Local Consultant for the Qualitative Research on Violence against Women within the Study on Impact of COVID-19 on Human Rights Protection and Government Response in Georgia

Contract

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Background

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.

UN Women in Georgia supports state and non-state partners towards the achievement of substantive gender equality in Georgia. In line with national and international commitments, UN Women works on the levels of policies and legislation, institutions and grassroots, in order to achieve transformative results for increased gender equality and greater protection of the rights of women and girls.

In particular and inter alia, UN Women has been supporting national partners in Georgia to end violence against women and girls and domestic violence (VAWG/DV) since 2010. Throughout the past decade, we have provided technical assistance to the Government of Georgia to align national legislation and policies with the relevant international legal frameworks and standards. To enhance implementation of the laws and policies, UN Women Georgia has supported the establishment of specialized services for survivors of domestic violence, such as the first state-run shelters, crisis centres and hotlines and rehabilitation programmes for perpetrators. We have helped to develop key capacities within the relevant service providers and have promoted these services – assisting the survivors to reach out for professional assistance. UN Women and its diverse UN and non-UN partners, including women’s organizations and state institutions, conducted a series of awareness-raising interventions and campaigns targeting the public and decision makers at all levels, aimed at changing the attitudes, values and structures that sustain inequality and discrimination.

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global pandemic. The first case of COVID-19 has been reported in Georgia on February 29, 2020. As of August 17, there are 1,341 confirmed cases, 232 active cases, 1092 recovered patients and 17 registered deaths in Georgia (National Center for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC), 2020. Covid-19 Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.ncdc.ge/Pages/User/LetterContent.aspx?ID=161b884d-ef3c-426c-9ddc-29f9b8fc09d1. Accessed: 17.08.2020). Georgia’s response to COVID-19 pandemic was efficient in containing the virus and keeping the number of infected patients low. Georgia is enjoying the distinction of being included in a list of 15 non-EU states the European Union considers safe enough to open its borders to and is the only former Soviet republic to achieve that status (BBC, 2020. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53269000 Accessed: 17.08.2020). But the economic cost for Georgia has been high, with a five per cent decline predicted for GDP in 2020 and an estimated 91,000 jobs lost so far. The country’s high dependence on tourism and remittances, and its high rate of informal labour, makes it particularly vulnerable to pandemic-driven restrictions (Administration of the Government of Georgia (AoG), 2020. Georgia’s COVID-19 response: Lessons learned and recommendations for the future. [unpublished document]).

Women and girls are anticipated to experience elevated impacts from the COVID-19 outbreak as a result of their gender. Specifically, women and girls face additional economic uncertainty, poorer health outcomes, an increased share of unpaid care work and a greater risk of gender-based violence (United Nations, UN Secretary-General’s Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women (9 April 2020). Available at https://www.

unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/04/policy-brief-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-women). Moreover, measures such as curfews, which have limited travel outside the home, may risk trapping victims of gender-based violence in their homes with abusers and away from support networks. These risks may be exacerbated by economic factors, which may lead to family conflict or loss of employment and further reduced movement outside of the home. Initial figures from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia suggest that year-on-year domestic violence may in fact be down more than 12 per cent when compared to the same period in 2019 (Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Statistics of Registered Crime (2020). Available at https://info.police.ge/uploads/5ecb9e486b8b5.pdf). That said, and as is the case elsewhere, domestic violence suffers from considerable underreporting in Georgia (CRRC-Georgia, Teacher Reporting of Violence Against Children and Women (Tbilisi, UN Women, 2020). Available at https://www2.unwomen.org/-/media/field%20office%20georgia/attachments/publications/2019/teacher%20reporting%20of%20violence%20against%20chioldren%20and%20women.pdf?la=en&vs=2939.). Reported crimes may also be subject to longer-term trends, external policy interventions and recent changes to crime statistics software (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Statistics of Registered Crime.) – circumstances that nonetheless do not preclude the possibility that figures may worsen as the crisis deepens.

As COVID-19 pandemic unfolds and poses long-term challenges in multiple areas of global and national governance, the Government of Georgia has recognized the need to carry out a large-scale research project on Impact of COVID-19 on Human Rights Protection and Government Response to analyse how Georgia managed the pandemic-related crisis, identify shortcomings, assess the actions of state institutions and provide recommendations on how to enhance their capacities for more effective management of the projected next waves of the pandemic. Looking beyond the COVID-19 challenge, the research will also recommend longer-term structural adjustments to build the resilience of Georgian institutions, economy and society to future crises. The study will also explore how measures to control the pandemic have affected the economy and the wellbeing of citizens, particularly those with vulnerabilities, including the older people, persons with disabilities, women and informal workers (Ibid).

