International Consultant to conduct review of the “Women and girls at the center of Covid-19 prevention” Project

Consultant Human Rights

Contract

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Background

Bangladesh is experiencing an exponential rise in COVID cases. Like the rest of the world, the country is encountering challenges due to the country’s fragile health services, critical public services deficits and rising social tensions from the low-income population that cannot afford to be confined in their homes. Women’s labour, particularly in the ready-made garment sector have been at the centre stage of Bangladesh’s socio-economic transformation in the last two decades. However, at least one-quarter of garment workers in Bangladesh have been fired or furloughed because of declining global orders amid the coronavirus crisis. In Bangladesh, 91% of women employed are working in the informal sector as domestic workers, micro vendors, micro entrepreneurs, agricultural workers, day labourer and others, and these women have seen their jobs evaporate. These vulnerable women need immediate assistance, access to referral services and diversified livelihoods, skills development and employment support services, their immediate recovery and social inclusion needs to be addressed. Beyond economic hardship, women’s organizations report that gender-based violence, which is already a serious problem in Bangladesh, is on the rise in households due to heightened tensions from loss of income, restricted mobility etc. exacerbating the already unequal gender power relations in the family. According to the Needs Assessment Working Group survey on the anticipatory impact of COVID-19 in April 2020, 49.2% of women, children and girls felt safety and security was an issue due to the lockdown and loss of livelihoods. On the other hand, the Rapid Gender Analysis showed that 33% of women do not know where to call for help if they experience violence.

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

Project Description

The Ending Violence against Women (EVAW) programme focuses on prevention and response to violence against women, strengthening the legal framework, ensuring coordination among key stakeholders working on EVAW and generating knowledge on what works to prevent and respond to violence against women.

As part of the COVID 19 Response and Recovery, UN Women Bangladesh is implementing a project titled, “Women and Girls at the Center of COVID-19 Prevention.” The Project aims to reduce the disproportionate gender-based risks and negative impact of COVID-19 on women, including those who are the most marginalized and particularly in vulnerable situations in the capital of Dhaka. It started on November 2021 with funds from the government of Japan up to May 2021. After this initial period, funding from Fast Retailer supported the continuation of activities until 31 January 2022.

One of the Project components is to support adaptation of NGO-run Gender Based Violence (GBV) Shelter home to safely operate in the context of COVID to continue providing GBV services to survivors of violence and other vulnerable women, simultaneously empowering them with skills and knowledge to develop their economic resilience through income generating activities. Furthermore, the Project focuses on raising awareness on violence against women and girls through community engagement, involving adolescent girls and marginalized women and men.

UN Women has piloted the GBV- Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) integrated service model with Tarango, a women’s shelter home in Mirpur, Dhaka. Tarango provided emergency accommodation and essential GBV services to rehabilitate survivors of violence and other marginalized women such as single mothers, abandoned women and women in need of economic support. Since the inception, the project supported more than 200 women with access to income opportunities coupled with support services as safe home accommodation along with psychosocial, legal, heath care, skill development, and job placement support on need basis. Through the outreach activities of the adolescent girls’ club and numerous awareness raising sessions, community people were also made aware of different social issues frequently affecting women and girls, including some covid-19 prevention awareness and adaptability guidelines.

The Essential Service Package for Women and Girls subject to violence recognizes that women and girls subject to violence require appropriate service provisions and support responding to VAW. The multisectoral coordination and provision of Essential Social Services ensures in supporting the rights, safety and wellbeing of women and girls experiencing violence including crisis information and help lines, safe accommodation, legal and rights information and advice. The evidence shows that the effectiveness of the essential social services depends on the quality service response in a timely manner.

In this context, UN Women, is planning to conduct a light review of the GBV- WEE integrated model for the shelter home that provided multi sectorial services and to draw lessons and best practices and identify what works to respond to violence against women and girls during a health crisis, and through the integrated model for shelter home. Under the overall framework of Essential service package, the consultant will also assess adherence to the principles of social services along with foundational elements such as referral, risk assessment, trained staff and workforce and system coordination and accountability.

Other areas of intervention that strongly relate to the ESP should also be examined. The report will be used by UN Women to advocate with government stakeholders/donors and partners for replication as a successful model.

The learnings from the review will inform future programming design and replication of best practices in Bangladesh on GBV-WEE integrated model as it aims to capture the effectiveness and appropriateness of the interventions, identify implementation gaps and challenges for the interventions in COVID context and deepen the understanding of the effect of women’s economic empowerment in reducing the gender-based violence. The review will be carried in between 20 February and 30 April 2022.

