Consultant – Gender Diagnosis/Analysis within the Fields of Employment for Young Girls and Boys.- Bangui, CAR 68 views0 applications

Background and Rationale:

Since March 2013 in CAR, women and girls have become recurring victims of gender-based violence (GBV), weakening communities with dramatic consequences. The resurgence of these harmful practices- exacerbated by conflict (accusations of witchcraft, early marriage, female genital mutilation, etc.)- is also the consequence of the loss of the protective role exercised by communities. In the Central African context, marked by certain cultural and legal norms that discriminate against women, extreme poverty, widespread insecurity, forced displacement and weak prevention system, GBV remains a major problem. Women are often preyed upon by armed groups. Women are the most affected by poverty, human rights violations and the lack of political, economic and development prospects. In rural areas, the poverty rate is about 81% for women, compared to 69% for men. This economic vulnerability leads to the adoption of negative coping strategies, with the risk of an increase in cases of protection incidents. In addition, women, as members of resident communities, face particular protection challenges, as their daily activities of collecting water and firewood often expose them to violence by armed groups.

In the Central African Republic, the various programmes carried out with women show that they have a high level of resilience. Indeed, with the crisis, they have had to assume the role of breadwinner in order to enable their households to survive. Thus, they are very much involved in small commercial activities and small trades and have become a dynamic voice for community activities and projects.

An assessment of the differences between men, women, boys and girls at the beginning of the project would help to better identify, target and respond to the different needs of all beneficiaries. Gender analysis ensures that we understand how gender roles, responsibilities and inequalities will affect the effectiveness of the project and the sustainability of its results. It would also allow us to design and implement strategies and actions that will help to address gender inequalities so that men and women benefit from the project and are equitably empowered.

Thus, aware of the challenges of taking into account gender concerns in the implementation of training and professional integration strategies for young people, the consortium implementing the MAIGO TI A MASSAKA project would like to benefit from the skills of a qualified consultant to facilitate in-depth gender diagnosis and analysis of local contexts and partner structures (training centres, apprenticeship workshops, support services, etc.) identified and selected to benefit from the project’s support.

This document defines the objectives and expected results of this work which will propose clear directions to offer equal opportunities for girls and boys to benefit from the opportunities for success.

General Objective :

Conduct a gender analysis of the intervention areas to understand how gender roles, responsibilities and inequalities will affect the effectiveness of the project and the sustainability of its results in order to design and implement strategies and actions that will help to address gender inequalities.

Assess the gender capacity of the structures that will be involved in the implementation of the project in the localities of Bangui and its outskirts, Bouar, Berberati, Carnort and Mbaiki.

Specific Objective:

Evaluate, according to a participatory approach, the existing gender capacity as well as the potential capacity of local contexts and partner structures (training centres, learning workshops, support services, etc.) identified and selected to benefit from project support.

This should include analysis of the following elements :

1. Gender-specific data available for the institution, including: Number (and ratio) of men and women working in the institution by division and type of position (teacher, management team, psycho-social supervision, etc.) ;
2. Capacities : (i) human, (ii) material, (iii) strategic, coordination and communication, (iv) financial, (v) planning, implementation and monitoring-evaluation.
3. Constraining and facilitating factors for the promotion of gender equality at the level: institutional (political and socio-economic environment in which the analytical unit operates), organizational (characteristics of the analytical unit that facilitate or hinder gender capacity) and individual (individual competencies).
4. Gender capacity building needs and priorities, in general, and for project implementation in particular.
5. Possible strategic partnerships for gender in general and for the implementation of the gender component of the project.
6. Good practices and lessons learned in gender capacity building in previous or similar projects or similar institutions.

Mission:

The Consultant shall use the elements below as the basis of the analytical framework and modify them as required, based on the context and his experience in the field.

For the context analysis :

Topic: Roles and Responsibilities

Questions: Who does what?

Discussion Questions: What are the roles and responsibilities within the household (for men, women, boys and girls)? In your target areas or programme systems? Do roles and responsibilities differ between female-headed and male-headed households? How have gender roles changed over time or as a result of a crisis? What are the gains and losses for women and men in this process?

Topic: Access

Questions: Who has what? Who can use what?

