Terms of Reference:
Consultancy for Donor Scoping Exercise for Oxfam in Asia to assess new types of partnerships and funding streams linked to Oxfam’s CREATE ambition in Asia
1. Background
ASIA context:
Development outskirts of Asia are rapidly changing due to the global panic, new market trends, digitalization and economic downturn brought by the COVID-19 outbreak, development work may find themselves especially hard-hit. The pace of Asia’s growth is likely to reach a historic low in over five decades of successful economic development and slow to a standstill – reflecting the economic hit from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Asia at the dawn of 2017-2019 can appear at first as a paragon of stability. But after the global pandemic, things have been changed and so do the focus of donors in Asia as well. In an increasingly interdependent system, the ‘rebalance to Asia’ dynamic is in parts based on this perceived stability and on the growing weight of Asian juggernauts (China, India, and Indonesia) on international affairs. Five heavy trends (i.e. general tendency of a change over time) represent the five cardinal directions on the map of aid funding for and from Asia: growing public and private wealth, an imperious call to invest in disaster risk reduction, the ‘governmentalization’ of aid across the continent, situations like COVID-19, and the rise of Asian aid actors.
In the changing donor environment in Asia, It is extremely significant to change the style of working and thinking out of the box, bringing paradigm shift in conventional fundraising approaches; working towards CREATE[1] ambition, thinking to tackle new fundraising trends, new markets, new research, new partnerships, new business models and instill innovative thinking across the region.
Oxfam in Asia;
Oxfam in Asia wants to be a part of creating the most inclusive, sustainable and resilient Asia possible. This Strategy Framework sets out how we will support that agenda between now and 2030, giving strategic direction and focus to the work we will carry out across Oxfam’s six global approaches will make us and our impact distinctive; A FEMINIST APPROACH; PEOPLE POWER; THINKING AND ACTING LOCALLY AND GLOBALLY; ENHANCED HUMANITARIAN ACTION; DIGITAL RIGHTS AND SPACE; and SYSTEMIC CHANGE.
Asia is a dynamic, diverse and fast-changing continent. Exponential change makes predicting what Asia will look like in 2030 difficult. However, we know that certain trends will be driving much of this change. In the years to come, we believe there will be increasing inequality amid economic growth, a sustained rise of conservatism, intolerance and nationalism, continued geo-political uncertainties, and a growing role for the private sector in development and humanitarian affairs. These trends will have a significant impact on the lives of the people that we work with.
This Strategy Framework sets out the four levers that Oxfam in Asia will use to influence and shape the future development of the region. These levers are data justice and innovation, the private sector, knowledge & thought leadership, working better and differently with others. These levers describe how we as an organization seek to achieve change. They describe our chosen methods and approaches. Below, we briefly introduce those levers, setting out the vision for each and the outcomes we seek to achieve by 2030.
Oxfam carries three Strategic Strata’s / approaches to support Business Development work in Asia: a) maintain b) Grow[2] and c) Create. In 2019 Oxfam has conducted comprehensive research / study on donor scoping and market trends focusing only on Maintain and Grow. Due to changing market trends, modalities of fundraising, global panic of economies; unearthing / exploring CREATE is extremely significant for diversification and innovations in Oxfam’s work in Asia.
Changes to Oxfam in Asia:
Recently, The Oxfam EB have made a decision on country presences. In Asia, this means the reduction of current country presences from 14 to 11. This is going to diverge into 5 entities; Two countries (Indonesia and the Philippines) will be moving towards affiliate status. Two countries (Sri Lanka and Tajikistan) will be spinning off to become non-Oxfam entities (social enterprises). Four entities will be full programme presences, i.e., CLV cluster (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam), Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal. Timor Leste is expected to be a national influencing entity. The rest of the current country offices (Afghanistan and Pakistan) will be phased out / closed. Both the reduction and increased diversity in possible Oxfam entities in the region will have significant implications on the core competency, capacity and resource requirements of a regional entity. Hopefully, this would also facilitate a shift in thinking of Oxfam in the region away from multiple / overlapping management lines and organizational / geographic silos and turfs.
How this will impact on the funding / donor landscape: Above mentioned strategic changes at Asia level will create new dimensions to think beyond conventional funding / resource mobilizations approaches. This will open new spectrum of thought leadership and impact at scale to achieve strategic objectives as region. Oxfam’s presences in Asia in future will be different as it was in the past due to strategic changes; i.e. CLV Cluster (joint programming and new partnerships), social enterprise (for profit venture), Influencing hub (nurturing influencing agenda of Oxfam in Asia), Independent affiliates (supporting country operations without affiliates support and escalating their funding effort to support other countries) and lastly, full programme presence countries (where Oxfam will remain as before). All these strategic changes require a robust, agile, proactive, relevant, innovative, thinking out of the box and diverse efforts to tap funds and attract new partnerships, new markets, and donors. In addition to this, there are new alternative funding sources are also coming up e.g. development banks and southern donors & corporate as well as new funding instruments (loan & grant mix, consortium & umbrella approach etc.). Oxfam in Asia is keen to explore these new opportunities. So, an understanding of these new opportunities will broad-base and diversify the resource mobilization.
CREATE Ambition:
1- Engaging non-conventional / new donors and creating space thru solicited and un-solicited way of engagement**
2- Doing Business Differently - offer new ways of doing Business
3- Exploring new partnerships moving beyond traditional donors - Look at Consortia, multilaterals, bilateral, foundations and Contractors to sub with, Trusts Foundations, Consortia to beat the competition by Collaborating and Private Sector.
4- Being Agile to upcoming opportunities - knowing in advance by engaging, collaborating, spending more time in donor offices, consortia meetings, partners meeting - to know what's out there.
