1. Background

Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) Rwanda is seeking to hire an individual international decentralisation consultant to support a range of capacity development activities targeted at Rwandan Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) under the upcoming FCDO-funded INKI (Indi Ntambwe mu Kwiyubakira Igihugu) project. INKI is a one-year project set to run, subject to donor funding confirmation, from 1st May 2024 until end March 2025 with the overall objective to strengthen CSOs’ abilities to meaningfully contribute to more inclusive, effective, and accountable planning, design and implementation of relevant government policies and institutional practices in Rwanda.

INKI is a consortium of one international CSO, namely NPA which also acts as the lead, and two national CSOs namely Never Again Rwanda (NAR) as well as Transparency International Rwanda (TI-Rw), respectively consortium partners. Each consortium partner leads on a particular project outcome and related specific objective and accordingly has a unique and complementary scope of work that contributes to the different specific objectives of INKI. One of the three specific objectives of INKI is to empower CSOs to expertly monitor, report and engage the government with confidence on decentralisation progress across a range of functional sectors. While NAR leads on this specific objective, it will be supported by NPA to lay the foundations for project first activities.

2. Objectives

The overall objective of the consultancy is to support NPA and NAR with the preparation and implementation of tailor-made capacity strengthening for selected national CSOs and CBOs on decentralisation matters. More specifically, the consultant will:

1. Conduct a comprehensive CSOs’ capacity needs assessment on decentralisation matters understanding and measurement;
2. Develop, based on the findings from the capacity needs assessment, a tailor-made comprehensive resource guide/handbook for CSOs on the breadth and depth of decentralisation;
3. Develop and or recommend additional CSO self-help guide and tools on (sector) decentralisation progress measurement and independent reporting;
4. Conduct a five-day Training of Trainers (ToT) on decentralisation for 30 beginners and intermediate experts purposively picked from executive leaders and content staff of national and local CSOs.

3. Scope of work /Tasks

1. Work with INKI partners to design and plan a comprehensive CSOs’ capacity needs assessment in relation to the quality of (sectoral) decentralisation understanding and performance progress monitoring and reporting. This shall include the choice of assessment questions and development and adoption of the best methodology for conducting the assessment and other subsequent steps it will inform;
2. Conduct relevant desk review to familiarise oneself with Rwanda’s decentralisation design thinking and implementation practice;
3. Write-up an inception report which methodologically outlines how the different specific objectives of this consultancy will be addressed and handled as one, including the delivery sequencing and clear timelines;
4. Lead the collection of primary and secondary data from relevant sources and write up the assessment findings report;
5. Analyse the data collected and write-up the preliminary capacity needs assessment findings report;
6. Present the assessment findings during a validation session with relevant decentralisation stakeholders;
7. Finalise the assessment findings report based on stakeholders’ inputs received during the validation session;
8. Prepare and write-up a tailor-made and user-friendly resource guide/handbook for CSOs on the breadth and depth of decentralisation which accurately responds to the capacity development needs of prospective users.
9. Present the resource handbook for validation and finalise it based on inputs and feedback received.
10. Deliver, in person, the content of the resource guide/handbook for CSOs on decentralisation during a five-day Training of Trainers (ToT) and produce an activity report thereof, clearly showcasing the learning impact created after the training;
11. Develop, based on what was not deemed necessary to include in the CSO resource guide on decentralisation, a range of self-help guide (s) and tools on (sector) decentralisation progress measurement and independent reporting.
12. Recommend, the best readily available self-help guides and tools which have been tested in other country contexts on the same and are widely appreciated for their relevance and self-pace learning.

4. Qualifications and eligibility criteria

• Experience of at least 10 years plus working on decentralisation design and implementation matters internationally;
• Familiarity with the different forms and types of decentralisation;
• Familiarity with internationally benchmarked decentralisation quality assessment frameworks;
• Accredited professional certification in decentralisation is a plus or a relevant academic qualification;
• At least 10 years experience and or plus designing and delivering decentralisation trainings to beginners, intermediate and very advanced experts as demonstrated by at least three certificates of good services completion on the same or three references who can testify to their technical and ethical competency of the
• Strong expert knowledge and understanding of the quality, depth and breadth of decentralisation in different forms of state with a strong preference for unitary states like Rwanda;
• Experience working in new and emerging democracies, preferably in sub-Saharan Africa;
• Familiarity with the Rwandan decentralisation context evolvement is a must but not mandatory;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English with different types of audience;
• Demonstrated ability to effectively lead data collection processes remotely but with hands-on attention to quality.
• Be available and able to travel to Rwanda for at least 2 weeks within the timelines earlier stipulated to prepare and deliver, in person, the Training of Trainers on decentralisation to decentralisation to few executive heads and content staff of a select CSOs;
• Only international consultants are eligible.

5. Reporting

The successful consultant will report to the Senior Policy and Strategy Advisor at NPA with functional linkages with the Executive Director, the Deputy Executive Director and the Policy Analyst at Never Again Rwanda.