Attachment 3 - RPAL Preproposal Conference.pptx

RPAL Pre-Proposal Conference

Highlands Resilience Platform for Adaptive Learning (R-PAL) Activity

SOL # 72066321R00016

May 26th, 2021

Agenda

9:05AM 4:05PM Context and R-PAL Vision, USAID/R2 Office Director- Sarah Berry

9:10AM 4:10PM TIGER Overview, Food Security, Social Protection, and Resilience Team Leader - Randy Smith 9:15AM 4:15 PM Why CLA, R2 Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist- Raheal Teshome

9:20AM 4:20PM Review SOO Objectives and Key Points, Resilience Research and Learning Advisor- Aaron Spencer

9:35AM 4:35PM Procurement Highlights- Kevin Sampson

9:45AM 4:45PM Questions/ Wrap up-All

Welcoming Remarks Kevin Sampson, OAA OFFICE DIRECTOR

USAID/ETHIOPIA

Strategic Linkage of RPAL to USG Strategy Sarah Berry, USAID/ETHIOPIA R2 OFFICE DIRECTOR

See the attached draft Sarah notes that are under construction

45 million Ethiopians remain extremely poor, or vulnerable to falling into poverty in the wake of an acute or chronic shock.

Climate, conflict, and health-related shocks are typical for the Highlands of Ethiopia.

Overcoming these challenges calls for a joint action and cultural shift within USAID and among our partners.

Efforts needs to be aligned and context-specific learnings need to be maximized and translated into action and results.

The current CDCS has increasing Resilience as part of cornerstone of this effort.

Fully integrated CLA enables the success and sustainability of our efforts.

Ethiopia Context /Programming Environment

Sarah’s Slide I’d like to begin by thanking you for expressing interest in the Resilience Platform for Adaptive Learning (R-PAL) concept. I’m excited to see interest from such a broad set of potential applicants.

Along with enabling a greater understanding of the RFP requirements, my team and I hope this pre-conference provides some context to the R-PAL design, and that your experience in the pre-conference will lend itself to articulate and thoughtful proposals.

Before delving into the goals of this new mechanism, I’d like to take a moment to provide some local context, particularly for those who aren’t closely following the situation here in Ethiopia. It is changing on a daily basis.

What’s going on right now here in Ethiopia show the urgency of getting this effort off the ground.

Ethiopian Context--Acute and Chronic Shocks

In Ethiopia, 45 million Ethiopians remain extremely poor, or vulnerable to falling into poverty in the wake of an acute or chronic shock. Climate, conflict, and health-related shocks are typical for the Highlands of Ethiopia.

2020 and into 2021 brought desert locusts and the global COVID-19 pandemic. The upcoming election later in June is anticipated to be the major political event in the country. We see spikes in political unrest, ethnic-based violence, and associated displacement. This has continued in some parts of the country, including the Highlands.

The outbreak of conflict and political instability in the Tigray region has compounded the existing challenges and resulted in unprecedented humanitarian need.

The shock of COVID-19 and extensive desert locust swarms have had nationwide repercussions on health and livelihoods. Large-scale humanitarian appeals are a new normal with an average of more than 13 million people in need of humanitarian assistance each year due to droughts, floods, disease outbreaks and now intensified internal conflict.

While these compounding challenges can seem daunting at times, they can be overcome if we harness the sharpest minds and tools in our collective arsenal. This will require joint action and a cultural shift within USAID and among our partners. We need to align our efforts and maximize learnings that are context-specific and translate into action and results.

We have found partnership as a crucial enabler or that special ingredient, to achieving these results. We believe partnership, along with activities described in the RPAL Statement of Objectives, are the right combination to address the root causes of vulnerability a better the lives of some of the most vulnerable Ethiopians.

Our mission director and ambassador are deeply committed to this work.

Connection to CDCS, Mission CLA and USAID Washington Evidence of this commitment can be found in USAID Ethiopia’s wider 5-year Country Development and Cooperation Strategy--with Increasing Resilience as part of the cornerstone of this effort.

The R-PAL is expected to contribute to cross-cutting learning and adaptation efforts outlined in the Mission’s CDCS CLA Plan including sharing methods, approaches, and results.

The R-PAL activity will provide key learning, adaptation, collaboration, evaluation, and convening functions on behalf of the TIGER Project and the corresponding USAID stakeholders, both at the Mission and within USAID Washington.

