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Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Consultancy Opportunity : Capacity Building Support to Ghana Urban Water Limited


TERMS OF REFERENCE
Capacity Building Support to GUWL

WSUP is supporting GUWL in strengthening the organization’s ability to deliver water supply services to low income urban consumers. The benefits to the consumers will be more reliable, more affordable and safer water services. The benefits to GUWL will be increased revenues as well as improved operational performance through the reduction of non-revenue water (NRW).
Specifically, WSUP is supporting GUWL in the establishment of a Low Income Consumer (LIC) unit to be tasked with defining and implementing policy and oversight in relation to water supply provision to low income urban consumers.

2.    Objective of Assignment
This assignment will support GUWL to plan the development of the Low Income Consumer (LIC) Unit. The assignment targets WSUP’s Strategic Objective 2 (SO2), namely to strengthen local and national institutional capacity for improving water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services to the urban poor.

3.    Scope
The work shall be undertaken by a local Organisational Development consultant, who will be supported by periodic review and advice from an international specialist in the same field (to be made available by WSUP under a separate contract).
The work will be executed in close collaboration with GUWL, and shall build upon their document “Strengthening the capacity of GUWL to deliver water services to low income communities” (Faustina Boachie, January 2013).
Specifically, the Consultant shall support GUWL to:
  1. Acquaint itself with international good practice, by means of an organised study tour for up to 3 GUWL staff to an established LIC Unit in Kampala, Uganda (to be funded by WSUP).
  2. By particular reference to Accra and Kumasi, document a summary appreciation of the market for water services in low income urban areas in Ghana, in terms of present and projected levels of demand, how these are currently met and the costs per litre paid by low income communities in obtaining sufficient water for their needs. The appreciation should include an estimate of the financial impact of ill-health caused when water needs are met from poor quality sources.
  3. Identify the key constraints that are preventing full service coverage to LIC and that can be addressed by GUWL
  4. Prepare terms of reference for the LIC Unit, including:
    1. Purpose and objectives;
    2. Key strategies;
    3. Alternative organisational structures, including GUWL policy changes required to set up the unit in each case, along with the implications for decision making processes and for working with other departments across the organisation, for consideration and selection by GUWL;
    4. Resourcing plan for the preferred structure;
    5. Performance assessment criteria;
    6. Prepare specific job descriptions for the key LIC posts;
    7. Staff/team training and development needs, and how these will be achieved
    8. List of the key policies that GUWL needs to develop relating to LIC services, e.g. connection policy and process, customer services, financing of infrastructure, pricing, permitted service models, contracting types and institutional arrangements, service monitoring, LIC mapping and project coordination etc. 
  5. Prepare a budget for establishing and running the LIC Unit for one year, and identify possible sources of funding;
  6. Build on (i) and (iv) above to present the case for setting up an LIC Unit, that  quantifies its running costs, the increase in business and revenue that will accrue to GUWL, the reduction in unit costs for water paid by low income consumers and the alleviated financial impacts of ill-health caused by bad water;
  7. Prepare a communication plan to disseminate the LIC Unit business case, purpose and strategy internally in GUWL and externally in the sector
  8. Report

4.    Technical approach and methodology
In addition to collaborating closely with GUWL and taking into account their work to date on strengthening their capacity to deliver water services to low income consumers, information shall be collated from:
·        Document review, including the review of relevant institutional management and financial documents such as administrative manuals, personnel manual, documentation on work processes, financial manuals, budgets and financial statements, the GAMA project situational analysis, international good practice in relation to establishing and maintaining LIC units, and other documents relevant to the assignment.  This will help understand the work context, and prepare questions for the institutional review and financial planning, which will be shared and finalized in the inception meeting.
·        Inception meeting with LIC Manager to finalise the assignment methodology
·        Interviews with central and regional GUWL staff, representatives from consumers, other related government agencies, development agencies and NGOs.
·        Consultation meetings and focus group discussions to supplement the data gathering process.
·        The review findings including the proposed institutional framework for the LIC unit and its key objectives and strategies will be shared with the various levels of GUWL including regional and central staff through holding seminars and workshops.


An interim report shall be produced within 6 weeks of commencement, setting out the results of steps (i), (ii) and (iii) a-c above, to inform discussion of alternative organisational structures and thus aid selection of a preferred model.

A draft final report will be produced 16 weeks after commencement, comprising:
  • A description of the work done, key findings and how adduced
  • The business case, first year budget and communication plan for the LIC Unit (items iv-vi above)
  • Complete terms of reference for the LIC Unit, including all aspects identified in (iii)a-(iii)g above

6.    Work plan and timeline
Date for submitting proposals:                                   24 May 2013
Date for commencement of assignment                 10 June 2013
Date for completion of assignment:                         20 September 2013

7.      Submission of proposals
Proposals for the assignment must be submitted to the contacts below on or before May 24, 2013.
Proposals must comprised of a Technical and Financial proposal, with a detailed workplan defined in the Technical proposal.


8.      Reporting
In Ghana the Consultant shall report to the WSUP Country Programme Manager, ibmusah@wsup.com and Faustina Boachie, faustina.boachie@ghanawater.info.The Consultant will also liaise closely with the appointed person from GUWL. 

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