Objectives:

The overall objective of this review is to assess the success of the intervention, identify gaps and challenges in the implementation of the interventions, and capture lesson learned and recommendations for future programming design for GBV-WEE integrated model of shelter homes in Bangladesh.

The Specific objectives of the review are to:

1. Document the enabling factors and gaps in adaptation of the ESP package and existing practices in the shelter, challenges or barriers that influenced project implementation in the operating context of COVID 19.
2. Identify key promising practices, innovations, and lessons learned from the interventions and assess the extent to which the interventions have contributed to impactful changes in the lives of survivors and other vulnerable women.
3. Provide evidence-based recommendations for future programming considering the review findings, including specific recommendations in relation to gender equality/women’s empowerment issues.

Duties and Responsibilities

Key Learning Questions

The review will be based on the following key learning questions:

1. Were the interventions relevant and realistic for the situation on the ground, aligned with the ESP, considering cultural sensitivities, the priorities and needs of the target group and especially given the COVID-19 pandemic?

2. What were the key challenges this project faced in adapting the ESP in the covid situation? And how did the project overcome these challenges and adapt the ESP in the covid situation? And what are key lessons & achievements from this adaptation?

3. What were the key achievements of the project in terms of benefitting women and girls and what strategies led to this success? What are the unintended effects, if any, of the intervention? Were there any unintended results that were negative? How can these lessons be upscaled?

4. To what extent are the intended beneficiaries participating in and benefiting from the project interventions, in terms of meaningful participation and taking an active role in it?

5. Were any innovative and promising practices identified to improve the quality of essential social services for women and girls subject to violence in the GBV- WEE integrated shelter home?

6. Was the effort coherent with other EVAW efforts of UN Women and within the broader UN system such as that of UNFPA? What is the added value of UN women working in this space?

V. Methodology

A consultative process will be applied entailing a combination of comprehensive desk review, key informant interviews, and focus group discussion will ensure active engagement with stakeholders such as partner staff, beneficiaries of the shelter support and community members who were engaged through project interventions. Accuracy of findings must be validated through triangulation of data.

Limitations: Are there any limitations to the review foreseen, including data limitation or limitation regarding COVID and the ability to meet with key stakeholders?

Scope of Work:

Under the supervision of the Program Specialist for Ending Violence Against Women of UN Women Bangladesh Country Office, an independent evaluation expert will be hired to undertake the review. The expert will be responsible for the following:

1. Perform desk review of the project’s key documents including, Project Document, Annual Work Plans and Budget, all progress reports of UN Women, and implementing partners, all knowledge products including studies, research and outcome documents such as “Putting women and girls at the centre of COVID-19 Prevention and Response: A practitioners’ toolkit for a COVID-safe GBV-WEE integrated model shelter” from all conferences and workshops that have been conducted within the framework of the project.

2. Conduct virtual key informant interviews of the project team members and focus group discussions with key stakeholders such as the women and girls who participated in the project and availed various services such as skills and financial literacy training, medical, legal, psychosocial support, self-defense training, girls’ club activities, gender awareness trainings etc. and community members who were involved in the project.

3. Conduct an analysis of the various policies of the shelter and a review of case files. UN Women will provide a list of stakeholders and will assist with liaising and coordinating the meeting schedules as needed.

4. Analyze the review findings and prepare the draft evaluation report, summarizing key findings and recommendations.

5. Validation and presentation of the review with UN Women staff and partner and submit final report incorporating feedbacks.

The consultants should be guided but not limited by the scope of the review questions listed above. The consultants should raise and address any other relevant issues that may emerge during the evaluation.

Expected deliverables and payment milestones:

The followings are expected deliverables with timeframe and payment milestones. The respective deliverables and documents will be reviewed by UN Women before processing any payment. The deliverables and payment schedule are below:

Ethical Conduct

The consultant is expected to develop a protocol for ensuring the safety of participants in line with WHO Guidelines on research on VAW.

Contract period and work location

The consultant will be home based, with ability to maintain working hours compatible with Dhaka, Bangladesh working hours. The contract period will be for 30 days spread between 15 march and 30 April 2022.

Deliverables

No. of days

Payment milestone

1. Draft a work plan with timelines for the review.

2 days

60% of the total contract amount shall be paid upon submission of deliverables from 01 to 04 and all acceptance and certified by the UN Women Bangladesh contract administrator.

2. Conduct desk review of the project’s key documents including Project Document, Annual Work Plans and Budget, all progress reports of UN Women, and implementing partners, all knowledge products including studies, research, and outcome documents.