As vulnerable groups of people are regarded those that are disproportionally exposed to negative impacts of the pandemic (The Lancet, 2020. Redefining vulnerability in the era of COVID-19. Lancet (London, England), 395(10230), 1089. [online] Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7270489/ Accessed: 14.08.2020). Moreover, a person not considered vulnerable at the outset of a pandemic can become vulnerable depending on the policy response, restrictive measures or the reach of the benefit packages offered by the government. The risks of sudden loss of income or access to social support might have differential effects on different social groups and could push many into increased vulnerability. Certainly, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable groups are not only elderly people or those with ill health, but also people from various demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds that might struggle to cope financially, mentally, or physically with the crisis (Ibid). For instance, evidence suggests that COVID-19 impacts men and women differently, as women are frontline responders as healthcare workers or primary caregivers and are at higher risk of infection. The rapid gender assessment of COVID-19 situation (RGA) conducted by UN Women in Georgia demonstrated some differentiated impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on women and men, including effects on their livelihood and vulnerability and unpaid and care work distribution (UN Women, 2020. Rapid Gender Assessment of the COVID-19 Situation in Georgia. Available at: https://georgia.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2020/08/rapid-gender-assessment-of-the-covid-19-situation-in-georgia#view . Accessed: 14.08.2020.).[11]

The Study on Impact of COVID-19 on Human Rights Protection and Government Response will look at the pandemic response measures undertaken so far, assess their effectiveness, and recommend refinements where needed. Special attention will be devoted to studying COVID-19 impacts on various vulnerable groups.

The study will be coordinated by the Administration of the Government of Georgia (AoG) in partnership with interested partner international organisations leading the implementation of the thematic or sub-thematic research for the three main thematic directions of the study, those being (1) Crisis (pandemic) Management, (2) Legal System for Crisis Management and (3) Human Rights and Socio-economic Protection. The third thematic direction of the study will explore Covid-19 impacts on ten categories of vulnerable groups such as, children, youth, older people, persons with disabilities, ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTQI+ people, third-country migrants, Georgian returnees & Georgian citizens residing abroad, refugees and asylum seekers residing in Georgia, conflict affected population (IDPs, ABL villages, people living in occupied territories) and domestic workers. In addition, a separate section of the study will focus on Gender Equality and Pandemic by exploring effects of the pandemic on gender equality (e.g. VAW and domestic violence, women’s economic participation, unpaid domestic care work distribution, income imparity, etc.) and considerations of gender in the government response including mitigation measures applied.

In this context, UN Women will contribute to the third thematic direction of the study - human rights and socio-economic protection and to the section on Gender Equality and Pandemic. To contribute to the analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic on violence against women in Georgia, UN Women would like to hire Local Consultant for the Qualitative Research on Violence against Women within the Study on Impact of COVID-19 on Human Rights Protection and Government Response in Georgia (hereinafter “the Consultant”). The Local Consultant will be hired to conduct an in-depth, qualitative assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on violence against women and domestic violence.

Gaining an in-depth understanding on how the COVID-19 pandemic and importantly, the government’s response efforts have affected the accessibility of specialized services for violence against women and domestic violence survivors and efficiency of legal protection mechanisms will support the government in planning and management of policies to reduce vulnerabilities and increase resilience of women affected.

Purpose

The overall purpose of the assignment is to conduct an in-depth, qualitative impact assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic vis-à-vis violence against women and domestic violence. The study should explore how well did Georgia ensure the protection of survivors and whether they received needed support during the pandemic with an aim to determine necessary adjustments for the subsequent response and recovery efforts. The research should analyse whether the prevalence of violence against women and domestic violence has increased, as seen by service providers (both state as well as non-state) and law enforcement, whether specialized services for survivors (hotline 116 006, state and non-state shelters and crisis centers) were accessible and to what extent and whether or not legal protection mechanisms (restraining and protective orders and criminal investigations) were executed and monitored efficiently. Specifically, the study should be designed to answer the following research objectives:

• To study changes in prevalence and severity of violence against women and domestic violence, from the perspective of service providers and law enforcement.
• To study and compare main drivers of violence against women and domestic violence before and during the pandemic and how the latter is linked to the lockdown and other preventive measures.
• To understand patterns of disclosure of violence to service providers and law enforcement in the period of March-May 2020 (lockdown period) and June-August 2020 as compared to the same months of 2019, considering the increasing trend in disclosure over the last few years to identify what fraction in increase/decrease, if any can be attributable to the pandemic and related factors;
• To assess challenges experienced by the state and non-state service providers in addressing the problem during the pandemic to inform future policymaking.
• To explore survivors’ experiences in accessing and benefiting from specialized services and legal protections from the state.

