Terms of Reference for a consultant to develop a long-term operations and maintenance strategy for WASH for Addis Ababa Schools

ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND

Splash International (Splash) is a US-based an independent and non-profit humanitarian organization that advances in dedicating to bringing water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) solutions to children living in urban setting in Asia and Africa, improving their health and development through sustainable and scalable WASH solutions. Our innovative and collaborative WASH model aims for 100% coverage of a given geography by harnessing schools as the nexus for change. Splash's innovation will bring self-sustaining WASH services to every public school in Addis Ababa by 2022, while laying the groundwork for rapid replication of WASH-in-schools across Ethiopia’s major cities and beyond. Presently, Splash international is implementing project WISE (WASH in Schools for Everyone) in 11 sub-cities of Addis Ababa city Administration. The project is being implemented in partnership with the Addis Ababa City Administration Bureaus of Education, Finance, Construction, Health, and targeted school management.

II. BACKGROUND TO THE ASSIGNMENT Installation and maintenance of WASH infrastructure is a large part of Splash’s work in schools. Splash has a standard package of WASH infrastructure interventions that we install at schools, including water filtration systems, rehabilitation or new construction of sanitation facilities, water storage, and handwashing and drinking water stations. And Splash’s work does not stop with installation; our in-house operations and maintenance (O&M) team provides two years of O&M support to every school after our initial work is complete. Over the last few years, we have built Splash’s capacity to implement and maintain WASH infrastructure work at scale in Addis Ababa. We are now at a critical juncture where we need to identify high quality, affordable third-party service provider and spare part supply chain options that we can link schools with so that they can successfully maintain WASH infrastructure supplying filter spare parts once our two-year support period is up. We anticipate that third-party options could include government or private sector stakeholders.

To help us move forward with this critical scope of work, Splash is looking to hire an experienced individual consultant in Ethiopia with general knowledge of WASH infrastructure, the ability to research and understand local spare part supply chain and maintenance service provider options for WASH infrastructure, and the ability to liaise with government and the private sector on Splash’s behalf as we

investigate and test different third-party service O & M provider and local spare part supply chain options. Please note that any work around financing for O&M or creating an enabling environment to support O&M is separate from this engagement; Splash recognizes that these are part of a successful O&M strategy but is focusing on these aspects through separate scopes of work.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the assignment is to carry out study or trial in order to understand and identify the scope and scenario of public and private sectors in school-based WASH partnership or private management modality to make the service system functional and sustainable. The specific objectives of this study are:

•  To assess the enabling environment (political, legal, social, economic, and environmental) barriers in relation to private sectors engagement in school WASH business and water supply service management.
•  To assess and analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of school maintenance technicians, government, public private partnership, or private sectors engagement in WASH service provision towards improving the functionality and sustainability of school WASH infrastructures.
• To assess mechanisms that enhance school administration’s accountability towards functional and sustainable water supply and proper utilization services
•  To assess the role and efficacy of private sector towards functional supply chain for the functionality and sustainability of School WASH infrastructures.
• To develop O & M strategy towards affordable, accessible, manageable and sustainable school WASH infrastructure at public school in Addis Ababa.

SCOPE OF WORK

Over the course of two months, the selected consultant will be responsible for researching the existing spare part and service provider options for school WASH infrastructure in Addis Ababa, proposing 4-5 service provider O&M strategies for Splash, and assisting Splash to test out selected options. The full scope of work includes the following activities:

• Complete onboarding with Splash team to develop a thorough understanding of our WASH in Schools infrastructure model and learnings to date. Specifically, the consultant will:
•  Review Splash’s complete WASH infrastructure model.
•  Review Splash’s approach to O&M of WASH infrastructure at schools during the 2-year support period and discussion of current challenges and gaps.
•  Review Splash’s draft strategy for O&M and gain understanding of what we see as the key attributes of a successful strategy. In particular, getting a detailed understanding of what products/services need to be addressed by the O&M strategy will be key.
• Complete conversations with key Splash team members to understand the approach Splash has taken to O&M via third-party social enterprise partners in Asia
• With Splash, develop a tool to guide information gathering process that is focused on the key attributes that Splash needs to see from third-party service and spare part providers.
• Complete desk research and conversations with selected stakeholders; 3-5 Splash intervention schools and 2-3 schools yet to be reached by Splash in the coming year to understand existing options for service and spare parts for WASH infrastructure, gaps, and possibilities. This should be distilled into a research summary that is submitted to Splash. Splash will support the consultant to identify key stakeholders to include in the interview process.
• Develop list of recommendations for ways that Addis Ababa schools can receive affordable and sustainable service and spare parts for WASH infrastructure.
• Assist Splash to develop and execute a pilot program to test the recommendations at some in Addis Ababa.
• Analyze pilot program results and develop a final strategy recommendation for Splash.

METHODOLOGY

The freelance consultant is required to briefly present the methodological approach that he/she will undertake for the study and briefly elaborate on the study process, tools and data analysis and presentation methods. Upon signing of the contract, the freelance consultant, and Splash-Ethiopia will have an inception meeting to ensure that both have the same understanding of the study objectives, how these objectives are to be achieved, and when.

KEY DELIVERABLES

The following deliverables are expected from the consultant in due process of the assignment:

• Inception Report: the consultant shall submit an inception report within three days after signing of the agreement in line with the research methods, tools and work plan.
• Reporting: A draft report should be shared with Splash - Ethiopia for feedback.
• Final Strategy – The consultant will develop an operations and maintenance Strategy as a final out put of the assignment.

Employment Type: Contract (2 months)

Final report submission date: Two months after date of signing agreement

Job Requirements

QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE and SKILLS

• The individual consultant should have the following academic qualification and experience
• Master’s degree in education, Social Science (Sociology, Education and Development Studies, Business management) or related fields relevant to the assignment.
• Experience of conducting school WASH related evaluation and O & M research will be preferred.
• Experience on public, private partnership related work.
• Should be well acquainted with school based participatory planning as well as government planning system
• Experienced in child friendly and gender-sensitive approaches
• Demonstrated experience in conducting primary qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis.
• Experience with international development/NGO clients preferred
• Understanding of Ethiopian market dynamics required
• Experience engaging local stakeholders in Ethiopia required
• Strong report writing skills in English
• The freelance consultant must maintain consistency and efficiency throughout the engagement

How to Apply

Send your relevant CV/resume to Ruhama@splash.org on or before March 04, 2022.

Note: In the subject line, please indicate “operations and maintenance strategy for WASH for Addis Ababa Schools”.