The reason a concept like R-PAL came to fruition is due in large part to the commitment of leadership and staff alike, and a belief that fully integrated CLA enables the success and sustainability of our efforts.

Now I’d like to virtually pass the mic to my colleague Raheal Tehome, our monitoring and evaluation specialist, who will share a little about the role of CLA and MEL within the Mission

Why CLA?

Raheal Teshome, USAID/ETHIOPIA R2 M&E Specialist

M&E as a means for better programing and results CLA if done right makes programing more evidence driven and ensure results are maximized

‘CPR’ keeps ‘CLA’ alive!!!

Why CLA

Raheal Slide

The conventional way of doing M And E for due diligence purpose does not serve either beneficiaries or implementers right. What we see most of the time is a trend of considering Evaluation as an end by itself rather than seeing it as a means/ a tool to inform programming and gear towards better results….

We do monitor and evaluate our progresses and impacts so that we can learn from them and make the necessary changes (ADAPTATIONS) on our approaches and strategies. BUT also to take to scale what we have seen tried in a given context and worked well.

Here is where CLA comes into play Collaborating ; learning and adapting, if done in an intentional way, makes us more effective as a mission, more evidence-driven in the delivery of foreign assistance, and more refined in our core technical approaches.

In addition to being intentional on our CLA efforts we also recognize that CLA takes time, resources, energy, but surely pays multiple dividends and ultimately rewards with better impact. The organizational Culture, Processes and Resource allocated are equally important to make CLA work. That’s why we, here in the USAID say, it is the CPR which keeps CLA alive.

Evidence tells us that without intentional, cross-sectoral collaboration scaled across government systems and learning-for-adaptation, lasting resilience for at-risk communities and households is less likely to be achieved.

Highlands Scope and Research/Learning MO Randy Smith, USAID/ETHIOPIA R2 RESILIENCE RESEARCH AND LEARNING ADVISOR

Problem Statement The ‘highlands’ of Ethiopia, where USAID has a legacy of resilience investments, are extremely vulnerable to a set of multi-sectoral shocks and stresses. Effectively mitigating these shocks and stresses will require multi-sectoral, evidence-based approaches, strong linkages to Government of Ethiopia (GOE) programs and systems, and intentional collaboration among partners working towards a shared goal of achieving lasting resilience for vulnerable communities and households.

Project Purpose Increase the resilience of vulnerable populations in the highlands to multi-sectoral, recurrent and acute shocks -- drought, HH-level health shocks, conflict, economic.

- Position USAID resilience investments that support GOE programs to address the vulnerability of Ethiopians living in these areas

- Support the development of well functioning local systems … So that Ethiopia will be better able to manage their own development and ultimately reduce their dependence on foreign assistance.

Highlands/TIGER Overview--

Effective implementation of TIGER will increase GOE accountability, commitment, and capacity through investments in resilience-focused national, regional, and community systems capable of reducing the vulnerability of individuals, households, and communities.

USAID Ethiopia also seeks to foster resilience in Ethiopia’s Highlands by addressing the multiple sectors. We seek to continue to layer our investments in social safety net programming with investments in education, investments in healthcare systems, investments in livelihoods and economic growth, and investments in nutrition so that our benefitting households have multi-faceted and longer-term resilience.

IF the GOE and USAID invest in critical resilience and social protection programs and: IF those investments mitigate the underlying root causes of vulnerability ; and IF USAID partners to support adaptive learning, evidence-based decision making and research to identify smart and practical approaches for deliberate integration of resilience investments; and IF there is uptake of identified approaches, on the part of the GOE, through scaled programmatic and policy approaches to resilience and social protection programs, THEN vulnerable individuals, households, communities, and systems will be more resilient to a wide range of shocks and stresses AND a model for sustained GOE implementation of resilience programs will be advanced leading to decreased USAID investments in humanitarian assistance.

Highlands Resilience Theory of Change

And with that, I’d like to turn it over to Aaron Spencer, R2’s Resilience Research and Learning Advisor. Aaron will walk through the statement of objectives on behalf of the core team that includes both USAID Ethiopia and Washington colleagues.

