Request for Proposal Village Good Governance Project In Southwest Sumba
In 2014, the Government of Indonesia issued Law Number 6/2014 on Village Law that changed the face of village management and commenced a new era of a change in power dynamics. The Law has decentralized the planning and budgeting process at the local level, where village government and its communities can plan and set budget for development processes and activities the respective communities prioritize. The national government has provided more rooms for villages to develop their own planning and budgeting through Dana Desa (Village Fund). Since its first year of implementation, there has been a significant increase of fund allocated for Dana Desa. In 2020, the Government of Indonesia has allocated funds in the amount of IDR 71.19 billion, a significant increase from its first-year allocation in 2015 (IDR 20.67 billion). This has put that in average each village now receive IDR 800 Million per year. Dana Desa has been a force in pushing the development process in the villages, mainly on infrastructure development and aiming to improve villagers’ quality of life and reducing poverty. The national government has put its commitment on implementing the Law by establishing the Ministry of Village, Development of Disadvantaged Areas and Transmigration to expedite village development. This ministry is tasked to plan, monitor and coordinating villages development. The implementation of the Law also has its own set of challenges – disconnect between planning at village and district level are often found, technical regulations for implementation guidance are not necessarily in sync and most importantly, not all villages has been able to respond to this Law and put them into use in their respective village. This is understandable, as there are 74,953 villages and each has its own development issues and priorities, and this rings especially true for Southwest Sumba.
Established in 2007, Southwest Sumba is one of the poorest districts in Eastern Indonesia with a population of 313,127 (2020 estimate), the highest compared to other districts on the island. The Southwest Sumba district faces an increasing number of those living below the poverty line which was at 28.06% in 2019[1]. Although it is a slight decrease from 2016 (30.63%), the number is significantly higher than the national average (9.78%, as per BPS report released in March 2020). The district government is also facing ongoing significant challenges in delivering basic services in health and education and in providing access to infrastructure such as large-scale public systems, services and facilities required for the district to facilitate commerce and other socio-economic activities.
There was a rapid village expansion (pemekaran) in Southwest Sumba between 2011 and 2016. This expansion was not accompanied by adequate knowledge and skills transfer to civil servants tasked to help and support the villages to be able to better manage themselves. Recent assessment carried out by the William & Lily Foundation (WLF) provides enlightenment on issues and challenges faced by the head of villages and its apparatus on basic knowledge and procedures for planning and budgeting development process as well as coordination with the higher level of governance to seek guidance and information (i.e., district and sub-district level). The assessment that was carried out in September 2020 resulted in findings in the following areas:
● Village Head and Apparatus – lack of knowledge and skills on the correct procedures of musrenbangdes processes and related laws has prevented them to be able to guard the process of village planning and prioritization of development sufficiently. A common consequence is that villagers’ proposals and input is not adequately considered or accommodated. Another challenge is village apparatus’ lack of knowledge and skills to facilitate and conduct planning and budgeting process has put them more dependent to Pendamping Desa.
● Incomplete village data – findings show that very few villages included in the assessment have these village documents available. Most of the interviewed officials said that they had these documents but were not able to locate or show the document. This is a critical finding as data is particularly important for a village to be able to develop a participatory and accountable planning and budgeting process. More importantly this will affect their planning and budgeting for providing basic services in education and health as well as identifying village’s potential income generating activities. Findings also suggest that village apparatus is not having sufficient skills to develop their respective village profile or map of potensi desa to be able to know their main products or assets for potential additional income generating activities, even the data collection process and procedure.
● Village planning – findings include village apparatus’ inability to describe its own village’s vision and mission statement that would potentially affect how they understand and manage its development. Another finding is that those that do have vision and mission statement or planning, do not always correspond to the district government’s “Tujuh Jembatan Emas Sumba Barat Daya” (Southwest Sumba’s Seven Golden Bridges) policy. This creates more disconnect between the village and the district government as well as potentially causing the delay of approving the village budget (APBDes)[2]. Especially now that the national government has rolled out the SDGs Villages, the communication and coordination between villages and district is becoming increasingly important as there is a greater need for district government to collect and aggregate data from the villages. Therefore, each party needs to ensure the process is done correctly.
● Limited coordination between district and villages – findings mention that district’s limited budget has prevented them to be able to reach all villages in Southwest Sumba. District’s roles to ensure that Dana Desa is used correctly is significant as they are tasked to develop local regulation to implement the national regulation stipulated by Ministry of Finance on Dana Desa allocation. This has left “unlucky” villages on their own with lack of guidance, while online communication is still a problem in some areas.
