International development - inclusive education programme: call for proposals

Annex A: Eligibility and Assessment Criteria

1. Legal Personality

Applicant Organisations must have a legal personality (i.e. a SCIO, a Registered company).

Applications submitted by a consortium must include a lead organisation. There must be a named Project Manager who will liaise with the Scottish Government, as and when required.

2. Knowledge and experience, expertise and operational capability relevant to the delivery of Strand 1 or/and Strand 2 across our three partner countries (Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia.

See criteria below.

Knowledge & Experience (Weighting 25%)

(Both Strands)

• Access to education for girls, women and disabled learners, in our partner countries (Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia) or in comparable contexts.
• Participatory design and implementation of inclusive education projects in our partner countries (Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia) or in comparable contexts.
• Government or multilateral education initiatives or projects (for example UN-family organisations, World Bank or the Global Partnership for Education or similar).

Technical Expertise and Operational Capability (Weighting 25%)

(Both Strands)

• Relevant operational experience in (within last five years) in at least one of our partner countries.
• Expertise in participatory design, delivery and management of multi-country programmes in contexts comparable with our partner countries.
• Expertise in inclusive education, safeguarding^[29], gender mainstreaming (see our Guidance Note), disability inclusion and (for Strand 2 applications only) the management of scholarship schemes.
• Expertise in working with marginalised groups (e.g. people with disabilities).
• Expertise in managing relevant stakeholder networks and knowledge exchange in our partner countries (or comparable contexts). This should include evidence of capacity for creating and facilitating links between relevant communities of practice in partner countries and in Scotland.
• Experience of adaptive project management and appropriate oversight for multi-country projects.

Monitoring Evaluation & Learning (Weighting 20%)

(Both Strands)

Experience and expertise in designing and implementing monitoring, learning and evaluation processes in education sector contexts, including implementation of ethical and participatory approaches.

Governance and Finance (Weighting 15%)

(Both Strands)

Capability in putting in place robust management, budgetary and financial control and governance arrangements, including quality assurance and exit strategy, and robust fraud and safeguarding policies and processes.

Risk Management (Weighting 15%)

(Both Strands)

Capability in identifying, assessing, and mitigation of risks throughout the lifecycle of the programme, including safeguarding and financial risks.

Applicants should also be aware of the Scottish International Development Strategy, the evolution of our approach to international development through the outcomes of our 2020/21 Review (see Background section above and our ID Review webpage) and our new International Strategy, as well as the sectoral education plans in each of our three African partner countries.

3. Exit strategy

The outcomes of the Programme should be as sustainable as possible. We expect applicants to outline an exit strategy, which may include how elements of the Programme will be sustainable beyond the provision of direct funding.

4. Delivery & Harmonisation

We encourage the grant holder to consider good practice in delivery and expenditure of development funding. The Paris Declaration aims to set out a range of measures that will allow aid to be more effective, with less duplication of effort and much more focus on government programmes in developing countries.

• The Paris Declaration sets out a list of partnership commitments (and indicators of progress) to which donors and partner (recipient) countries will adhere. It commits donors to align their support to partner countries’ programmes (including Poverty Reduction Strategies), as well as committing partner countries to strengthen their own capacity (including financial management).
• The Paris Declaration (OECD, 2005)^[30] also commits donors to ‘harmonisation’, i.e. donors should work together to reduce duplication of effort. This could involve joint working, using common mechanisms for planning, funding, reporting, etc and might even lead to particular donors taking a lead in areas where they have particular expertise. We expect these principles to be considered in the design of all project plans.