5- Agility is key to adapt programmes and ways of working / engaging with others to embed say Covid-19 and staying relevant
6- Rigorous engagement with affiliates and donors finding new leads for opportunities
2. The Exercise:
PURPOSE: of the exercise we like to undertake is to assess new and innovative types of partnerships and funding streams for Oxfam in Asia in line with our CREATE ambition. The framing by which we like this scoping to be undertaken is directly linked to the strategic shifts to the presence of Oxfam in Asia in various countries: e.g. Oxfam is becoming a diversified network. Knowing the fact that, Oxfam in Asia will be undertaking a broad strategic shift in five below layers. So, the main purpose of this scoping study is to abreast donor engagement, acquisition and resource mobilization for Oxfam in Asia.
The proposal is to identify, assess donors, partners, actors who would be instrumental in helping Oxfam in acquisition, engagement and resource mobilization as per the above-mentioned changes at regional level in the CREATE ambition as articulated. It is important to understand (at least the major donors) their programming/project cycle, in order to gather intelligence at the earliest stage possible and to increase the influence as well.
a. International Trusts & Foundations (primarily US & European ones who either have office in Asia and/or have interest in Asia)
b. Non-traditional donors & Development banks – Asia Development Bank, Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank - AIIB
c. Large corporate – multi-national – including large IT companies.
d. Local/Southern Donors (Includes local & regional corporate and foundations)
e. Think tanks and innovation funds
f. Private Sector actors
g. Digital donors/actors
h. Link minded INGOs
The specific objectives for the mapping exercise are:’
1- Who are those potential CREATE donors/actors that we can work with in Asia?
2- How do these donors/actors work?
3- What will Oxfam need to do to engage with them?
4- What is or could be Oxfam in Asia value add to those “donors”, what would they expect from Oxfam to bring to the table?
Methodology
The market scan should include the following activities:
ü Desk based review
o Consultant internal research
o Secondary market research of reports, press articles etc.
o Organization websites
o Organization financial and market reports
ü Interviews
o Supplementation of publicly available information with interviews of key informants. Blind study (Oxfam not mentioned as the commissioner of the project).
o Consultant to hold a meeting with some donors and Oxfam countries/regional staff
Prior to the consultant starting to work, Oxfam will:
ü Confirm final list of donors (with input from the consultant)
ü Provide contact details to key informants at donor institutions (where available)
ü Provide necessary background documents
[[1] Create: New business models, new markets, new research and instil innovative thinking across the region. Grow: Look to grow flagship country programs to regional initiatives (where possible), to grow our influence form a BD perspective in the region, and to grow capacities across the region.]
Duration and timing
The consultancy has been estimated to take 25 working days distributed between Monday 4th January 2021 to 5th February 2021. The consultant will have an inception session with the RBDM and undertake feedback sessions with Oxfam’s Regional PD team and country reference group during the 25 days for inputs and reflection.
When_Activities_Who
January_Project start / contract signed_Oxfam and consultant
January_Confirm target donors and share background documents_Oxfam
January_Desk based review_Consultant
January_Definition of interviews key questions_Consultant
January Identifying key informants and feedback on interviews key questions Oxfam and consultant
January_ Interviews _Consultant
January_ Draft report _Consultant
February_ Feedback on the report _Oxfam
February Final report Consultant
February and onwards Dissemination Oxfam
Expertise
The consultant taking on the project is expected to have extensive experience and knowledge of institutional funding landscape in Asia, and the ability to conduct high quality research into create funding opportunities and produce project reports in timely manner.
Deliverables
Outputs (reports and / or deliverables)
ü Market scan report (electronic version only, no print copies)
o Summary – 0.5-1 page
o Introduction, including brief methodology research questions – 1-2 pages
o Findings on each target donor – 1 page each donor
o Conclusions, and recommendations – 1 page
o Bibliography
ü Report one-page visual summary
ü PowerPoint presentation
The outputs will be delivered according to the timetable indicated above.
Payment term
Payment will be one in one instalment upon satisfactory delivery of the service and product.
Expression of interest
Oxfam invites the submission of an EOI from an organization or individual with the experience and skills described above. The EOI must include:
A. A cover letter of no more than 1 page introducing the consultant/organisation and how the skills and competencies described above are met, with concrete examples (organisation profile outlining similar experience including type of task, employer, project title, location, achieved outputs). The cover letter should also reflect the number of days to complete the assignment and total financial offer (cost). The cover letter should also indicate consultants’ availability for the proposed period.
B. An outline of no more than 3 pages of the proposed process and key considerations including:
a. Key considerations for the assignment
b. Proposed outline methodology and approach
c. Proposed timeframe and team size
d. Detailed financial offer / costs with requested terms of payment. It is expected that the financial offer includes a primary budget breakdown of costs (for example fees, taxes...etc).
C. Team composition, management arrangements and CVs of team members including contactable referees
Period of validity: The Expression of Interest shall be valid for a period of minimum 60 days, starting from the submission date.
How to apply:
Where to send your Expression of Interest:
Please send your Expression of Interest to Consultancy_Oxfam@oxfam.org.uk
By when we are looking for consulting bids: Close of application process by Sunday 27th December 2020
Please ensure that all the documents related to your Expression of Interest are sent as attachment to your email and that all files attached clearly mention the name of the applicant. Only shortlisted applicants will be invited to an interview.
Other
By applying for this consultancy, you agree that you will comply in full with Data Protection Laws, and will provide Oxfam International with reasonable assistance and co-operation to allow Oxfam International to comply with all applicable requirements under the Data Protection Laws.
It is a condition of the award of the consultancy that all entities and personnel engaged in providing the services will be subject to pre-award screening to ensure compliance with our obligations under aid diversion, counter terrorism, and money laundering “laws".