Request for Concept Notes: Political Process Monitoring in Gandaki Province of Nepal

Request for Concept Notes

Political Process Monitoring in Gandaki Province of Nepal

“Enhancing Provincial Governance Integrity via Parliamentary Oversight and Accountability”

Project Issuance/Start Date: March 1, 2024

Project Closing Date and Time: February 28, 2025

Budget Proposal Total: $ 30,000

Project Duration (Number of months): 12 (Twelve)

1. SUMMARY

The National Democratic Institute (NDI) invites applications from local civil society organizations to monitor the functioning of parliament in Gandaki Province of Nepal.  The total funding available is up to $30,000 over a one-year period, with an anticipated March 2024 start, and will be awarded to one civil society organization. Upon review of the concept notes,  NDI will invite one organization to submit a full proposal and budget.

2. BACKGROUND

Political process monitoring serves as a vital tool for civil society organizations to observe, evaluate and report on government’s works and performance, and can contribute to more open and accountable government. It fosters open governance, improves accountability, and reinforces the constructive bond between governments and citizens. It essentially seeks to hold the public officials accountable by monitoring and reporting on their actions. This endeavor is crucial in safeguarding civil liberties, ensuring transparency, and promoting the responsible functioning of government institutions through greater accountability, encouraging public engagement in political processes and raising civic awareness are essential components of political process monitoring.

Operating within Nepal's federal structure, the Gandaki Province, like other provinces in Nepal, faces multiple governance and legislative challenges. In Gandaki Province, the first provincial assembly was constituted in 2017, after the 2017 provincial elections. The second came into effect after the November 2022 elections. The term of the assembly is five years unless dissolved earlier. The provincial assembly at present has five committees: Working Procedure and Consultation Committee, Finance and Development Committee, Public Accounts Committee, Province Affairs and Law Committee and Social Development and Agriculture Committee. 

When it comes to parliamentary affairs, active engagement from civil society, local communities, and stakeholders is pivotal in advocating for transparency, encouraging participation, and ensuring accountability of the elected representatives. Towards this end, the project's focus will be on monitoring the provincial assembly and thus demanding greater accountability, openness, improving legislative capacity and individual legislators’ performance at the provincial level. 

3. DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITY

Within the framework of Enhancing Provincial Governance Integrity via Parliamentary Oversight and Accountability, the CSO would develop report(s) based on evidence-based monitoring tools to enhance the integrity of the provincial governance via parliamentary oversight and accountability in Gandaki Province. This involves the implementation of tailored oversight mechanisms within the provincial legislative assembly, based on the type of parliamentary monitoring being undertaken.

This activity may encompass the comprehensive scrutiny of plenary sessions, where the entirety of legislative members convenes to deliberate on proposed laws, policies, and national concerns, beyond plenary sessions, this oversight may extend to specialized committees, each entrusted with distinct oversight functions such as budgetary oversight, ethical considerations, or audits. Monitoring committee activities would involve observing how agendas are established, investigations conducted, and inquiries pursued within their designated domains. Additionally, the activity may entail tracking of legislative agendas, including the progress of bills through various stages and the prioritization of critical provincial issues. This methodical observation and analysis would lead to comprehensive documentation of proceedings, a deep content analysis, and the synthesis of pivotal moments. Ultimately, this monitoring would culminate in the creation of comprehensive reports elucidating observations, analyses, and recommendations aimed at fortifying transparency, efficacy, and accountability within parliamentary proceedings and fostering robust oversight mechanisms.

This initiative aims to bolster transparency, ethical practices, and efficacy within the governance framework. Simultaneously, it fosters a culture of citizen involvement by promoting civic engagement, educating the populace about their civic rights and responsibilities as it relates to their parliament and MPs, and cultivating avenues for active participation in governance processes. These efforts collectively contribute to fortifying the ethical standards and accountability of provincial governance in Gandaki Province.

Towards this end, the selected organization will be engaged in one or a combination of the following types of parliamentary monitoring:

Monitoring Openness

With a focus on transparency, accessibility and inclusiveness, monitoring for openness would monitor legislative bodies against a set of principles of parliamentary openness. NDI and the World Bank Institute facilitated a conference of civic groups that resulted in the Open Parliament Declaration. The Declaration identifies 44 actions that signify parliamentary openness. More than 80 civic groups in 55 countries have signed on to the Open Parliament Declaration, and Open Parliament is now the second pillar of Open Government Partnership.12 Various civic groups have designed tracking mechanisms to follow the progress of their country’s legislature on implementing open parliament actions.

