Capacity Development Expert



1.1  PURPOSE

The purpose of this Scope of Work is to solicit the services of a Short-Term Technical Expert to conduct the capacity assessment of Water Services Providers and Prepare Capacity Development Plan. 

1.2  PROJECT INTRODUCTION 

The USAID Karnali Water Activity (KWA) is a five-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by DAI Global LLC (DAI). The project will create healthy, resilient, and water secure communities at the watershed level through strengthened water and sanitation governance that improves water resource management (including water for more resilient and biodiverse ecosystems), enhances sustainable access to drinking water, improves agriculture water management, and reduces the fecal pathogen burden on the environment from poorly managed non-sewered sanitation through fecal sludge management. 

The program team will methodically integrate Water Resource Management (WRM), watershed biodiversity conservation, and water and sanitation service delivery by mapping and strengthening the roles, connections, and capacities of key actors and stakeholder’s system wide. The activity is located within the Karnali River Basin, which extends over Karnali, Lumbini and Sudurpaschim Provinces. This activity is implemented in the Karnali River Basin in 29 municipalities of the Rara, Khatyad, Tila, Middle Karnali and Lower Karnali watersheds.

1.3  SERVICE PROVIDER CAPACITY ASSESSMENT INTRODUCTION 

The Service Provider Capacity Assessment (SPCA) tool (also termed as assessment) has been designed to assess the capacity of the Water Service Provider (Water User and Sanitation Committee-WUSCs) to improve their management, financial sustainability, and water service delivery. The tool encompasses two distinct but interrelated parts of the WUSCs - first, a foundational part that focuses on the institutional governance of the WUSCs including the equity considerations and second, an operational part that examines five key areas—financial planning and sustainability, operations and maintenance, water safety and quality, equity, and customer service. Based on the outcome of the SPCAs, USAID Karnali Water Activity will prepare a Water Service Provider Capacity Gap Report by the end of September 2022 detailing common capacity and knowledge gaps across the above mentioned five key areas. This will serve as a basis for the development of a capacity building framework, training modules, and curricula for current and future water service providers covering a range of topics that will assist them in managing their individual schemes.

The assessment will be carried out in pre-existing WUSCs of the six Local Governments (LGs)  where the water schemes will be constructed during 2022/23. In addition, one more pre-existing WUSCs from the Terai region will be selected from any of the two LGs  where city sanitation plans (CSPs) will be prepared during 2022/23.  

The assessment has strategic significance on improving the capacity of the WUSC members on management, financial sustainability, and water service delivery. In short run, an assessment will inform the design of capacity development packages for the WUSCs. In the long run, the Project will implement the capacity development (CD) packages for the WUSCs during its project period.  So, the Project needs a short-term consulting services to identify strengths, gaps, and barriers of the service providers and help them to develop a capacity development plan to support sustainability. In this connection, Karnali Water Activity will be acquiring individual consulting services for the assignment as listed below.

1.4  OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

The overall objective of this assignment is to assess the capacity of the water services providers particularly the Water User and Sanitation Committees (WUSCs) followed by a preparation of the Capacity Development (CD) Plan. 

Thus, the key objectives of this assignment are: 

• To assess the capacity of the water service providers – WUSCs
• To prepare capacity development plan for the WUSCs 

1.5  SCOPE OF WORK 

The scope of work for this assignment has been divided into two parts -

Part-1:  Capacity Assessment of the Water Service Providers (WUSCs) 

• The SPCA encompasses both quantitative and qualitative sets of questions where quantitative sets covers two different parts; part 1 for a foundational assessment of the WUSC focusing on institutional governance, and part 2 which assesses operations through five key capacity areas- financial planning and sustainability, operations and maintenance, water safety and quality, equity, and customer service. Thus, the individual consultant should administer this tool utilizing both the quantitative and qualitative methods in given number of WUSCs as presented in the Annex-I.  However, the consultant will be responsible for selecting the targeted WUSCs purposively coordinating with the watershed teams and the respective LGs. 
• Qualitative sets of questions, as an integral part of the SPCA are generated based on the responses of quantitative questions. The individual consultant should be proactive and  prepare the checklist of the FGD questions based on remarkable negative response or low score in Part-I and Part-II questions.
• The consultant should coordinate with respective watershed teams and local governments (LGs) specifically the ward chair of the pre-existing WUSC.
• The consultant should consult with respective Monitoring, Evaluation and Communication Coordinator of the four watersheds to get support on data entry in the DAI Collect System. The Consultant will be responsible to enter all the data and its analysis. However, Capacity Building and Training Specialist and MEL Manager will also provide support during data entry, analysis and report writing.
• The Consultant will finalize and submit the SPCA Report and submit to the Karnali Water Activity

Part-II:  Preparation of the Capacity Development (CD) Plan for the WUSCs

• Based on the analysis and findings of the SPCA, the Consultant will prepare a capacity Development (CD) Plan of the WUSCs.  The Project will provide the outline of the plan, which will be prepared after the completion of the field level assessment work. 
• While preparing the CD Plan, the consultant should take into consideration the key findings from the Project’s Baseline Report (2021), Political and Economic Analysis Report (PEA); learnings of the Institutional Capacity Assessment (ICA) of the local governments; Construction Implementation Plan (CIP) and the Water Supply Scheme Implementation Guideline (WSSIG).
• While preparing the CD Plan, the consultant should carry out necessary consultation and coordination with the watershed teams, thematic/objective leads of the project including facilitation of the draft sharing meeting with the Surkhet Based Technical Teams.
• The consultant will finalize and submit CD Plan to the Project.

2 I.Mohanyal RM (Kailali), 2.  Barahatal RM (Surkhet), 3. Turmakhand RM (Achham), 4. Khandachakra M (Kalikot), 5. Chhayanath Rara M (Mugu) and 6. Soru RM (Mugu)

2 Thakurbaba Municipality (Bardiya) and Rajapur Municipality (Bardiya) 

1.6 ACTIVITIES AND PERIOD OF ASSIGNMENT

The total duration of the assignment will be for 35 Working Days.  The estimated starting date will be from the third week (W3) of September 2022 through the second week (W2) of November 2022. The tentative schedule of the assignment is presented below - 

1.7 DELIVERABLES AND PAYMENT:

The consultant will be required to submit the deliverables with the payment structure as follows:

1.8 REQUIRED QUALIFICATION/EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• At least Master’s degree in any discipline from the recognized university 
• Minimum 10 years of experience in the WASH sector
• Familiar with the capacity assessment process and CD formulation of WSS service providers
• Excellent and proven records of quantitative and qualitative research methods, data analysis and documentation.
• Excellent analytical and reporting skills

1.9 OVERSIGHT AND TECHNICAL DIRECTION

The Karnali Water Activity Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) will be responsible for providing oversight and monitoring of the overall process of this assignment. The Capacity Building and Training Specialist will provide technical direction and will lead to coordinate and facilitate the entire assignment process. Other Team members, GESI Director, Senior Water and Sanitation Infrastructure Engineer (Objective 1 Lead) and MEL Manager will also coordinate and facilitate in the assigned task to ensure the quality of the services.

Application Instructions:

Interested and qualified candidates should email their CV and VAT/PAN certificate to KarnaliWater_Recruitment@dai.com with “CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT EXPERT” in the subject line by September 13, 2022. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

ANNEX-I

Number of Pre-Existing WUSCs/Type