Call for consultant - CONCORD AidWatch Briefing Paper EU blending in LDCs

In the framework of its work on EU Official Development Assistance trends, CONCORD Europe, the European Confederation of Development and Relief NGOs, is launching a call for external consultants. As CONCORD leads the work of civil society on the quantity and quality of Euro pean ODA, the AidWatch briefing paper about EU blending in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) aims to inform coordinated EU advocacy work and to influence policy makers.

Background
In recent years, LDCs have suffered from a significant decline in overall ODA spending, while DAC – including the EU – donors have increasingly supported blended finance in low income countries. Data shows that blending, however, does not help LDCs to graduate from poverty and, as civil society, CONCORD is keen to monitor and contribute evidence on.

Objectives
As an advocacy objective, the paper aims to influence the Council Conclusions of the Foreign Affairs Council (development) meeting in the first half of 2021. The FAC (dev) Council Conclusions on 25 May deals with EU ODA. Therefore, we as civil society must reiterate our key asks about EU ODA use, allocations and objectives. Ideally, the paper will also be part of CONCORD’s reaction to the DAC 2020 preliminary statistics release. More broadly, the messages point to addressing EU ODA implementation over the upcoming years.
The paper aims to gather further evidence on the fact that blended finance is a tool better suited to MICs – but does not contribute to reduce poverty and inequalities in the least developed countries. If Team Europe wants to keep faith with the Leave No One Behind pledge, CONCORD believes that EU donors must prioritise the use of ODA in the form of grant-based finance in LDCs.
As these contexts have been more challenging, blending should not come at the expense of other concessional finances in LDCs and other vulnerable countries. Given the growing EU support to the private sector (EFSD+ is an example), the paper will bring together some key principles that EU ODA channelled through blending in LDCs must respect. These are, for example: the respect of national ownership, the alignment with national priorities, the application to a broader SDGs strategy which strengthens all 4 dimensions of sustainable development of partner countries.

Timeline

The work should be carried out between February and April 2021, when the briefing paper should be released.

Job description

The main tasks of the work would consist in:

• Conducting desk research, interviews and focal groups with CONCORD and other EU aid experts on a structured basis (webinars) on the topics of the briefing paper;
• Drafting and finalising the briefing paper, including graphs and tables and incorporating comments from the consultation process with CONCORD members and Secretariat.

Application process
To apply for this post, please send:

• your CV outlining your relevant expertise to meet this assignment (1 page max);
• your proposal on how you will undertake this research, including a suggested number of days and their distribution between the different tasks and phases of the work and your day rate (2 pages max).

Please submit this to Riccardo Roba ( riccardo.roba@concordeurope.org ) and Celia Cranfield ( celia.cranfield@concordeurope.org ) by 19 February at midnight cob.1 Interviews are planned to take place in the week of 22 February.