Terms of Reference
For Consultancy service to
Conduct research in the role of villagization and constraints in the light of improving service delivery, community wellbeing and development and
Background Information
Public service delivery and community engagement is an important aspect of ensuring democracy and maintaining stability of a country. In the case of Ethiopia, despite all efforts made so far to improve public services delivery, there are still huge gaps in ensuring quality and standard basic public services to the citizens. Particularly the service delivery outcome is the lowest in the case of vulnerable groups including women. This has in turn created disparities in development among the different regions and between urban and rural areas and affected the democratization process of the country. It is highly aggravating the public unrest and also affects stability of the country. The 2009 ChSA proclamation and subsequent legislations that had narrowed the operation space of the CSOs could be the barriers to the CSOs engagement in human right protections, development and democratization processes.
In this regard, with the support of the International Development Partners, Ethiopian government had developed Protection of Basic Services (PBS) project. The PBS project has supported the country to make a progress towards achieving the millennium development goals with better broad based economic growth, governance and improved basic public service delivery.
This project is designed with the aim of filling gaps in the areas of improving service delivery. The project intervention areas constitute four adjacent Woredas of Afar and Oromia Regional States. The Woredas are found in Eastern Shoa and West Harerge zones of Oromia and Zone three of Afar Regional States. The communities are pastoralist and semi-pastoralists which have strong interactions and interests over resource uses mainly the pasture lands.
So as to enable the CSOs to play important role in service delivery, democratization and development, it is important to strengthen their capacity from different perspectives. In designing this project, rapid context analysis was made with consultation to local stakeholders and also the consortium member organizations. Field level assessment was made to all of the four target woredas using focus group discussion and key informant interview with the government experts and officials of Woreda Women, Children and Youth Affairs Office, Environment and Climate Change Authority, Woreda Health Office, Woreda Justice Office and Woreda Admin Office and some community members. From the assessment, it was found that, despite the presence of CSO working in the areas, there are still limitations working on the right issues. The development actions are focused mainly on provision of materials like safety net programs. In addition, there are huge gaps in addressing the service delivery demands of the communities. The sustainability of the actions in the areas is also found to be the critical issues in the areas. This action is thus aimed at addressing the underline problems of CSOs that hinder their participation in development and democratization process of the country.
Overall objectives of the action
To contribute to improvement in the well-being of citizens’ and service delivery in the project area
Specific Objectives
For more details and application click the below link:
ToR for CSF-III research.final.doc
The Coordinator requires the services of competent Consultant (Contractor) with direct experience in conducting action research in pastoralism, villagization and right issues in the indicated and similar geographic areas. The Contractor should have the following minimum qualifications and experience:
The contractor must be independent and free from conflicts of interest in the responsibilities s/he takes on.