IR Pillars

Project 3 - Highlands Resilience (TIGER)

Food security (IR 2.1) Shock-resilient livelihoods (IR 2.2) Natural resource & water mgmt (IR 2.3) Social Services (IR 2.4) Socio-political stability (IR 2.5) Core Activities

DFSAs, L4R, L4O

MDTF, TIGER-OR, R-PAL

DFSAs, L4R, L4O

MDTF, TIGER-OR, R-PAL

MDTF, TIGER-OR, R-PAL

HFIP/CBHI, TIGER-OR, R-PAL

DFSAs, SIPED-II, OTI, TIGER-OR, R-PAL

Randy’s bullets

The TIGER project is underpinned by the The Ultra Poor Graduation Approach. Evidence from a six-country (including Ethiopia) study released in 2015 found (APPROACH) that a “big push” intervention that aimed to address the many challenges of poverty simultaneously boosted livelihoods, income, and health among the ultra-poor. The centerpiece of the program was providing households with an asset to spur income generation. (IMPACT): One year after the program ended—three years after receiving the assets—program participants on average had significantly more assets and savings, spent more time working, went hungry on fewer days, and experienced lower levels of stress and improved physical health compared to those who did not receive the program. TIGER is built on five pillars - Food Security, Shock-responsive livelihoods, Natural Resource and Water Management, Social Service provision, and Socio-political stability. USAID has activities that feed into each of these pillars as noted in this slide and outlined in the next slide.

TIGER posits that by attacking a wide range of vulnerabilities across multiple sectors (economic, health, food security, livelihoods, peace and security, education, women’s empowerment), resilience can be built to a wide range of shocks and stresses. The IRs and sub-IRs are built this way as is the overall theory of change. If the Project’s investments work within and leverage scaled GOE programs (i.e. CHBI, PSNP, education and health systems), its success can have wide reach. Every activity in this Project is designed to contribute to that outcome.

So here’s the main challenge we face that we hope to address through R-PAL. We really don’t know how the combination of these activities reach improved household and community resilience. We can’t really provide relative weights to the contributions of each of these activities and cannot say for sure which activities/interventions should receive more funding and which should receive less. Because the graduation model that TIGER is built upon is multi-sectoral and integrated we have a difficult time understanding how the combination of interventions leads to synergies (or not). This is the main thrust of R-PAL.

So what kind of integration and approaches are we talking about here?

GtN + CBHI/PHCU Linkage of nutrition-sensitive agric w/ positive health coping Strong woreda to community linkages PSNP/CBHI linkage/integration Evidence on ‘deliberate linkage of PSNP and CBHI: increased resilience, savings, assets, health services, food security.

Major USAID comparative advantage in both programs and on integration GtN + USAID PSNP linkage/integration Joint work planning and CLA underway Needs: More established focus on gov’t linkages across programs

PSNP

317 total, 64 DFSA/L4R 8M, 1.5M

CBHI/PHCU

CBHI/Transform PHCU Health financing facility and quality services, is key to mitigating HH-level health shocks. One without the other doesn’t accelerate resilience

TIGER-OR

TIGER-OR

DRM

MDTF

GTN + CBHI/PHCU

GTN + DFSA/L4R

READII+

DFSA/L4R

READII+

CBHI/PHCU

R-PAL

R-PAL

Systems-level Capacity and Institutions Smaller targeted investments to shape policy, unlock systems blockages, and increase accountability

READII, PSNP, CBHI

Targeted look at food security, health and education as they jointly relate to resilience. How does one type of program take into account the others?

Project 3 - Highlands Resilience (TIGER)

The Highlands Resilience theory of change is built upon the layering and sequencing of multiple interventions/activities together.

We consider the PSNP + CBHI programming to be the foundation of the TIGER response. TIGER-OR is meant to support the integration of these activities to reduce the downside risk of vulnerable Highland PSNP households. Building upwards, TIGER then layers on the Growth Through Nutrition (GTN), DFSAs, and Livelihoods for Resilience activities. R-PAL will support the learning and scaling of promising practices within this combination of activities. It is these activities - the PSNP, DFSA/RFSAs, GTN, L4R/LRO, and CBHI that are the core activities of the TIGER project and that are in the manageable control of the R2 Office. TIGER then builds on top of these core activities with education (READ II), and public health activities. Finally, TIGER uses lynchpin activities like the PSNP multi-donor trust fund (MDTF) and integration to USAID’s DRM activities to expand TIGER’s impact in the Ethiopian Highlands.

Review SOO Objectives and Key Points Resilience Research and Learning Advisor- Aaron Spencer

Collaborating

Learning/ Knowledge Mgt.

Adapting

Scaling

WHY SLIDE….----

A picture speaks a thousand words.