5 days

3. Review and adapt research methodology, tools, research protocol for each component with guidance from UN Women Asia Pacific Regional Office and Global Rights for Women(GRW) teams.

3 days

4. Conduct virtual interviews, KIIs, and FGDs with the project team members and key beneficiaries and stakeholders involved in the project in Dhaka (including women and girls who received services as well as community people involved)

8 days

5. Analyze the review findings and prepare the draft evaluation report, summarizing key findings and recommendations.

7 days

40% of the total contract amount shall be paid upon submission of deliverables from 05 to 07 and all acceptance and certified by the UN Women Bangladesh contract administrator

6. Conduct the validation sessions with UN Women Staff and with Responsible Party

2 days

7. Submit final report incorporating feedbacks

3 days

Skills and Experience of the Consultant

The assignment is expected to be carried out by an international consultant. Expected skills and experiences of the consultant is mentioned below:

DSA and Travel:

No DSA and travel will be considered since its home-based works.

Super vision and Performance evaluation:

The international consultant will work under the direct supervision of Programme Specialist – EVAW.

Competencies

Functional Competencies

• Proven experience in developing participatory research methodologies, evaluations and reviews and in the field of EVAW.
• Experience in developing evidence-based manuals and toolkit on GBV services.
• Experience in planning and facilitating high- level consultations, training, and participatory research design.
• Experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative research related to EVAW.
• Familiarity and knowledge of the Essential Service Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence.
• Previous professional experience with the United Nations, especially UN Women.
• Familiarity with the WHO Ethical standards.
• Previous experience in Bangladesh would be an asset.

Core Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards.
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UN Women.
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism.
• Fulfills all obligations to gender sensitivity and zero tolerance for sexual harassment.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Master’s degree in social sciences, public policy/administration, governance, gender studies or similar.

Technical Competencies:

• At least 05 years of progressively responsible, relevant work experience in issues in implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development projects related to gender equality and ending violence against women.

Language

• Fluency in written and spoken English.

Price Proposal and Schedule of Payments

Consultant must send a financial proposal based on Lump Sum Amount. The total amount quoted shall be all-inclusive and include all costs components required to perform the deliverables identified in the TOR, including professional fee, only and any other applicable cost to be incurred by the SSA in completing the assignment. The contract price will be fixed output-based price regardless of extension of the herein specified duration. Payments will be done upon completion of the deliverables/outputs and as per below percentages

Evaluation Method and Criteria: Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis-

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as: 1. Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and 2. Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation; Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70 mark in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation. Technical Criteria for Evaluation (Maximum 70 points out of 100)

Criteria-01; Academic Qualification - Max Point 10 Criteria-02; Experience in design, planning, implementation and / or monitoring of development projects related to gender equality and ending violence against women-Max 20 Criteria-03; Proven experience in developing participatory research methodologies and protocols in the field of EVAW- Max Point 20

Criteria-04; Proven experience in writing project proposals, donor reports, research reports, and policy briefs- Max Point 20

Criteria-05; Familiarity and knowledge of the Essential Service Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence and WHO Ethical Standards- Max Point 20

Criteria-06; Previous professional experience with the United Nations, especially UN Women Bangladesh- Max Point 10

The total number of points allocated for the technical qualification component is 100. The technical qualification of the individual is evaluated based on following technical qualification evaluation criteria:

Only the candidates who have attained a minimum of 70% of total points (70) will be considered as technically-qualified candidate.

Interested candidates will submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications.

To be included as part of the proposal:

Only applications including all items mentioned above will be considered.

• A brief expression of interest: a brief narrative presenting your suitability for this assignment ·
• UN Women Personal History form (P-11) which can be downloaded from: http://www.unwomen.org/about-us/employment
• 3 Sample work
• Financial proposal: Propose the daily fees (per date USD rate * 30 days).

NOTE: Documents required before contract signing:

UN Personal History Form; Full medical examination and Statement of Fitness to work and travel for consultants with travel involved. (This is not a requirement for RLA contracts); Security Certificate BSAFE: EN: https://agora.unicef.org/course/info.php?id=17891 Individual subscribers over 65 years of age are required to undergo a full medical examination including x-rays at their own cost and obtaining medical clearance from the UN Medical Director prior to taking up their assignment; Release letter in case the selected consultant is government official. Only applications will all items mentioned above will be considered

Note: The individual consultant who does not meet the above eligibility criteria shall not be considered for further evaluation. Necessary documentation must be submitted to substantiate the above eligibility criteria

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Added 2 years ago - Updated 2 years ago - Source: jobs.undp.org