The development of the methodology of the study, as well as its implementation will be fully overseen and supervised by UN Women, through the UN Women Deputy Country Representative in Georgia, UN Women Programme Analyst and UN Women Project Analyst. More specifically, the Consultant will be responsible for the implementation of the following tasks:

Duties and Responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities of the Consultant are:

• To prepare a workplan with a description of the activities to be undertaken, methodology to be used and timeframes for each activity.
• To develop the detailed study methodology and key approaches for all stages of the study such as development of research instruments, defining groups of respondents, respondent recruitment strategy, data collection, analysis and report-writing. The Consultant is encouraged to review most recent studies related to COVID-19 impact on vulnerable groups and incorporate the lessons learned into the proposed methodology (please see some of the examples - Liu Q, Luo D, Haase JE, et al., 2020. The experiences of health-care providers during the COVID-19 crisis in China: a qualitative study. Lancet Glob Health, 8(6), pp.790-798; Felice, Carla & Di Tanna, Gian Luca & Zanus, Giacomo & Grossi, Ugo., 2020. Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Healthcare Workers in Italy: Results from a National E-Survey. Journal of Community Health, 45; Que J, Shi L, Deng J, et al., 2020. Psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers: a cross-sectional study in China. General Psychiatry, 33(3)).The study methodology should include desk research, secondary data analysis and a qualitative in-depth inquiry of the main target groups of the study (state and non-state service providers to victims/survivors of violence as well as selected representatives of law enforcement and ideally also victims/survivors of violence themselves)) by applying in-depth interviewing (IDI) and focus group discussion (FGD) techniques.

The methodology should spell out administrative and other data sources to be analyzed and the number of interviews, principles in selecting and distributing persons for in-depth interviews and focus-groups.

Due to the sensitivity of the topics of the present inquiry, the methodology should consider a neutral private space for conducting interviews to ensure the most comfortable setting for the respondents to disclose their opinions and concerns (e.g. interviewing outside of the employment location). As a methodological guidance for the development of the study methodology and study instruments, adherence to the WHO ethical and safety standards and quality control mechanisms (Guidelines for Producing Statistics on Violence against Women – Statistical Surveys (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.13.XVII.7). Available at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/docs/Guidelines_Statistics_VAW.pdf) must be ensured and the UN Women/GEOSTAT publication Challenges and Lessons Learned from the 2017 National study on Violence against Women in Georgia (https://georgia.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/06/lessons-learned-from-the-national-study-on-violence-against-women-in-georgia) should be consulted.

• To develop qualitative research instruments in line with the existing best practices, standards and guidelines. The study tools should include separate FGD and IDI guidelines with state and non-state service providers, police and prosecutors, and survivors and key informant interviews (KIIs).
• To conduct secondary data analysis of administrative records (including hotlines) from state and non-state service providers to explore trends in disclosure of violence
• To conduct In-depth interviews (IDIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with (1) district, patrol and criminal police officers, 112 operators and prosecutors (2) state and non-state service providers (hotline 116-006, shelters and crisis centers), (3) survivors of violence against women, domestic violence – beneficiaries of the specialized services and (4) subject experts, in particular those state and NGO/SCO representatives who have been involved in the COVID-19 response, designing measures and/or assistance schemes/benefit packages and prepare detailed summary of each interview including quotes. The recommended sample size of the qualitative study is as follows: 20-25 IDIs and 3-5 FGDs with state and non-state service providers, police and prosecutors, and survivors and subject experts conducted. The composition of the FGDs and IDIs should ensure diverse representation of different characteristics of respondents. The mode of data collection (online or face-to-face) will be determined bearing in mind the pandemic-related restrictions in place, or those that may be reintroduced during the study implementation.
• To produce a report incorporating the findings of the study, including research-based policy recommendations in English and Georgian.
• To present the findings of the study, as well as recommendations deriving therefrom at a formal event to a selection of state and non-state stakeholders and to perform other study-related follow-up actions as needed.

