Research Consultancy – Mapping of the Aid Ecosystem in Lebanon

Expertise France is the French public international cooperation agency. It designs and implements projects which aim to contribute to the balanced development of partner countries, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda and the priorities of France’s external action. Expertise France’s mission is to meet the demand of partner countries seeking to enhance the quality of their public policies in order to address the environmental, social, economic and security challenges they are facing. The agency achieves this goal by implementing projects in the main areas of public action:

• Democratic, economic and financial governance;
• Stability, international security and peace Stability, international security and peace
• Sustainable development, climate and agriculture
• Health and human development

SHABAKE project background

Funded by l’Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Denmark’s development cooperation (Danida), the Shabake Project was designed within the framework of the localization of aid agenda and the need to strengthen Lebanese NGO capacities so that local recipients can take the lead in responding to crises generally and to the Syrian-refugee crisis in Lebanon specifically.

The project aims to support seven Lebanese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to become lasting, key players in mitigating and ameliorating the effects of the Syrian refugee crisis on Lebanon.

The selected beneficiary NGOs will receive funding and expert assistance for their own-capacity-building plan. They will also have an opportunity to put their new institutional changes into practice via a humanitarian project that reduces vulnerabilities. In addition, each NGO partner will be invited to meet and directly interact with donors, aid providers, and public authorities working in the development-aid ecosystem.

To this end, the Shabake capacity-reinforcement project is divided in three main components:

• Component 1: Building on the strengths, assets, capacities, and skills of the local Lebanese NGOs selected for a grant award.
• Component 2: Having each NGO partner implement a crisis-response project to reduce vulnerabilities.
• Component 3: Improving and/or integrating the participation of NGO partners in the development-aid ecosystem through networking events, knowledge exchange, and the promotion of a localization framework for Lebanon

This consultancy exists within Component 3 of the Shabake project. Expertise France is seeking the services of a consultant who will conduct an in-depth mapping study around the status of civil society organizations within the aid-ecosystem in Lebanon, with the purpose of better understanding the current landscape, its primary stakeholders and their respective roles and contributions or participation in the localization agenda. Emphasis will be placed on the civil society landscape and their perspective with regards to access to support and funding as local and national responders in crisis.

The consultant can be one entity applying alone or can indicate its intention to partner with other entities in the study. If the entity plans on partnering with others (academic institutions/universities/ research centers/service providers/NGOs etc), this needs to be indicated in the application.

The overall objective of the consultancy is to conduct a mapping study around the aid-ecosystem in Lebanon and identifying stakeholders among the donor community that are invested in the localization of aid in Lebanon and interested in working towards a common national approach. This study will lend to the drafting of a multi-donor framework for localization and capacity building among grand bargain signatories in Lebanon. It will also serve as a baseline for the planned midterm and final evaluations of component 3 of the Shabake project.

The specific objectives of the consultancy are the following:

1. To explore current trends and initiatives within the localization agenda in Lebanon, and progress of grand bargain signatories towards global localization targets
2. To identify the primary capacity building needs of civil society organizations in Lebanon and explore past, ongoing and planned capacity building initiatives (5-year range) in addition to identifying gaps and challenges to their implementation
3. To identify current national coordination platforms, forums and networks in Lebanon among local NGOs, and between local NGOs, governmental entities and donors, and to understand the extent of participation/leadership of local NGOs in these settings
4. To identify the primary income streams for local NGOs, and the proportion of which are received from international funds (whether direct, through pooled funds, or single intermediaries)
5. To understand the barriers that prevent local NGOs from accessing funding sustainably and partnering directly with institutional donors and international agencies
6. To identify grand bargain signatories in Lebanon that can be potential partners to take part in the activities within Component 3 of the Shabake project
7. To design a 2-year action plan for the implementation of the 3rd component of the Shabake project