Norwegian Refugee Council
Background
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with over 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and provides assistance within the shelter, education, emergency food security, information counselling and legal assistance, and water, sanitation and hygiene sectors. We work in crises across 30+ countries, where we help save lives and rebuild futures. In 2019 we assisted more than 9 million people.
WASH in schools is crucial because:
· Providing clean and child-friendly facilities and soap for handwashing contributes to equipping children with the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to perform hygienic behaviour.[1] [2] [3]
· The use of latrines and handwashing with soap are the most powerful measures to establish basic hygiene and to prevent the spread of germs.
· A strong WASH in Education programme which addresses menstrual hygiene needs contributes to reducing girls’ absence from classes[4].
· Healthy children, who feel safe and comfortable, attend more days in school and find it easier to focus and perform better[5].
During emergencies, communities often identify education as a top priority. However, schools are often damaged, destroyed, used as temporary shelters by IDPs or occupied by armed groups. In many instances, displacement means a massive intake of new students for schools putting additional pressure on often physically damaged facilities and already stretched resources. In such time, the provision of education services in displacement-affected areas is limited by the availability of resources. Ensuring children and young people can return or continue to go to school with adequate WASH facilities and services is an essential part of recovery.
NRC aims to ensure that children have access to minimum WASH services that contribute to a positive school experience, enabling children to learn in a clean and safe environment. School toilets will be safe, hygienic, secure, and socially and culturally acceptable providing privacy and ensuring dignity. Our interventions aim to reduce the occurrence and severity of diarrhoeal disease and other hygiene-related diseases in schools by providing minimum wash services but also through teaching and passing on of practices, habits, and knowledge of adequate hygiene behaviour.
NRC’s vision is that all children and young people participating in NRC supported education programmes are not hindered from achieving their educational ambitions as a result of insufficient and inadequate shelter and access to water, sanitation and hygiene services.
Objective of the work
Linked to our Global WASH Strategy, NRC is looking to contract a consultant to lead on identifying opportunities to improve integrated programming (IP) between NRC WASH and other Core Competencies (CCs) like Shelter & Settlements, Education, Livelihoods and Food Security and Housing Land and Property. We want to ensure these CCs always work collaboratively and not in isolation whenever we work in learning spaces to offer the ‘NRC Way’.
Activities
Carry out a review of NRC’s integrated support to different learning settings, including both non-formal and formal settings. This should cover, but is not limited to:
· Identify barriers to integration, including but not limited to: funding – access, cycles etc., proposal writing, staffing, HR, technical competencies etc. Note that substantial work has already been undertaken on IP in NRC which will be made available to the consultant. The barriers of integration we are interested in as part of this consultancy are specific programming and not focused on organisational challenges. More information will be available on this prior to contract signing
· Staff capacity and training needs with opportunities for accessible capacity building identified
· Providing recommendations on staffing levels and makeup of teams – minimum and optimal.
· Providing recommendations on budgeting and narrative for proposal development – minimal and optimal.
· Developing shared targeted outcomes between CCs with clear indicators to measure progress and a Theory of Change.
· Suggested adoption and possibly adaptation of evidence-based WASH in School approaches to suit all learning settings in which NRC works.
· Develop a manual for CC staff to follow at all points along the NRC programme cycle management (PCM) to ensure effective integration to maximise outcomes in all learning settings and contexts in which NRC works, outlining clear roles and responsibilities, and minimum program standards.
· Adopting agreed upon recommendations and ways of working into NRC Policy
NRC is open to input from the consultant on how to shape and develop the ToR in order to help maximise learning and impact and capitalise on the consultant’s knowledge and experience.
Findings of the report and deliverables should take into consideration:
· The need for strong software programming, including hygiene education, operation and maintenance and cleanliness of WASH facilities and strong governance and management structures.
· Opportunities for ‘green’ programming which limit carbon footprint i.e., grey water reuse, clean energy etc.