As Randy mentioned, TIGER is a multifaceted activity with a number of moving parts. These activities produces a large amount of information that is oftentimes bottlenecked with the most relevant learnings rarely surfacing. While data and evaluations of resilience work in Ethiopia is abundant, we still know too little about what works, particularly the role that layering and sequencing of multiple interventions — such as safety net programming, food assistance, targeted livelihood interventions, health system strengthening, and improving access to basic education — collectively plays in improving household, community, and system-wide resilience. The impact of a specific approach within such a broad set of sectors is often nuanced or lost within the context of day-to-day implementation, or research methods aren’t geared to effectively measure or analyze findings.

We recognized our current approaches are limited and often times missing the nuances. Performance and impact evaluations of USAID’s programming in Ethiopia’s Highlands are predominantly retrospective (or ex post) and are performance-oriented (assessing activity achievement of results). Activity-level learning is often idiosyncratic, measuring implementation within specific geographies that doesn’t translate or isn’t interpreted.

We believe iterative and timely field testing & feedback coupled with additional analysis with inform ongoing adaptations as the need arises, as well as point towards opportunities for systemic integration and scale.

Activities are being implemented within complex and integrated systems. There are rich learnings to be had during during implementation that can inform coordination and design at higher levels (top down) as well as activity implementation (bottom up)

As an example, the efficacy of layering or specific interventions simply goes unknown within the dynamic implementing environment in the Highlands. Traditional formative and summative evaluations point towards challenges and potential solutions, but generally at a cursory level. Without iterative field testing and robust analysis, the ability to ascertain “fit for purpose” data will remain quite limited.

Traditional MEL leave littles room for adaptation during the life of activities that are happening within dynamic and complex systems. Timely and ongoing feedback is necessary to perpetuate adaptations as needs arise. We believe this formula requires coordination, rich data, adaptive management and eventual scale (R-PAL SOO Objectives)

RPAL Goals R-PAL is envisioned to be an agile learning, research and collaboration platform that works hand-in-hand with the implementing partners throughout the activity lifecycle.

It is envisioned that the mechanism will facilitate joint action planning, consolidate research and learning agendas, enable partner adaptive management practices, and identify the most promising interventions to scale.

Rapid feedback from the mechanism will enable partners across the enable Highland’s to adapt approaches as the need arises. USAID and GOE will receive timely insights and fit for purpose data that will enable data driven decision making.

It is expected that R-PAL will serve as a resource and thought partner to facilitate collaboration, communication, and knowledge management for over 25+ USAID implementing mechanisms working to increase household and community resilience to shocks in the Highlands regions of Ethiopia.

R-PAL is envisioned to be an agile learning, research and collaboration platform that works hand-in-hand with the implementing partners throughout the activity lifecycles.

It is envisioned that the mechanism will facilitate joint action planning, consolidate research and learning agendas, enable partner adaptive management practices, and identify the most promising interventions to scale.

Rapid feedback from the mechanism will enable partners across the enable Highland’s to adapt approaches as the need arises. USAID and GOE will receive timely insights and fit for purpose data that will enable data-driven decision-making.

It is expected that R-PAL will serve as a resource and thought partner to facilitate collaboration, communication, and knowledge management for over 25+ USAID implementing mechanisms working to increase household and community resilience to shocks in the Highlands regions of Ethiopia.

This is an exciting collaboration, learning, and adaptation (CLA) opportunity in the Ethiopian Highlands that we believe will enable data-driven decision-making and the scaling of the most promising solutions within the government of Ethiopia programs operating at scale.

RPAL Objectives Objective 1: Collaboration and coordination among USAID Ethiopia Highlands Resilience partners and investments is established and facilitated to support collective impact

Objective 2: Highlands resilience investments are informed by learning, evidence, and research.

Objective 3: Adaptive management processes and solutions for USAID Highlands Resilience investments are adopted and employed towards evidence-based program iteration (and ingrained in the partnership’s culture)

Objective 4: Innovation within USAID’s Highlands programming drives early adoption and scaling of new rigorously tested approaches.

Note that each of the objectives includes a deliberate set of activities. Offerors should take note to respond with proposed approaches and methodologies to each of the proposed activities.

(Question that should come up---will we entertain activities outside of those listed in the SOO. We should respond to this question in writing and bring back to the committee.)

