Consultant - Resilience Programming Toolkit

Building resilience of poor women and their families to disasters, conflict and climate change is one of ActionAid’s key organisational objectives. The organisation has a well-established disaster risk reduction programme as well as an extensive programme on climate resilient sustainable agriculture. There is a growing recognition that our broader programmes contribute to the resilience of communities. This concerns ActionAid’s work on women’s rights, access to land, natural resource management, campaigning on redistribution of resources to finance public policies and alike. The organisation is determined to strengthen the links between our overall programming and ensure resilience thinking is solidly embedded across our programming and policy work. ActionAid wishes to develop a resilience progamming toolkit that will promote the application of a ‘resilience lens’ in all our programming and ensure integrated resilience programming. This toolkit will be developed for and with programme and policy staff to support them in applying the ‘resilience lens’ to our overall work. We are looking for an experienced consultant to develop this toolkit.

Task

We envision the toolkit will be developed as a step-by-step guide that includes the following elements:

• Introduction to ActionAid’s resilience thinking (to be adapted from existing documentation)
• Participatory vulnerability analysis embedded in ActionAid’s reflection action methodology (to be adapted from existing but not complete documentation)
• Power analysis (to be adapted from existing documentation)
• Resilience planning with separate chapters on disaster risk reduction, climate resilience sustainable agriculture, access to land, water and other natural resources, women’s right, access to quality public services (e.g. health care, education), responsive and inclusive governance, policy influencing and campaigning, humanitarian response, resilience in conflict (subject to further discussion).
• Integrated resilience programming Women and women’s rights are at the centre of all our analysis and work, and therefore, this needs to be reflected in the toolkit. We also would like the toolkit to be applicable to both rural and urban contexts. The above is a proposed outline and will be agreed upon in consultation with the consultant. The consultant will report to ActionAid International’s Project Manager–Resilience and work closely with key resilience staff of ActionAid Bangladesh.

Deliverable

We expect a user-friendly toolkit in English that is of high quality and of relevance to both internal and external audiences of development and humanitarian partners. It should come up with clear guidance on developing integrated resilience programming at practice and policy level. Each chapter will include a list of recommended resources/reading. The toolkit also needs to include a bibliography of external and internal documents consulted. The consultant will be expected to develop the toolkit with help of existing ActionAid documentation, interviews with key staff, external resources, and his/her own experience, expertise and creativity. Please note that field visits are not part of this assignment.

Expected duration

The toolkit must be completed in no more than 25 days to be delivered by the second week of August 2016.

Work location

The Consultant will be home based with occasional visits to the ActionAid office in London or Dhaka (if consultant would be based in the UK or Bangladesh).

Education & certifications

Master degree in a multidisciplinary study such as development studies, urban planning, sociology, environmental or conflict studies (candidates with a Bachelor degree will only be considered in case they are able to demonstrate extensive experience and expertise in resilience programming and/or policy).

Knowledge & Experience

• Technical expertise in resilience as well as a multidisciplinary background to make the necessary linkages with a range of areas of work.
• Strong understanding of women’s rights
• Demonstrated experience with developing toolkits, manuals and/or guidelines.
• Ability to conceptualise and understand new subjects outside the formal education and working experience.
• Strong analytical and writing (in English) skills, including the ability to present complex issues clearly and concisely.
• Creative - you can think outside the box!
• Working experience with a variety of international agencies.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and resourcefulness.
• Knowledge of relevant Microsoft office software.
• Experience working in developing countries.
• Familiar with adult learning.
• Some experience with ActionAid will be a plus.