Deliverables:

The Consultant is expected to produce the following deliverables:

• A detailed workplan containing a description of activities to be undertaken, methodologies to be used and timeframes for each activity submitted (1 working day) - by 14 September 2020;
• Detailed study methodology including the FGD and IDI guides in Georgian developed and submitted (5 working days) by - 30 September 2020;
• Fieldwork completed with 20-25 IDIs and 3-5 FGDs with state and non-state service providers, police and prosecutors, and survivors and 5 key informants conducted, and the FGD/IDI summaries/transcripts finalized and secondary data analysis conducted (20 working days)- by 30 October 2020;
• A report drafted in English, including an overview of the methodology, literature review, secondary analysis of data, qualitative study findings and policy recommendations (5 working days) by 20 November 2020;
• A final report in English submitted to UN Women, incorporating feedback from UN Women (2 working days) – by 7 December 2020;
• A presentation of the study conducted in English and Georgian (as requested) (1 working day)- by 10 December 2020

Competencies

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity
• Integrity
• Professionalism

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues
• Accountability
• Creative Problem Solving
• Effective Communication
• Inclusive Collaboration
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Leading by Example

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf?la=en&vs=637

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced University degree (at least Masters) in Social Sciences.

Experience:

• At least five years of professional experience in conducting research, specific experience in conducting qualitative studies will be an asset;
• Demonstrated experience in research on gender equality, with a focus on violence against women issues;
• Demonstrated experience in developing high-quality reports on the research conducted;
• Understanding of the local context will be an asset.

Language:

Fluency in Georgian and English.

Evaluation Procedure

The candidates will be evaluated in three stages: according to minimum qualification criteria; technical and financial evaluation.

The candidates must possess following minimum qualification criteria to be eligible for further technical evaluation:

• Advanced University degree (at least Masters) in Social Sciences;
• At least five years of professional experience in conducting research, specific experience in conducting qualitative studies will be an asset;
• Fluency in Georgian and English.

The candidates will be evaluated in three stages: according to minimum qualification criteria followed by technical and financial evaluation.

Technical evaluation criteria (including minimum qualifications):

• Advanced University degree (at least Masters) in Social Sciences (max 30 points);
• At least five years of professional experience in conducting research, specific experience in conducting qualitative studies will be an asset (max 100 points);
• Demonstrated experience in research on gender equality, with a focus on violence against women issues (max 100 points);
• Demonstrated experience in developing high-quality reports on the research conducted (max 100 points);
• Understanding of the local context will be an asset (max 20 points).

Maximum total technical score amounts to 350 points. Only candidates who have passed over the minimum qualification criteria and have accumulated at least 245 points out of maximum 350 under technical evaluation will qualify for the next stage i.e. evaluation of their financial proposals.

Evaluation of submitted financial offers will be done based on the following formula: S = Fmin / F * 150

S – score received on financial evaluation;

Fmin – the lowest financial offer out of all the submitted offers qualified over the technical evaluation round;

F – financial offer under consideration.

The winning candidate will be the candidate, who has accumulated the highest aggregated score (technical scoring + financial scoring).

Management arrangements:

The Consultant will report to and work under direct supervision of the UN Women Programme Analyst and overall guidance of the UN Women Georgia Deputy Country Representative.

Financial arrangements:

Payment will be disbursed upon submission and approval of deliverables and certification by UN Women National Programme Officer that the services have been satisfactorily performed as specified below:

• Deliverable 1, 2 and 3 –50%;
• Deliverable 4,5 and 6- 50%

Application submission package:

• Duly filled in Personal History Form PHF11 that can be downloaded from https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558
• CV;
• Financial Proposal - lump sum proposal/offer* in GEL (including breakdown of this lump sum amount, indicating all necessary costs to complete this assignment);

*The applicants are required to submit an aggregated financial offer: “aggregated financial offer” is the total sum of all financial claims of the candidate for accomplishment of all tasks spelled out in this ToR.

How to Submit the Application:

• Download and complete the UN Women Personal History Form (P11)- https://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/about%20us/employment/un-women-p11-personal-history-form.doc?la=en&vs=558
• Merge your UN Women Personal History Form (P11), CV and the Financial Proposal into a single file. The system does not allow for more than one attachment to be uploaded.
• Click on the Job Title (job vacancy announcement).
• Click 'Apply Now' button, fill in necessary information on the first page, and then click 'Submit Application;'
• Upload your application/single file as indicated above with the merged documents (underlined above).
• You will receive an automatic response to your email confirming receipt of your application by the system.

Notes:

• UN Women retains the right to contact references directly. Due to the large numbers of applications we receive, we are able to inform only the successful candidates about the outcome or status of the selection process.
• Applications without the financial offer will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

The individual consultants should take the mandatory learning security course prior to commencement of assignment– details will follow before the issuance of contract.