Organization

Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) is the lead apex institution for community-driven development in the country. Set up by the Government of Pakistan as an autonomous not-for-profit organization, PPAF enjoys facilitation and support from the Government of Pakistan, The World Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), KfWEntwicklungsbank (Development Bank of Germany) and other statutory and corporate donors. PPAF aims to be the catalyst for improving the quality of life, broadening range of opportunities and socio-economic mainstreaming of the poor and disadvantaged, especially women. As a wholesaling intermediary, PPAF funds multi-sector civil society as well as private sector organizations through a network of more than 100 Partner Organizations across the country. The core programmatic units of PPAF deliver a range of development interventions to strengthen the institutional capacity of civil society organizations, and support the creation of organizations of the poor, that can work together to alleviate poverty and achieve MDGs at the grass root level. Externally commissioned independent studies have demonstrated positive outcomes and impact of PPAF interventions on the lives of benefiting communities related to their economic output, household incomes, assets, agricultural productivity skills, other quality of life indices and disaster management.

Background and Rationale

Over the years, PPAF has invested significantly in community based socio-economic development to attain its objectives. Towards the end of PPAF III, much has been achieved; community based structures have been created, basic capacities strengthened, infrastructure upgraded, asset base increased, and advances have been made in access to livelihood support and other services. Establishment and institutional capacity development of local community-based structures is among the key achievements of PPAF over the past years. By and large, PPAF has been successful in empowering the members of the local community institutions in various areas of the country, including in many conflict-ridden and conflict-prone districts.

Parts of Pakistan are facing or are at the risk of facing various distinct but inter-related conflicts. These conflict zones and at-risk areas are ridden with tensions that in turn lead to violence and bitter clashes amongst the communities. Forces of extremism and radicalization that thrive on sowing seeds of discord in the society to create anarchy and chaos, and to back roll development and social advancement made in the country, are spreading their sphere of influence by penetrating deep and wide at the grassroots level. The result: devastating impact on human security, the social fabric, which has historically been diverse and tolerant torn apart; abuses of fundamental rights, slow erosion of provision of public goods and services, high economic costs, and millions of Pakistanis struggling to keep bare minimum of their survival.

Development organisations like PPAF have worked for decades to uplift socio-economic conditions of the vulnerable and deprived communities. The gains made over these decades of work are today threatened by the conflict. Almost 40% of PPAF operational areas (80 district)[1]have been affected by the emerging conflict and fragility. Operations had had to be halted. Several places local populations became displaced and new barriers to work with women emerged. PPAF, thus has decided to mobilise the tremendous potential of the local institutions and built their capacity to play a role in protecting the benefits and gains of its work. This will require consolidating the work done with local institutions and building new skills and knowledge to take them to the next stage, which will enable them to remain effective in pursuing the agenda of positive change and social harmony in the changing security landscape of the country.

At the same time it is recognised that local institutions are not a-political bodies, their members are part of the local communities, in which conflict has successfully permeated and created social fault lines amongst groups by exploiting the ‘politics of identity’, who for generation had lived with relative harmony and social cohesion. However, since these bodies have been sensitised to the value of social harmony to create ‘win-win’ conditions for all groups of people living in their respective communities, it will be relatively speaking less daunting challenge to work with them to recognise the far reaching consequences of not working on building durable and transformative peace and promoting pluralism. This will require building a new level of confidence and courage together with skills and knowledge of the local institutions so that they are equipped to use development agenda and processes to counter the forces of radicalised extremism.

Being cognisant of the above, PPAF is looking to prepare a background study to analyse approaches of ‘Transformative Peace and Pluralism’ processes, so as to develop a strategy for building resilient and peaceful communities The strategic intent of ‘Transformative Peace and Pluralism Initiative’ would be ‘enhancing resilience of PPAF target communities through protecting and celebrating diversity – the core essence of our collective national identity – both as a means and an end to achieving transformative peace building. The means for this would be the developmental agenda of PPAF. This Initiative can help to minimize growing socio-economic disparities, avoid polarization, build social cohesion using positive force-multipliers of common and shared heritage, and create social capital by leveraging existing and emerging social networks in our society. Ultimately, and over time this work should lead to creation of a resilient, active and matured civil society, and an aware and equally resilient community. Potential impacts on state institutions, especially at local levels would also be identified. And to durable mechanisms guaranteeing stability, peace, justice, and human security as entitlement and right enjoyed equally by all citizens. This makes peace and pluralism both a long-term transformative peace building process and a long-term development initiative that includes strengthening of political governance through engagement and strengthening the role of local institutions in this regard.

