Introduction

This call for Expression of Interest is to establish a roster of Learning Partners in Asia Pacific Region for Education Out Loud Programme (EOL), the CSO advocacy and social accountability funding mechanism of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).

Education Out Loud is a fund for advocacy and social accountability that supports civil society to be active, representative, and influential in shaping education policy to better meet the needs of communities, especially of vulnerable and marginalized populations.

Activities supported by the learning partners selected from this expression of interest are expected to start in November 2021 based on the needs of EOL grantees.

Objectives

The overall Goal of EOL is to enhance civil society capacity to further GPE 2020 goals in learning, equity, and stronger systems, by improving the participation of civil society, their efforts to strengthen advocacy and to ensure transparency and increased effectiveness in national educational policy and implementation processes.

EOL has the following three objectives:

1. Strengthen national civil society engagement in gender responsive education planning, policy development and monitoring;
2. Strengthen civil society roles in promoting the transparency and accountability of national education sector policy and implementation; and
3. Create a stronger global and transnational enabling environment for national civil society advocacy and transparency efforts.

The Learning Agenda

EOL has a specific focus and interest on learning and capacity building of grantees in all three operational components relating to the three objectives: National Education Coalitions (NECs) funded under Operational Component 1, local and national CSOs funded under Operational Component 2 and CSO transnational alliances under OC3. Thus, learning is a core implementation strategy in all Operational Components of EOL with a focus on Capacity, Collaboration and Learning.

The Learning Agenda approach ai¬¬ms at supporting grantees in developing organizational, thematic and advocacy competences through capacity building, learning collaboratives and learning and adaptive management to enhance relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of program interventions. As part of the learning agenda, each grantee has developed a learning plan which outlines its learning needs and objectives and now require learning partners to facilitate the learning process. The Learning Partner will be responsible for designing and delivering capacity building initiatives and mentoring processes derived from the grantees learning plans.

Methodology

The selected learning partners will support the grantees on their specific learning priorities for capacity building and day to day implementation. Support should also include mentoring during project implementation and facilitating establishing and supporting learning collaboratives to promote sharing of learning among grantees.

The delivery of capacity building plans/initiatives will be done through two main approaches:

1. Online, electronic, digital delivery will be encouraged whenever possible due to Covid-19 restriction as well as to design cost effective strategies.
2. Physical/face to face delivery may be considered only when virtual support is not possible for specific region or the nature of support required./li>

Required qualification/competencies

• Demonstrate strong experience of working with CSOs, including alliances, coalitions and community-based civil society actors;
• Demonstrate strong expertise in relevant thematic or organizational fields;
• Presentation of strong grounding in global South;
• Capacity to work with the human rights based approach, differentiated analysis and gender perspective;
• Demonstrate experience of working in conflict or fragile contexts;
• Demonstrate an understanding of and experience of working with an adaptive learning agenda and participatory adult learning;
• Demonstrated expertise, competence and experience in conducting capacity building activities in transnational context; and
• Demonstrated expertise and experience in use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) to deliver capacity building initiatives

Please note, organizations/institutions receiving funding from Education Out Loud from any of the operational components (OC1, Oc2 or OC3) are not eligible to apply for this call.

The call

Oxfam Denmark invites application from expert organizations or institutions (NGOs, INGOs, Academic/Research, Consultancies, etc.) who will act as Learning Partners (LPs) to support capacity building of Grantees/Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the Asia and Pacific Region.

Education Out Loud currently supports grantees on diverse themes and coverages ranging from local civil society organizations to the network of the civil society organizations and transnational alliances. Selected learning partners will be expected to support the learning agenda implementation in one or more of the following priority areas:

• Evidence-based Advocacy
• High level policy influence such as parliamentarians’ committees
• Public policy analysis and monitoring
• Organizational strengthening: systems, policies, procedures
• Tax justice and budget analysis
• Project Management and Reporting
• Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)
• Knowledge management
• Communication Strategies and Media Engagement
• Social Accountability
• Fundraising and resource mobilization and sustainability
• Leadership development
• Gender equity
• Adaptive management
• Governance
• Education in Emergency

Please note that as learning agenda implementation is a live and interactive process, there will be periodic updates on grantee learning needs which will lead to updates to the above learning priorities as well and engagement with pre-qualified applicants as the learning partner from this call will progress on the need basis.

Submission details

Please use the proposal template to apply for the learning partner. Click here to download the application template.

Applications must be written in English and sent by email to jpa@oxfam.dk and copy in sar@oxfam.dk. Please mark ‘Application for Learning Partner’ in the subject line.

Application should be received by no later than 15th October 2021.

Please note: The learning partners already in the EOL Asia Pacific Regional Management Unit learning partner pool are not required to apply again.