Request for Proposal (RFP) – Macro-Fiscal and Public Financial Management Consul

Proposal No: UPGI-26-PR087Consultancy Type: Short Term Publication Date: 14/10/2026Clarifications Deadline: 26/10/2026Closing Date: 30/10/2026Consultants Location: Sub Saharan Africa Introduction About BRAC InternationalBRAC is an award-winning international non-governmental development organisation with the vision of a world free from all forms of exploitation and discrimination, where everyone can realise their potential. BRAC is a leader in developing and implementing cost-effective, evidence-based programmes to assist poor and disadvantaged communities in low-income countries, including in conflict-prone and post-disaster settings. It is an organisation of and for the people of the Global South, pioneering new development and social enterprise approaches to equip communities to achieve prosperity. As well as being the world's biggest NGO by the number of staff and people directly reached, BRAC has regularly been ranked the number one NGO in the world by the Geneva-based NGO Advisor, an independent organisation committed to highlighting innovation, impact and governance in the non-profit sector. About BRAC’s Work Scaling Graduation through GovernmentsThe Graduation approach is a sequenced, adaptive set of interventions that together tackle multiple constraints that trap people in extreme poverty over a two-year period. By providing people with a productive asset to generate income, basic needs support, and ongoing, intensive coaching to unlock agency, know-how, and hope, the approach enables people to build lasting trajectories out of extreme poverty. Pioneered by BRAC in 2002, Graduation now has more than 100 studies from 40+ countries, showing it achieves transformational impacts for participants across a wide variety of contexts. A long-term study of a programme in West Bengal found that ten years after starting the programme, participants saw roughly 4x gains in household consumption compared to programme investment outlays, which may go as high as 11x over their lifetimes if those gains persist, according to Nobel Laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. In 2020, BRAC was named an Audacious Project by TED, receiving a catalytic investment to lift 21 million more people out of extreme poverty by 2030. BRAC is combating extreme poverty by partnering with governments across Asia and Africa to scale the proven Graduation approach. Watch the TED talk here.With catalytic funding from Audacious, BRAC has successfully cultivated partnerships with governments in Africa and Asia over the last few years, resulting in new models of Graduation in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Rwanda, and South Africa. Efforts are also underway in Ethiopia with exploration to support even wider government-led uptake. Demonstrating to governments Graduation’s potential to achieve greater, more lasting impact through existing poverty reduction programmes has helped unlock significantly more resources from government partners. Yet, massive cuts in development aid means less funding is available to support these programmes, making philanthropic capital all the more critical.BRAC has found that flexible philanthropic funding can drive transformative, catalytic government investment. Philanthropic support presents a powerful leverage opportunity: Every $1 of philanthropic support can unlock $10 to $50 of public financing and generate $65 to $200 in long-term household income gains.In a moment when progress on extreme poverty has stalled and public budgets are under pressure, Graduation offers something rare: life-changing results that justify greater investment, and investment that reaches millions more people than either sector could achieve alone. The Assignment 2.1 Purpose:The purpose of this consultancy is to strengthen BRAC Ultra-Poor Graduation Initiative (UPGI)’s ability to understand, influence and support the public financing of government-led Graduation programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. The consultant will help UPGI move beyond a general understanding of whether governments have sufficient fiscal space toward a more operational understanding of how public resources are prioritized, budgeted, financed, released and executed, and therefore how Graduation can realistically be financed and institutionalized within government systems.The work of the consultant should help BRAC’s country teams answer the following questions: What are the main fiscal, financing, and public financial management constraints governments face in scaling Graduation? What public resources are already available, and where are there realistic opportunities to strengthen, redirect, or mobilize financing for Graduation? How can this analysis help Country Leads better position their engagement with the government? What opportunities exist to influence upstream external financing, particularly through the World Bank and African Development Bank? What longer-term structure and capabilities should UPGI establish to support this work over the remainder of