grantees established a support group for mothers and wives of men recruited into terrorist organizations to address their psychosocial needs, link them to economic opportunities, and encourage them to share their stories to prevent further radicalization. Through continuous institutional capacity building, SCORE is creating an empowered cohort of local CSOs to counter VE and conflict.

In 2018, SCORE commissioned a Mid/End of Program (Activity) external evaluation to assess emerging results of SCORE. The draft evaluation report concluded that SCORE contributed to several positive, higher level effects in targeted communities. Interfaith dialogues and targeting of religious leaders, community policing approaches to CVE, women, youth focused interventions, County CVE Action Plans (CAPs) and various community engagements on CVE and conflict mitigation were found out to be some of the outstanding initiatives and approaches that should be documented and replicated. Benefits include greater awareness and discussion among communities about CVE and conflict, a decrease in VE recruitment and greater resilience to VE. Communities talk more openly about VE. There is better understanding of rights, and improved ability of communities to identify signs of radicalization. SCORE activities have contributed to increased trust between civil society and state actors, increased tolerance between different groups, and established or strengthened structures for responding to VE and conflict.

It is against this background that, Act! is seeking to engage the services of a qualified and experienced consultant to document success stories and approaches/strategies that will highlight key results, interventions, successes and challenges as well as recommend future programming in the realm of CVE and conflict mitigation not only in the coastal region of Kenya but the country as a whole.

Overall Objective

The overall objective of the assignment is to document success stories, CVE strategies/approaches 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 and future programming.

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

The impact of the program in addressing conflicts and violent extremism in the target counties.
Concepts, strategies and or approaches used in designing and implementing the most successful and outstanding initiatives of the program.
The changes / outcomes, with practical examples, that have occurred during the program implementation period.

Potential of replicating some of the compelling approaches/strategies in CVE and conflict mitigation.

Lessons for future CVE and conflict mitigation programming.

Specific tasks for the Consultancy

• In order to achieve the envisaged objectives, the consultant under the overall supervision of the SCORE Chief of Party/Senior Program Manager and with the support from the program teams across the counties will:
• Identify at least 5 compelling and outstanding CVE and conflict mitigation initiatives/approaches/strategies in the program area. Each storyline/concept/strategy should not be less than 1500 words nor more than 2500 words.
• Develop tools and formats that will be used for documenting the stories to be packaged in the agreed format(s).
• Develop compelling concept and storylines that capture the various segments of the outstanding concepts/stories such as a brief description of the concept/strategy/approach, how it was implemented, most significant changes attributed to the concept/strategy/approach, challenges faced, lessons learned, emerging opportunities and replication (including future programming. This will involve undertaking desk review/literature review to understand the overall program objectives, target beneficiaries, strategies/approaches used and expected results in line with the program’s theory of change before the actual field interviews.
• 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.
• Capture high quality digital photographs that showcase the impact of the program to accompany the success stories.
• Provide periodic updates to the SCORE Chief of Party, MERL and Communication teams 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 desk review of SCORE program reports and initial discussions with Act! SCORE team to identify and agree on the potential storylines/concepts/strategies/approaches to be documented. This will be followed by site visits to the following counties; Mombasa, Kwale, Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu and Taita Taveta where the program is being implemented, with sites visited depending on the selected stories. The documentation will involve situational analysis, before and after scenarios informed by 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 (concepts/approaches/strategies) to be documented as best practices/lessons/case stories that show the impact of the program. The inception report should also include tools, work plan and detailed budget.
• Well written stories (at least five stories) that capture the voices from the field and that meet the highest mark of editorial standards.
• A ready to print and professionally designed final booklet, in Journal article format, 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: Social Science with a bias in Conflict Management, Communication, Journalism, Media studies, Fine Arts.
• Demonstrated experience and knowledge in Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) will be an asset.
• 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.
• At least 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.
• Ability to start immediately.

Duration and timing of services

The assignment is expected to take 20 working days from the date of signing the contract.