Objective 1

Collaboration and coordination among USAID Ethiopia Highlands Resilience partners and investments is established and facilitated to support collective impact

CORE ACTIVITIES

DFSAs & RFSAS

JEOP

Feed the Future Ethiopia – Livelihoods for Resilience Activity Feed the Future Ethiopia Livelihoods for Resilience Activity – Oromia Growth Through Nutrition Reading for Ethiopia’s Achievement Developed II (READ II) Value Chain Activity (VCA

CONTRIBUTING ACTIVITIES

Household Economy Approach (HEA) - Utilization Building the Potential of Youth (POTENTIAL Transform Primary Health Care (Transform PHC) PSNP Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF)

Car analogy--If learning, adapting and scaling is the car, coordination is the fuel.

Highlands coordination will enable the other three objectives and lend towards the cultural shift referenced in the SOO.

Coordination is expected to reinvigorate and reframe the relationship with program participants, safety net and disaster risk management systems, development partners and GOE;

Coordination as described in the SOO would be regular/ routine formal, and involve formal and informal opportunities Close coordination will transform the implementation culture in the Highlands and increase the CLA maturity of Highlands partners.

Transition from siloed planning and implementation to shared planning, leveraging of skills, resources and learning.

TAKE AWAY: Coordination isn’t for coordinations sake, or awareness heightening. Coordination is meant to be active, with proposed methods resultings in cascading results and multiple benefits across the Highlands.

Beyond collaboration

Objective 2

Highlands resilience investments are informed by learning, evidence, and research.

(Objective #2 is pretty self explanatory) Ethiopia is a complex programming environment Highlands activities span multiple sectors and learnings are sometimes contextualization and lost.

We recognize that a systems or integrated approach requires an understanding of a system.

Much of the data coming from the Highlands is focused on individuals and households, and within each sector. Synthesis and sometimes reanalysis will be necessary to contextualize disparate learnings from across the Highlands SOO objectives state that data should be fit more purpose-- consolidated,cross referenced and repackaged to serve the needs of a diverse set of audiences mentioned in the SOO--from decision makers within the GoE, USAID, to implementing partners across the Highlands and Ethiopia.

(Highlight a distinction in the SOO)--the primary focus of Objective #2 is not to do original research, it is to inform, advise, and help shape Highlands with research methods, and an evidence base.

However, there will inevitably be gaps or opportunities identified for further exploration. The research-related activities mentioned in this bullet are supposed to be light touch and rapid in nature, and the propose methods should be designed accordingly.

Objective 3

Adaptive management processes and solutions for USAID Highlands Resilience investments are adopted and employed towards evidence-based program iteration (and ingrained in the partnership’s culture)

Objective #3 is interconnected with Objective #2. Knowledge for the purpose of action--taking utilization-focused learnings that translate into change.

Our programming is multi-sector “kitchen sink approach” to Highlands resilience. RPAL should support the reframing of various activities in order to identify proof points, so that time and resources from the different partners can. (undervalued stock analogy--) Adaptation is hard and doesn’t come easy --both at the activity level (adaptive management)--within large multi-faceted programs--and homogenous woredas Adaptation within a system as complex and solidified as Ethiopia requires a combination of deep learning, political will, timing, and strategy. We need to be able to measure all of the contributing factors within the ecosystem as described in Objective #2---and identify or pinpoint the promising opportunities.

Enabling adaptive management as an approach within TIGER implementers requires a few ingredients. As stated in the SOO applicants should consider approaches that recognize or promulgate:

the cultural shift--in both management and implementation. It requires agility--learning quickly.

When there is a pause and reflect, and an actual opportunity for change is identified--The SOO requests approaches to take advantage of the enabling conditions to support adaptive management with partners.

Objective 4

Innovation within USAID’s Highlands programming drives early adoption and scaling of new rigorously tested approaches.

Objective #4 is exciting and challenging!

Tiger already has scale--700 million dollar project with a number of mechanisms. Once solutions are isolated how do we reach scale?

There is an opportunity to isolate underfunded or underutilized contributors to household or community resilience.

We hope to identify those interventions for potential to improve resilience outcome.

Example--intervention that provides multiple benefits (social, economic, environmental) Cascading benefits --meaning multiple benefits It could be an intervention or the sequencing of interventions--- As pre-determinants for resilience from Objectives #2 and #3 are better understood, how do we maximize the return on investment? Value for money? The SOO

Procurement Highlights OAA- Kevin Sampson

Questions

Thanks !

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