Analysis of the assessment identify several opportunities for intervention. WLF believes that villages can and should play greater role in improving human development outcomes and its population quality of life, particularly in ensuring delivery of basic services and in achieving the local, regional, and national development goals. The analysis suggests that village apparatus are generally very keen to improve their capacity in planning and budgeting but have not been properly accommodated by district government. There have been capacity building and mentoring to some extent from the government, but it was not planned for a long-term effort. The roll-out of SDGs Village by the Ministry of Village, Development of Disadvantaged Areas and Transmigration has put an even more significant of villages’ roles in the country development process. Especially that SDGs Village’s indicator #17 highlighting the partnership for village development that villages will have to start thinking about potential opportunities with other stakeholders for income generating activities, innovative approaches and more. The Government of Indonesia has also put additional village-specific indicator (#18) that highlight villages being adaptive and putting its local wisdom upfront. Therefore, a participatory and demand-driven village planning and budgeting is crucial now.
About WLF
The William & Lily Foundation (WLF) is a Jakarta-based philanthropic organization established in 2009. Our mission is to empower vulnerable and marginalized communities by bridging learning with access to opportunities. As an active grant-making foundation, we work closely with local implementation partners on four focus areas: education, health, economic empowerment and enabling environment.
Project Description
William & Lily Foundation plans to develop a project to address those issues in Southwest Sumba, focusing on improving village capacity for better planning and budgeting to improve participation and accountability to provide basic services to its communities. WLF is looking for interested organizations to propose an innovative and adaptive design and approach with consideration to current pandemic challenges as well as the Southwest Sumba context and culture. Proposal design should not be limited to address issues during project lifetime, but also narrating opportunities for scalability and sustainability beyond project’s lifetime.
The direct beneficiaries will be the village heads and village apparatus in the selected villages in Southwest Sumba, while also looking at opportunities to engage other related stakeholders as indirect beneficiaries (such as, but not limited to, community/religious leaders, pendamping desa, community-based organizations, etc.). The main approaches of this project would be capacity building for village heads and apparatus, advocacy to related stakeholders and facilitating sustainable engagement among the relevant stakeholders. WLF therefore seeks a non-individual consultant (professional organization/team of individuals under a legal entity) to design and implement this project.
Duration and Scope
This is foreseen as a two (2) year project with an optional one-year extension, with the first year focusing on laying the foundation of selected villages and finding a way for suitable methods and approaches to build the capacity of village heads and apparatus and to develop platform for participatory learning and sharing. Building from the first year, the second year will be focused on extracting the best practices and developing the strategy for scaling up.
Approaches
WLF does not provide funding for infrastructure support and instead focuses on leveraging existing assets and maximizing synergies. Hence, WLF believes in project interventions based on capacity building, establishing linkages and advocacy. The Foundation also believes that building ownership among local actors is one of key success of project intervention in order to ensure scalability and sustainability. The interested organizations are encouraged to develop their theory of change with the following thinking:
● Capacity Building through delivery of capacity building activities for village heads and apparatus and building awareness of the significance of improving village data (potensi desa), management skills and accountability and participatory process during planning and budgeting by taking into account the local wisdom and practices in Southwest Sumba
● Establishing Linkages through an initial mapping of key stakeholders in village development and follow up with building commitments to improve village capacity and build the basis for multi-stakeholder’s dialogue and find ways to address issues on basic services in the villages. It is therefore very important for interested organizations to have a clear strategy and approaches on how to tie these commitments and how to maintain it throughout the project and beyond. With this thinking, the Foundation is also looking for innovative ideas on how the project will be able to facilitate active forums for peer learning among villages covered by the project as well as providing opportunities to learn from other “established” villages within the region
● Advocacy through engagement and collaboration with the relevant stakeholders at district and provincial level to address and advance the agenda for strengthening village development processes. In this context, this would include strategies and approaches to improve village population participation, where they have the opportunity to demand access for more participation in village management processes
Indicators of Successful Project
This project will directly contribute to the achievement of the Foundation’s long-term outcome on enabling environment sector pillar: “Establishing sustaining partnership between local government and civil society”. The project would be deemed successful if at least several of the following outcomes have been achieved upon project completion:
● Demonstrated improved knowledge and skills on planning and budgeting
● Demonstrated improved practice on data collection for village data completion
● Demonstrated improvement of village data quality
● Demonstrated usage of village data for village’s participatory planning and budgeting process
● Demonstrated village head and apparatus’ increased capacity for advocacy to both government and non-government stakeholders
● Demonstrated increased communities’ participation in village decision-making process (incl. mechanism of accountability)
● Demonstrated improved collaboration (or partnerships) among related stakeholders
● Demonstrated commitment and clear action plan for scalability and sustainability
● Demonstrated commitment and/or changes in regulatory framework to support enabling environment for strengthening village development
Interested organizations must include proposed theory of change, results framework and other relevant indicators in their technical proposal. The selected organization will work under WLF advisement on the selection of villages for this project, which may involve site visits, in-depth interviews and proper due diligence. WLF is currently working at seven out of 11 sub-districts in Southwest Sumba.