· The ongoing role of NRC and possible exit strategies
· Suitability of recommendations and approaches for all learning settings in which NRC works including public school structures, non-formal settings, emergency response phase and social and cultural variances
· The role of NRC CC teams when one or more of these roles is filled by an external implementing agency
Duties of the consultant
The consultant will liaise with and report to the Global WASH Lead and appointed steering committee at regular and agreed times during the consultancy to help ensure the success of the project. The consultant is required to retain flexibility and respond to the provided feedback. NRC will have the final decision on the report content.
Deliverables
· An inception report outlining the different factors, challenges and recommendations the final report should contain after suitable feedback is provided and incorporated from the draft.
· A final report detailing findings, after suitable feedback is provided and incorporated from the draft.
· A bespoke, user-friendly, integrated CC manual/s for implementing programme staff to follow from each CC (note that existing methodologies or manuals can be used and adapted if applicable) which includes a clear accountability framework for all stakeholders
· A two to four-pager to set out NRC’s learning spaces Programme Policy
· One internal presentation online on the findings of the inception report
· Two internal presentations online on the consultancy findings/final report/user manual
Reports should be submitted in Microsoft Word format, in UK English [amend as appropriate*. Graphs or other graphical devices should be editable (i.e. not pictures). All references must be cited according to convention, and detailed in a bibliography, using the Harvard system as set out in the* UNESCO Style Manual. All verbatim quotations must appear in quotation marks and must not be of excessive length. All data collected under the consultancy must be submitted with the deliverables, in a widely recognised format such as Microsoft Excel. Publications and PowerPoint should be based on the NRC template.
All materials should be freely available for use by NRC and partners. Any plagiarism in any form, or any other breach of intellectual property rights, will automatically disqualify the consultant from receiving any further payments under the contract by NRC, and NRC will seek to recover any payments already made.
The consultant will follow Ethical Research Involving Children guidance on the ethical participation of children. In addition, all participants in any study or other interaction will be fully informed about the nature and purpose of the interaction and their requested involvement. Informed consent must be obtained for any photographs, audio or video recordings, etc., in accordance with NRC’s policy on consent.
NRC will own the intellectual property rights to all materials submitted by the consultants under the contract. The consultants must therefore ensure that they have possession of any materials provided to NRC as a part of the deliverable. The rights to reproduce the reports/training will fall to NRC and its contracted agents. NRC will be free to reproduce the materials at will and to grant reproduction and onward training rights.
Duties of NRC
NRC will
· Provide a suitable understanding of NRC’s work,
· provide links to country offices in order to support primary research,
· provide timely feedback to the consultant
Implementation schedule and estimated inputs
Consultancy is expected to start in May 2022. Start and end dates are flexible. The end date is before the end of 2023. The duration of the consultancy is not strict.
Qualifications of the consultant
· Relevant qualifications – WASH, Education, Shelter and Settlements or other
· Demonstrable experience of similar consultancies on WASH in Schools and integrated programming
· A broad knowledge of WASH in schools programmes
· Candidates who can demonstrate experience/expertise of both WASH and Education programming is highly favourable
[1] Skills for Health: Skills-based health education including life skills – An important component of a child-friendly/health-promoting school (2003) WHO’s Information Series on School Health, Document 9. Geneva, Switzerland.
[2] Bundy, D. (2011). Rethinking School Health. A Key Component of Education for All. Directions in Development. The World Bank, Washington, D.C
[3]McMichael, C. (2019) Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Schools in Low-Income Countries: A Review of Evidence of Impact
[4] UNICEF (2015?) Equity of Access to WASH in Schools
[5] WASHPlus (2016) SPLASH School Outcome Study – The effect of WASH in schools on educational outcomes: Absenteism and teacher-pupil contact time.
How to apply
Submission of interest
Interested applicants should submit the following:
- An up to date curriculum vitae
- A covering letter including a description of the proposed process and a breakdown of total cost of the deliverables consisting of 4 pages maximum, including a proposed time-frame.
- Examples of relevant work
Please send submissions to the Global WASH Lead: [email protected]
Closing date for submissions: April 2nd 2023
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted
Deadline: 2 Apr 2023