Monitoring Functionality

In general, legislatures have three roles crucial to a country’s progress and the lives of its citizens: making laws, overseeing executive institutions and representing citizens. Civic groups may adopt parliamentary monitoring techniques to improve a legislature’s functionality by monitoring how effective and efficient the institution functions in performing these roles: whether official rules and procedures are followed, oversight functions are performed, or efforts are made to engage citizens. Since legislatures are typically large institutions, it can be valuable to monitor the work of committees and other bodies as well as plenary sessions in order to present an accurate picture of the institution’s functionality. In such initiatives, civic groups monitor legislative procedures and practices, often as it relates to a set of legislative standards, and use their findings to work with legislators and parliamentary officials to improve weaknesses or to advocate for changes in the laws and regulations governing legislative processes.

Monitoring for MP Performance

Another reason that groups engage in parliamentary monitoring is to increase legislators’ performance and accountability to constituents. Publicizing a fair and objective review of a legislator’s performance can put additional pressure on them to account for their work and has the potential to encourage competition among legislators and political parties, which can, in turn, improve performance. It also gives citizens information they can use the next time they vote.

Component 1: Research to Identify Scope and Define Methodologies

At the onset of the award, the selected organization will, based on the type of parliamentary monitoring to be conducted, undertake preliminary research to understand what types of information is publicly available, where the knowledge gaps are, and what data points can be developed to monitor the provincial assembly. This will lead to the selected organization identifying different components within the provincial assembly to monitor, where data might be gathered and what types of tools may be engaged.

Once the information is compiled, NDI monitoring experts will provide technical assistance and guidance to the organization to refine the methodology and develop monitoring tools. 

Potential Activities:

• Desk research.
• Identification of sources of information based on type of parliamentary monitoring to be pursued.
• Stakeholder Mapping and Interviews with relevant stakeholders. 
• Develop data points and framework for analyzing the provincial assembly’s works.

Component 2:  Comprehensive Monitoring and Reporting 

The activity will monitor various components of the provincial assembly sessions, attendance, committee meetings or hearings, including discussions, debates, decision-making processes, and the legislative agendas as per the type of monitoring to be undertaken and the data points identified in the initial phase of the project. This may involve tracking the activities of specific committees responsible for oversight functions of the provincial assembly of Gandaki province of Nepal, monitoring attendance or speaking time of MPs, looking at access to information and legislative openness, among others.

Potential Activities:

• Interviews with government officials, contractors, current and former members of Gandaki Province Assembly, citizens and other concerned stakeholders;
• Oversight Surveys and other surveys with relevant stakeholders;
• Observing parliamentary sessions, committee meetings and its hearings to monitor discussions, debates, decision-making processes, and the legislative agendas;
• Tracking the activities of specific committees responsible for oversight functions; and 
• Prepare a final monitoring report inclusive of recommendations;

Component 3: Build Greater Awareness and Dialogue on Parliament Oversight

Utilizing the data collected from monitoring, the selected organization is required to disseminate the findings and engage in advocacy to build greater awareness on oversight and accountability of the parliament. This is intended to be done through social media, infographics, data visualizations, community meetings, and other multimedia platforms to reach a broader audience and communicate the findings and data in a more digestible manner for public and stakeholder utilization. 

NDI will organize targeted meetings and dialogues with its partner to present and share its findings with parliamentary committees, members of parliament and political party leaderships. 

Potential Activities:

• Infographics on advocacy messages resulting from the monitoring reports and government commitments on oversight work (~10 to 12 infographics).
• Short informational and/or multimedia videos targeting specific demographics for dissemination on social media.
• Roundtable discussions with government officials, members of parliament, provincial assembly members, parliamentary committees; and
• Civil society forum(s) on the progress of oversight, transparency and accountability. 

4. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA, EVALUATION CRITERIA & SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

Eligibility Criteria

In order to ensure that local applicants possess adequate capacity to carry out the activities envisioned under this project, the following eligibility criteria will be used to determine applicants’ eligibility to receive a grant. The following eligibility criteria must be met by the date, upon which a concept note is submitted under the Request for Applications: 

• Valid organizational registration as a legal entity in Nepal.
• Proven commitment in promoting parliament oversight work; and
• Experience in researching and advocating on issues related to parliament procedures, functioning and oversights; It is anticipated that one fixed price award will be awarded based on this RFP, subject to the availability of funds.

Evaluation Criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on the criteria outlined in the table below. Upon review and evaluation of the concept notes, NDI will select one organization to submit a full proposal, budget and other required organizational documents.

5. INSTRUCTION FOR APPLICATION SUBMISSION

• The Concept Note shall be divided into: A. Background, B. Objectives, Activities and Methodology; and C. Action Plan and Timeline. 
• The concept note should be in the format as shown below.
• The concept note should not be more than five pages in length.
• Applicants should clearly mention “Concept Note: Political Process Monitoring in Gandaki Province” in the email subject line. 
• The documents above must be sent by email to sshah@ndi.org by January 3, 2024, in Microsoft Word format.

For the CONCEPT NOTE FORMAT (SAMPLE), Please go through the link below:

CONCEPT NOTE FORMAT (SAMPLE)