Selection Criteria
WLF is looking for interested organizations with extensive knowledge on village development/governance area. Interested organizations should possess the following qualifications:
● A minimum of five years’ experience in designing, managing and implementing capacity building and advocacy project on village development/governance area –knowledge and experience in eastern Indonesia, particularly in Sumba is an advantage;
● Proven experience on delivering capacity building and mentoring for village head and apparatus;
● Extensive knowledge on village law, village governance dynamics, planning & budgeting process, and history and current development of Indonesian decentralized system;
● Proven experience on project management, coordination and liaison capabilities;
● Proven experience on developing strategies for advocacy and establishing linkages of multi-stakeholders; and
● Proven experience in monitoring and evaluation for development projects, particularly in advocacy and capacity building for village development area.
Award Information
● Period of Performance: WLF expects the project to be commenced on or around the second quarter of 2021, with the duration of 24 months period and optional 12-month extension
● Type of Award: Contract-based, actual cost
● Funding: WLF adheres to the value for money principles. Interested organizations should carefully think about delivering the project implementation in an efficient and effective manner – in which the personnel and operational cost should not exceed 30% of the total funding requested
● Cost-sharing: Any proposed cost-sharing should be clearly noted in the narrative and budget proposal
The release of this Request for Proposal does not guarantee WLF to award the contract. Implementation of the project will depend on the Foundation’s funding availability.
How to Apply
● Expression of Interest (EoI) – Applicants are required to submit Expression of Interest electronically which states:
a) why applicant is interested;
b) brief information on relevant experience and key personnel’s qualification;
c) brief information on how the applicant will address the issues stated in the background and project description sections; and
d) point of contact (email address and phone numbers).
Expression of Interest must be no longer than 2 pages, either in Indonesian or English, and must be submitted to support@wlf.or.id with the subject line: Name of Organization EOI Village Governance Project before Friday, 22 January 2021 at 5 pm Jakarta time.
● Bidders’ Conference – After reviewing the submitted Letter of Interest, the shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend bidders’ conference that will take place on/about Friday, 29 January 2021. Invitation will be distributed through email addresses registered on the Expression of Interest.
● Proposal Submission – Proposals (technical and financial) in Indonesian or English must be submitted before Friday, 26 February 2021 at 11:58 pm Jakarta time. The proposal should cover the following information:
o General description of demonstrated capabilities to meet the terms of this solicitation, your contact details (address and phone numbers), a short description of unique capabilities (skills, methodologies, or technical approach) typically employed for carrying out work as described in the “Project Description” section, and a brief description of past performance with contact details of previous clients;
o A comprehensive technical proposal focusing on delivering the above-mentioned key activities and deliverables in Southwest Sumba, including clear description of theory of change and the results framework design, selection method or criteria for villages and advocacy and engagement strategy with local government and non-government stakeholders;
o Most recent Curriculum Vitae of the organization and/or individual team members (key personnel involved) and details of staff composition with clear demonstration of previous experience in related project implementation;
o Proposed work plan including timeline for key activities, milestones, and deliverables for the duration of the project; and
o A comprehensive financial proposal in Indonesian rupiah (IDR), including daily rate for team members or external consultants, budget allocation for activities, travel and accommodation, monitoring and evaluation activities, dissemination activities, incidentals and other expenses, as well as proposed terms of payments/schedule.
[1] Sumba Barat Daya dalam Angka, 2020
[2] In some cases, the delay is caused by District Government trying to put district work plan into village planning document (Mengefektifkan Dana Desa. Ivanovich Agusta. KOMPAS, 4 January 2021)
