Consultancy services for Oxfam West Africa regional platform (WAF)
TENDER

Submission deadline: March 18th, 2022

Terms of reference for consultancy services for Oxfam West Africa regional platform (WAF)

Duration: starting March 2022 and for a duration of 25 weeks

Location: can be carried out remotely, but with geographic focus on Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Mauritania

Context:
For various years now, West Africa' Sahel region has been facing a number of muti-dimensional and interlinked crises. In particular, the security context has triggered an increasing militarization of the region with the support and encouragement of the international community. In a context of already fragile democracies and authoritarian rules, that security-focus approach is not without impact on the situation of governance, human rights and civic space in Sahel societies.

The role of civil society, including women and youth activists, has been increasingly challenging. Critics of the authorities are routinely targeted and repressed. Legislation are being passed and implemented to curb freedom of expression, assembly and association. The security context or more recently the COVID-19 pandemic, are being used to shrink further civic space, control activists and silence any critical voices. While Sahel states have been struggling with governance issues for decades, this new context is damaging further the construction of transparent, accountable and democratic public institutions.

In its Sahel strategy, Oxfam identified the renewal of social contract in Sahel societies as a key objective to reduce inequalities and get a more resilient, just and peaceful Sahel. To reach that ambition, it is critical to help protect, promote and transform the space for civil societies. Oxfam is convinced that civil societies play a critical role in the development of better governance. But in the Sahel, bad governance has been the norm for too long and is ...