Request for Proposal for Communication and Story Telling Consultant

1. About the Aga Khan Development Network

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a network of private, non-denominational development agencies that share a mission to improve the living conditions and opportunities for marginalised communities across 30 countries in Africa and Asia. Through innovative, community-driven solutions that span social, economic, and cultural dimensions, AKDN agencies aim to holistically improve quality of life.

AKDN’s education goal is to ensure all girls. boys, women, and men, are equipped with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to help them interact effectively with the world and be contributing members of a pluralistic society. AKDN assumes a holistic and systems approach to education programming ensuring all interventions are globally informed, locally rooted, are embedded in government and community interests and structures, and work to promote social inclusion, equity, and pluralism. AKDN invests in all sectors of the formal education systems, from pre-primary to tertiary, as well as in other formal and informal life-long learning opportunities, including teacher professional development. AKDN education agencies operating in East Africa are the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and its affiliate, the Madrasa Early Childhood Programme (MECP), Aga Khan University (AKU), Aga Khan Academies (AKA), and Aga Khan Education Services (AKES).

1. About the Aga Khan Foundation

AKF seeks sustainable solutions to long-term problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and ill-health, with special emphasis on the needs of rural communities in mountainous, coastal, and other resource-poor areas. In East Africa, AKF responds to local and regional priorities by developing and implementing effective programming, measuring, and documenting results and sharing lessons with governments, donors, and development actors to influence policy and practice. AKF operates a multi-sectoral portfolio that includes programming in Education, Economic Inclusion, Civil Society, Health and Early Childhood Development. Gender Equality is a cross cutting theme in the portfolio. AKF will be the primary interlocutor for this assignment but engaging all AKDN education agencies in the process will be critical.

1. About Foundations for Learning

Foundations for Learning (F4L) is a five-year (2020-2025) project co-funded by Global Affairs Canada and AKF and implemented by AKDN education agencies, that will improve the educational systems at the pre-primary and primary level, in addition to strengthening women’s empowerment, and gender equality in three countries: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. F4L will strengthen the delivery of quality, gender-responsive, and inclusive pre-primary and primary education, and other social development services and reduce gender and social barriers to the utilisation and uptake of education and other sustainable development services. Together, F4L’s interventions will address the gender, social, cultural, and economic barriers that women and girls face in accessing education, making life decisions, and improving their equitable learning outcomes as key steps to exercise their basic human rights.

Critical to F4L is the promotion of data-driven decision making that builds on evidence collected through the project and will enable stakeholders to support inclusion, gender equity, and pluralism within the education ecosystem. To this end, F4L is seeking a Communications and Story Telling consultant to use the evidence collected through the grant and develop content for communication products to reach its key stakeholders. Through this process, the consultant is also expected to co-design a unified story of AKDN’s work under F4L that will demonstrate impact and expertise in the education ecosystem across East Africa.

1. Purpose and Objectives of the Assessment

AKDN aims to engage a Communications and Story Telling Consultant that will:

• Undertake a comprehensive desk review of research done under F4L including the situation analyses, rapid gender analysis, and baseline reports.
• Develop a differentiated communication strategy to communicate critical messages to diverse audiences across the pre-primary and primary education ecosystem: National Government bodies; Local Government Authorities; School Leaders; Teachers; Parents, and Children.
• Present and advise AKDN on messages and communication pathways for these. Incorporate feedback where relevant.
• Develop content matter for creative, innovative, high-impact communication products to communicate these messages based on the differentiated communication strategy across the three target countries (Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda).
• Based on understanding of the current situation and objectives of F4L, co-create the narrative and strategy AKDN needs to develop to tell a compelling story by the end of the project. This will need to elevate diverse voices and perspectives from across the education ecosystem.

1. Key deliverables

The deliverables of this consultant will include the following:

1. Segregated communication strategy: A final document detailing the key messages and channels of communication for diverse audiences across the three countries.
2. Communication Content for digital/non-digital high-impact, creative communication products.
3. F4L Long-Term Narrative: A final document detailing the unified F4L narrative with a recommendation of stakeholder profiles to be tracked
4. Work Plan

Activity Deadline

Inception Meeting————————————–23rd January 2023

Key Communication Messages———-To be completed by applicant

Draft Communication Products———–To be completed by applicant

Final products alongside the F4L Narrative———-22nd March 2023

1. Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of experience in communications, including regionally

• Demonstrated experience working with different media and communication formats

• Experience working with design agencies to delivery high impact visuals is a must

• Familiarity with AKDN and/or the education sector would be desirable

1. Criteria for selection

All submissions will be assessed on the following criteria:

• Technical proposal 40%
• Technical experience 30%
• Value for Money 30%