Sustainable WASH for All (SUSWA) is a bilateral WASH sector project funded by the Government of Nepal (GoN), the Government of Finland (GoF) and the European Union, to be implemented in Karnali Province, Nepal.

Assignment Title: Review and verification of school self assessment against STAR indicators and the feasibility surveys
Location: Karnali Province, Nepal
Timeframe: Mid January-Mid February, 2025
Starting time: From beginning of January, 2024
Reports to: Supervisor Sanitation and Hygiene Specialist

Background
As envisioned  by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),SUSWA also has envisioned to have access to sanitation and hygiene services for all and this include the people from the households  and institutions. SUSWA thus has targeted for the construction and improvement of the WASH facilities especially the toilets to ensure the right to live in a healthy environment.  

As government of Nepal has endorsed the school WASH guideline 2076 (amended) for the effective management of the WASH activities at the schools, SUSWA has been following the guidelines to ensure the standards and students- toilet ratio at the extent possible. In addition to this, SUSWA has been facilitating for the formation and strengthening school WASH-CC to ensure that school WASH activities are implemented in a coordinated and collaborative manner. As the school WASH guideline, there are 10 sets of indicators which need to be assessed in a participatory and consultative way with the participation of school management committee (SMC), school WASH-CC, child clubs, Parents Teachers' Associations (PTA)s and respective local government representatives. SUSWA facilitates to prepare plan of actions for the improvement of the WASH situation and facilitates at the schools for the implementation of different extra-curricular activities including but not limited to sanitation and hygiene promotional activities. 

In the fiscal year 2081.82 SUSWA has planned to construct/ improve the toilets for 61 institutions out of which most of them are at the schools. Based on the learning from the implementation, there is further need to integrate and harmonize the interventions related to school WASH. For this, it has been rigorously discussed and planned to strengthen the planning, verification and implementation of school WASH activities in a coordinated manner. This requires integration of the assessment on school WASH against STAR indicators, plan of action and feasibility surveys of the school toilet proposed. SUSWAS would like to review all these reports which will be collected for all the school toilets proposed and this would require significant time during the review, observation and verification in the field so that real needs are catered to ensure maximum value for money. Programme Support Unit (PSU) will have teams to review all the reports and verify through field visits. This ToR has been prepared for the engagement of the consultant who will support/ facilitate in some assigned schools for the review and verification of the assessment and feasibility reports.

Objectives
Following are the key objectives for this assignment. 

• Review of the reports on self-assessment and plan of action against School WASH for the assigned schools
• Field verification of the feasibility reports through field visits
• Reports with recommendations based on the assessment, plan of action and field verification

Deliverables
The consultant will submit the following deliverables:

• Field report/s against Self-Assessment and plan of action against school WASH guideline and report on the verification of the feasibility reports from the selected schools. (Report per assigned schools)

Eligibility Criteria/Qualifications of the Consultant
The key qualifications of the consultant are:

• Bachelor's degree in water/sanitation engineering, Bachelor degree in education or relevant discipline. A higher level of education will be an added value.
• At least 5 years’ experience in WASH project management and implementation. 
• At least 3 years experiences working with the local governments focusing on school improvement plans and development and improvement of the school environment.
• Familiar with Government of Nepal WASH policies, WASH guidelines, related plans, legal instruments and practices.
• Good conversant with the people and stakeholders. 
• Good knowledge and experience about the context of Karnali.  
• Experienced in producing high quality reports. 

Expected Duration of the Assignment

• The estimated duration of this assignment is 20 days, between mid January to mid February, 2025.