The process of developing the background study will be designed to benefit from strategies developed and used for similar purposes in either Pakistan and/or outside by the development organisations. Besides, it will be broad-based to allow consultations with the major stakeholders. It is envisioned that by mobilizing the organisational strengths of the local institutions (chiefly their relationships with the local communities based on mutual trust as well as their credibility due to the good past track record of services and governance) their capacity and required capabilities can be strengthened to mainstream promotion of transformative peace and pluralism through PPAF programmatic work. PPAF aims to pilot the mainstreaming approach in 4 selected districts that are facing variations of existing conflict or insecurity, using a criteria that would help to show some success, conduct a review of the pilots based on the outcomes (lessons learnt and best practice) of the pilot phase, before scaling up this mainstreaming approach across the country in all its work.

For the mainstreaming of transformative peace and pluralism, bulk of the work will be done in partnership with the Community Organisations, Village Organisations (VOs) and Union Council-based Organisations.

As said earlier new barriers to working with local community women have emerged, creating new challenges and risks for local institutions and intermediary partners of PPAF. Women, unfortunately, have become more vulnerable in the conflict areas. Their rights and needs have been pushed to the periphery as these are traded as a bargaining chip by extremist and radicalised and reactionary forces against development agenda, social cohesion and a pluralistic society. It is, therefore, anticipated that a central focus of the work of the local institutions, under the new strategy to mainstream transformative peace and pluralism, will be on protecting and advancing needs, priorities and rights of the local community women.

Similarly, youth in many areas are now engaged significantly in activities that reflect growing dissatisfaction with the status quo, and are also being co-opted into situations that lead to strife and conflict. Traditional leadership and decision-making roles are being bypassed (such as jirgas where village elders would be decision-makers) and this process is furthering creating chasms and divisions within communities. While there is always room for improvement in traditional roles, it is essential to begin engaging youth constructively in community building processes.

The Institutional Development (ID) unit of PPAF intends to engage an individual consultant for the work assignment, using single source procurement procedure.

Objectives of the Study

• To develop a background study on transformative peace and pluralism processes that can guide the development of an overall PPAF strategy on peace and pluralism;
• To provide options for developing pilots in 4 districts across provinces, based on a variety of conflict/insecurity situations, with POs and community institutions (all 3 tiers)
• To undertake a capacity needs assessment of PPAF and its selected POs (for 4 districts) and to develop a capacity building plan for successful implementation of the pilots.

Scope of the Consultancy

• The lessons learnt by PPAF have been an essential starting point of this exercise pertaining the genesis, growth and experiences of the three tier community institutional structures to date, cases of success and failure, regional disparities and differences and an ambition to broaden their role further.
• The process of background study research and development is proposed to include, but not necessarily limited to, the following proposed actions:
• A mapping of the conflict zones and at-risk areas of the country, undertaking an analysis to understand historical and contemporary primary root causes and drivers of the conflict
• Review of where we are/the current position, issues faced by the communities, particularly women and youth, as a direct consequence of the conflict
• Study the best practices and lessons learnt, from models and approaches of mainstreaming promotion of transformative peace and pluralism, from within and outside the country, which are developed and used by organizations with mandates similar to PPAF and assess their replicability and adaptability for Pakistan’s conditions
• Identify potential opportunities for PPAF engagement in this area of work based on the above analysis as well as stakeholders consultations and recommendations for the future.

Following four level of analysis will guide the background study work:

Community level:

• Provide an updated context analysis of the communities where PPAF is working, asking questions such as have the conditions under which people, particularly poor, women, youth and minorities, living in the community significantly changed since the beginning of the last programme phase and how that ought to affect the design of PPAF future programme/s .
• Local perceptions regarding ground realities, e.g. economy, security situation, other available programme initiatives, and changes in people’s awareness, attitudes and practices will form a part of this analysis.

Local Institutions level:

• Current position of the three tier institutions, identifying strengths and gaps in their existing capacity particularly with reference to playing a leading role in mainstreaming transformative peace and pluralism in all sectors of PPAF work, implemented in their respective communities. (Use Emerging Roles of Community Institutions study as a base, along with other sector wide studies that look at this phenomenon)
• The evolving role of community institutions and of social mobilization in promoting transformative peace and pluralism in conflict zones and at-risk areas. Alongside their related future needs will also be explored - e.g. in income generation/livelihoods, civic engagement and advocacy, empowerment and impacts on existing power relations (and vice versa), envisaged role of government / other stakeholders.
• Following from the above, identify what could be a realistic emerging role and shape of the three tier community institutions (each will have a niche and this niche needs to be identified and strengthened) and what impact it is likely to have on its structure, relationships, responsibilities, decision making, participation, accountability, financial management and resource mobilization. This in turn will help to evaluate the ability of these institutions to contribute in creating positive conditions at local level to mitigate/pre-empt/reduce forces promoting and maintaining local as well as wider conflicts, and to develop and sustain linkages with traditional forces/structures, markets/private and public sector in order to achieve peace in the area.

