Procurement Details

Link to RFA document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/185jlSpEQd8gVj4KGgg2tvrGe3-UunB5b/view?usp=sharing

Hub Strategy Design and Development Consultancy

Terms of Reference and Scope of Work for the Facilitation and Development of the Afghanistan Humanitarian Hub Strategic Action Plan.

The Afghanistan Humanitarian Hub is seeking a qualified individual or consulting firm to facilitate a 6-week participatory strategy design and development process. The outcome of this consultancy will be a 5-year Strategy for 2027–2032, along with practical tools to support the resourcing, implementation and evaluation of the strategy; including a roadmap for the strategy design process, implementation plan, resource mobilization, and monitoring, evaluation and learning framework.

AHH is entering an important stage of development. The expertise we seek will facilitate Hub’s strategic thinking process. Since its inception, the Hub has established strong community roots, experienced connection, growth and innovation. And the Hub is now looking ahead to the next 5 years of serving and enabling communities to prepare for, respond to and recover from the effects of disasters. The consultancy is expected to facilitate the Hub’s working together with communities in shaping a clear and bold vision for the future of humanitarian aid and building the collective competence to achieve it.

We are looking for an experienced strategic consultant and facilitator to support us through a community-centered and collaborative strategic planning process. We expect this process to:

1. Reflect on our mission, vision, founding values and theory of positive impact.

2. Reflect on perspectives and needs of communities affected by crises, including those with lived experience of the humanitarian risks we seek to address.

3. Review how the Hub has been enabling community-powered Resilience, Response and Recovery by equipping community groups with the purpose, knowledge, tools, resources, connection and organization they need to think, plan and take action before, during and after disasters.

4. Build on existing Hub collective strengths, assets, learning and relationships within the network and the communities.

5. Help the Hub collective respond to future opportunities and challenges.

6. Create clarity and alignment across the network members, functions, initiatives, relationships and the role of community.

7. Review how the Hub has been catalyzing community-centered collaboration and sustainable and long-term outcomes for the people at the community level.

According to the Hub’s values; the consultant/consultancy is expected to recommend a ‘community-legitimate’ strategy design model that puts people, their priorities, perspectives, knowledge, strengths and participation at the center of the Hub’s future direction and actions. Community involvement in the strategy design process is, therefore, a methodological requirement as it is considered by the Hub a critical pre-requisite for winning community-legitimacy and people support for the Hub’s vision, mission and priority actions. It is required that the strategic direction and focus of the Hub is systematically connected to and grounded in community-led framing and actions; Grassroots community-level perspectives and experiences.

The Hub gives primacy to cooperation and focus on the ‘improvement of outcomes for the people at the community level through a locally-led, globally-connected, collaborative, anticipatory humanitarian action’; a position that has evolved into a theme that is maintained throughout the Hub to ensure our thoughts and actions are rooted in places where the effects of disasters and crises are felt and experienced on a daily basis.

This call seeks to identify and engage an expert consultant (preferably associated with a professional management consultancy firm) who can work with Hub staff, member organizations, communities and the wider stakeholders to design a 5-year strategy for the Hub. This is to be done in the spirit of a ‘community-centered, locally-led and globally-connected and proactive humanitarian action’ in Afghanistan.

PURPOSE OF CONSULTANCY

· To carry out a participatory and consultative strategy design and development process.

· To define priority actions, goals and desired outcomes, and build assumptions and articulate strategies for achieving the outcomes.

· To formulate an operational model and resource mobilization plan that can supports Hub’s strategic plan.

· To design monitoring, evaluation and learning toolkit that can help the Hub measure performance and self-correct.

The consultancy is expected to help the Hub:

1. Align long-term direction and programs with evolving conditions and shifts in the sector and operating environment.

2. Strengthen financial, operational and programmatic sustainability.

3. Ensure organizational structure, resources, competence and capacity can support the strategic ambition.

4. Advance community-centered collaboration across programs and members.

5. Enhance AHH’s role as a critical enabler and catalyst of cross-sectoral cooperation on community-powered Resilience, Response and Recovery.

GUIDANCE

GUIDING PRINCIPLES

The following language is intended to provide the strategy design and development process with guidance for alignment with the Hub’s values and operating model:

· The priorities, problems, views and needs of the people we serve will guide what strategic issue gets identified and strategic action prioritized.

· Maintain a people-centered process that combines feelings, experiences and intellect to determine priorities that matter to the people, in alignment the with direction the communities want to go.

· Strategize from the ground up through a community-led processes of co-creation.

· Start with what is strong and already working for the communities so we can help in a way that does no harm to their dignity, agency, capabilities and strength.

· Define people by their strengths, capacities and what they can bring to the solution.

