1. General Background
This consultancy is based in the Water Supply and
Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), hosted by UNOPS. Founded in 1990,
WSSCC is a membership organization, based on individual membership. WSSCC’s mission is to ensure sustainable
sanitation, better hygiene and safe drinking water for all people, especially
the poorest and most marginalized members of society in developing countries.
In order to achieve its mission, WSSCC manages the Global Sanitation Fund (GSF),
facilitates sector coordination at national, regional and global levels,
supports professional development, and advocates on behalf of the 2.5 billion
people without a clean, safe toilet to use. More information on WSSCC can be
found at: www.wsscc.org.
2. Background and Scope of Assignment
Through the GSF; WSSCC supports large scale
grants in Africa and Asia designed to increase access to sanitation through
collective behaviour change, often based on Community-Led Total Sanitation
(CLTS). It works to achieve a situation where all
people use appropriate sanitation and hygiene services in an affordable,
accessible, safe, and sustainable manner. GSF currently supports
country-programmes in 11 countries, with additional programmes under
development. The first GSF-supported programmes became operational in 2010/11,
with the youngest programmes starting implementation in 2014/15. Three key
concepts for GSF are scale, sustainability and equality.
Scale: Programmes are designed
for scale and intend to inspire or catalyse exponential growth. The GSF’s
Theory of Change (ToC) stipulates that programmes should target entire
administrative areas, rather than pockets of communities. Programmes should
also inspire local commitment and build local systems and capacity, therewith
strengthening country systems. A core feature of many GSF-supported programmes
in this respect is the variety of Institutional Triggering approaches and
activities being implemented and perfected.
Sustainability: Programmes are based on collective behaviour change approaches
but need to ensure sustained access to and use of basic sanitation facilities
and progression towards safely managed sanitation. Factors influencing
sustainability include the presence and strength of local systems, the quality
of sanitation facilities and services, and the level of inclusiveness of
programming. A number of different
approaches and methodologies have been developed and replicated to address
sustainability issues, such as the Follow-Up Mandona originating from the
GSF supported programme in Madagascar and currently used in 7 countries.
Equality: In order to better understand whether and how GSF-supported
programmes adequately addressed issues linked to equality and
non-discrimination, in 2016/17 the GSF undertook a large scale ' Scoping and Diagnosis of GSF's Approach to EQND' and has since made a number of programmatic adaptation to better
ensure substantive equality and inclusion, among others through a training
course and Handbook on EQND in CLTS.
Over the past decade, WSSCC has also built up a
strong programme on Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM). WSSCC’s approach to MHM
seeks to address the sanitation and hygiene needs of women and girls by
approaching menstrual hygiene as a catalyzing entry point to break the silence
and address gender inequality and injustice in WASH and beyond. In order to do
so, WSSCC works with a range of government ministries and other national and
international stakeholders to address the enabling environment for MHM, and
supports partners at sub-national levels to incorporate MHM messaging and
programming into ongoing WASH-related programmes. Capacity building focuses on breaking the
silence; sharing knowledge about how to manage menstruation hygienically and
various options for safe reuse and disposal solutions. While some GSF-supported
programmes have integrated MHM messaging into their work, especially at
schools, this is not yet widespread and WSSCC is learning and documenting its
experiences in this regard.
In line with the above, WSSCC undertakes a
range of activities to strengthen country programmes and build capacity of
implementing partners. This includes trainings, learning events and processes
such as real-time learning, country exchanges, and peer-to-peer reviews, as
well as strengthening of M&E.
This assignment seeks to identify individuals,
based in the global South, who have built extensive experience in and
understanding of the various facets of collective sanitation behaviour change
programming and/or MHM and can share this experience through facilitation of
trainings, technical support assignments, and regional exchanges with other programmes.
The focus will be on approaches to improve
quality, increase sustainability, ensure equality and non-discrimination, and
integrate MHM as a key aspect of EQND and entry point to address inclusion of
women and girls. Depending on individual strengths and experience, resource
persons recruited against this ToR will become technical advisors and Trainers
of Trainers on some or several approaches such as Follow-Up Mandona,
Institutional Triggering, EQND in CLTS, and/or MHM, and will support countries
in their region and possibly beyond. This does not entail full-time employment,
but rather, individuals would be offered retainer contracts or short-term
assignments based on availability and need.