Sectors level:

• Review existing guidelines, tools and related institutional frameworks to identify areas where work will need to be developed and/or strengthened to effectively mainstream the theme of promoting transformative peace and pluralism through all the existing and future technical sectors / pillars of PPAF work.

Intermediary Partners level:

• Identify and shape the emerging role of PPAF partners as it relates to the proposed future strategy for promoting transformative peace and pluralism by mainstreaming this theme in all sectors of PPAF work.

Methodology

• This is an integrated qualitative assignment. It will use a range of methods and tools, including:
• Participatory community meetings with the three tiers of local institutions, focus group discussions, small group workshops, individual and group meetings, consultations with PPAF strategic level stakeholders, as appropriate.
• A desk research through review and analysis of literature and related materials (including relevant reports by PPAF and its partners).
• Stakeholders identification: certainly including PPAF, community organization tiers, federal and district/local government, main PPAF donors, POs, the market-entrepreneurs-employers, etc. See sampling below.
• A sample is to be worked out, particularly of the community tiers, POs and districts to be visited
• Districts will be selected in all 4 provinces and Gilgit-Baltistan/AJK, using purposive sampling method.
• POs will be selected by criteria such as geographical representation, size and type of operations (a mix of size and types of operations to be selected), etc.
• Community consultations/ focus groups ought to purposely include females, youth, poor and poorest, entrepreneurs, village (technically trained) ‘specialists’, etc., to ensure comprehensive input. These consultations will include households that are not represented by COs. In each district, consultations will be held with first, second and third tier institutions (on average 2 COs, including female COs wherever possible).
• Government officials/ elected representatives will also be consulted, in individual or group meetings.
• All levels of PPAF staff will be consulted, especially staff that directly works at district level.
• PPAF Board of Directors will be consulted through appropriate mechanism to solicit their input.

Deliverables

The consultant will undertake a review of the documentation, field travel and consultations with communities, partners and other stakeholders to develop a Background Study for Transformative Peace and Pluralism. This is a rolling assignment and is expected to take 9 months, and will be based on deliverables given below.

First Quarter:

• Inception report
• Consultation Methodology
• Field visits (including briefs on district visits)
• Draft report
• Final report
• Presentation of key findings

Second Quarter:

• Piloting of projects
• Capacity building of PPAF and Pos

PAF and Consultant’s Responsibilities

Background Paper:

• The Consultant will be responsible for preparing a Background Study for Transformative Peace and Pluralism derived from the consultative process. The Consultant’s responsibilities will include following specific tasks:

Documents review;

• Based upon documents review and meetings with PPAF management, preparation of Check-lists to guide discussions with different stakeholders and at different forums (community consultations, Focus Groups, meetings, external stakeholders, etc.);
• Facilitate group meetings with PPAF, and with PO staff at their head office or districts;
• Facilitate consultations with the three community tiers, in different districts;
• Meetings with key stakeholders, such as federal and district government departments and donors to get their input;
• Based upon the process outcomes, prepare a Background Study to guide the next phase of the PPAF programme and its operations in creating an environment of harmony in the respective areas.

Piloting of Peace and Pluralism in 4 districts:

• Providing support to PPAF and POs in designing pilots
• Capacity building of PPAF and PO staff
• Review of implementation

Review of Background Study:

• Findings of pilots to be basis of review of Background Study
• Final recommendations to PPAF for scaling up

Representatives of ID will:

• Provide essential administrative and logistics support to the Consultant;
• Coordination for internal and external meetings;
• Field travel will be facilitated by the PPAF and its partners, including arrangements of translators where necessary and needed as well as identification and contracting local field teams;
• Documentation, travel, accommodation and food costs will be paid separately and not included in the consultancy fees;
• The consultation process (external as well as internal) will be previously discussed by with GM ID, GH CQA and CEO PPAF. Questionnaires, if any, will be developed after prior consultation.

Qualification

• Master’s degree in Conflict Management with specialization in Peace Building or equivalent with at least 15 years of overall experience
• In depth understanding of the approach and strategy of the three tier community based organization structure; demonstrated through at least 5 years of prior experience with implementing agencies and in social mobilization and conflict resolution;
• Demonstrated skills in strategic planning, designing of pilots, and in analysis and research, especially in peace building as evidenced in the relevant projects the individual as worked for;
• Documented experience of facilitating participatory community consultations. As well as facilitating policy discussions with senior level officials;
• Experience of imparting training and capacity building on conflict and peace approaches and implementation at the field level
• Report writing skills for publication as referenced to the publications listed in the CV.

Duration

• The assignment is to be completed within a span of 9 months.

Institutional Arrangements and Reporting:

• The Consultant will report to the CEO PPAF, who will be supported by General Manger – Institutional Development Unit.