· Look for strengths by starting with what communities already have, already working and strong, and build on solutions and relationships that already exist.

· Engage, activate and mobilize community strengths with aim to harness the power of collaboration with communities for creating lasting localized impact.

· Systematically include communities and link their strengths and participation with Hub’s initiatives and programs, through a co-designed and community-centered model of cooperation on locally-led Anticipatory Humanitarian Action.

· Build on past AHH learning with communities through existing 6 regional community workshops and expert group discussions.

· Start from the community level, create and mobilize knowledge with and for the people. Listen to the people first, put existing understanding and learning into a shared perspective for all stakeholders.

· Integrating existing milestones and existing Hub initiatives into an integrated and coherent latticework of synergy and connection.

· Facilitate a community-centered space for collective reflection, enabling communities and the Hub to take a step back to see the bigger picture through a shared vantage point.

· Bring communities onboard the design process and create a sense of shared journey.

· Go beyond analytical views and intellectual understanding, listen to the feelings and experiences too.

GUIDANCE MENU

The following language is intended to guide the facilitation of the strategy design and development process:

· Help communities and Hub members work together to reflect, find patterns and connect ideas.

· Facilitate a process and tools that allows Hub members and communities to think together using data, feelings and experiences with the aim to understand the system of challenges and problems that affect them.

· Help the Hub and communities it serves see the structure behind surface level events, patterns and choices so that they not only solve today’s problems but also create tomorrow’s opportunities together.

· Shift perspective from tactical passive thinking to proactive strategic design that enable communities realize resilience.

· Keep to a participatory process that can help communities and Hub members acknowledge and embrace complexity with a view to transition from uncertainty to shared understanding and clarity together.

· Create a facilitative and community-centered space where Hub members, communities and wider stakeholder can think together; fostering new perspectives and modes of thought where communities and members of the Hub discover solutions where others see problems.

· Direct attention away from isolated and fragmented understanding to a high-resolution shared view that is based on strategic analysis and foresight.

· Design a consultative environment that is inclusive, collaborative and safe.

· Nudge thoughts away from reactive problem solving, to proactive, early planning and preventive action.

· Introduce intentional conversations that shifts the minds of the participants away from chasing opportunities to creating them.

· Build strength-based thinking into the process that encourages focus away from seeing weakness and difficulty to seeing possibilities, creativity and strength.

· Enable communities and Hub members to figure out how to collaborate and turn challenges into opportunities, barriers into pathways of progress.

· Help the Hub achieve clarity among options and find the right signals to focus on; ranging from a shared vision to knowing where the collective is going.

· Help the Hub operationalize its value of action ahead of disasters in a manner that is ‘community centered, locally led and globally connected’ Humanitarian action.

· Help the Hub optimize resources by being regenerative, capable of doing more with less, by turning ordinary available resource into outcomes for the people at the community level, by enabling community wealth-building and creating abundance through efficiency and collaboration.

· Establish a self-reflective and self-corrective process; bringing a community lens to the Hub theory of positive impact.

· Create a space where members of the Hub and communities can work confidently together to turn risks and uncertainty into preparation, opportunity and capabilities.

· Establish critical thinking and enable the Hub to think proactively, create choice and range for the Hub collective to be able to improve community-level outcomes, influence the system while maintaining innovation.

· Enable the Hub to learn strategically and thinking systematically together; allowing new ideas to take root and alternative modes of thought and ways of doing to emerge.

· Build strategic connections and relationships and create assets, building the capacity to generate and achieve compounding value.

· Help members play to their strengths and transition from competition to selection and choice; Treat resource diversification as a tool that creates choice so the Hub can make impact-driven decisions; create a system that help vulnerable people build resilience, deliver impact locally at the community level and offer freedom to innovate and experiment.

· Maintain a mindset where problems are viewed as invitations to innovate; see solutions where others see problems and to see opportunities where others see obstacles.

SUBMISSION

Proposal submission requirements include 1) Technical and Financial proposal (including CVs of lead expert) and relevant references of comparable work.

Technical Proposal: The following documents should be submitted together with the application:

CVs of the consultant or consulting team outlining relevant experience and qualifications.
Copies of similar work completed, including at least one completion report, recommendation letter, or equivalent supporting document
Contact details of at least 2 professional references who have worked with the consultant on similar assignments
For consulting firms, a valid registration document

Financial Proposal: Top line budget, including professional fees, travel, accommodation, and any other associated costs.

Proposals should be submitted by email to secretatriat@ahh.net.af before 5pm Afghanistan Time on 31 October 2026 with the subject line “AHH Strategy Design Consultancy 9CCHDSA5-03”. Late submissions will not be considered.