Discussion Questions: Do men, women, boys and girls have equal access to resources? What types of resources does each group have access to? (Men, women, boys, girls). Resources can include income, credit, financial services, employment, natural resources, agricultural inputs, education, knowledge, skills and information. Who can go where? Why? Do women and girls have to ask permission? Are there safety issues?

Topic: Decision-making and Influence

Questions: Who participates in decision-making? Who makes decisions at the household level? At the community level?

Discussion Questions: For what types of resources can men make decisions? Women? Boys? Girls? What are the barriers that prevent people from participating in decision-making? Are these barriers different for women, men, boys and girls?

What is the representation of men, women and youth in community groups? Civil society? Government?

Topic: Time

Question: How is time used?

Discussion Questions: How much time do men and women spend on work without income compared to income-generating work?

How do men, women, boys and girls spend time in a typical day? Do they have free time or similar leisure time? Is there a large imbalance in workload between men, women, boys and girls? Does this vary according to economic class, livelihood or other variables – such as IDPs, host community?

Topic: Cultural and Legal Context

Question: What is the influencing context?

Discussion Questions: What are the cultural perceptions, norms and attitudes that influence the behaviour of men and women? Boys and girls? (Be quiet, be aggressive?) What are the social expectations about male behaviour? Female? (age of marriage, types of jobs?)

What are the official laws and policies that impact on men, women and excluded groups? (i.e. land titles? Inheritance rights, gender policy, etc.). How do social institutions such as the media, school, religion and family influence the behaviour of men and women?

Topic: Risk of gender-based violence

Question: What are the potential risks of GBV?

Discussion Questions: Who is subjected to what form of violence? Who commits acts of violence and what is the purpose? Are women and girls more at risk of domestic violence in response to changing gender roles? What are communities doing to address such violence? Are there potential risks (including backlash) resulting from programme interventions?

For the analysis of institutions:

Human Capacity

• Gender focal points: role, status, availability, decision-making power.
• Availability of internal or external gender expertise on specific themes.
• Availability of internal or external gender expertise for gender training.
• Existence of gender champions (gender equality advocates).
• Staff trained on gender issues

Material Capacity

• Separate and clean toilets for women and men.
• Secure environment.
• Location of the establishment (isolation, nearby services, etc.).
• Methodological tools available such as gender training modules.
• Educational material free of stereotypes and gender-sensitive (manuals, posters, etc.).

Capacity for Strategy, Coordination and Communication

• Proactivity and commitment of the institution on gender and inequality issues in the broadest sense (based on concrete activities).

Willingness of the management team to address gender issues (speeches and preliminary activities on gender).

• Existence of a specific gender policy.
• Code of conduct/code of ethics or rules of procedure for teachers and students.
• Clear policy on violence, including physical, psychological and sexual violence?
• Non-discrimination policy?
• Governance bodies promote the participation of men and women and ? also in the management?
• Capacity to develop partnerships and strategic alliances on gender.
• Capacity to coordinate internal and external actors and stakeholders on gender issues.
• Publications and communication tools reflecting gender issues and challenges (presentation of gender-specific data, issues, etc.).
• Capacity for advocacy on gender with internal and external stakeholders.
• Capacity to share information relevant to men and women.

Financial Capacity

• Specific budget for gender activities.
• Specific budgets for innovative activities with a positive impact on the reduction of inequalities, including gender inequalities.

Capacity for Planning, Implementation and Monitoring and Evaluation

• Programmes and action plans include gender objectives and specific activities to reduce gender inequalities and promote women’s empowerment.
• Experience in implementing gender activities/components.
• Capacity to implement projects/activities at all levels of the institution (central, decentralized, networks, etc.).
• Capacity to mobilize the necessary human resources.
• Systematic disaggregation of data by gender (number of students and teachers, by fields and level of study; drop-outs; diplomas; transition to employment or higher education, etc.).
• Situation analysis culture for boys and girls/gender prism.
• Culture of evaluation of activities with a gender prism.

Methodology :

The proposed methodology will be participatory. It will :

• Define and propose a list of internal and external participants from institutions or communities, including the final beneficiaries of the project, men and women, boys and girls;
• Elaborate an analytical framework to structure the development of data collection tools;
• Develop participatory quantitative and qualitative data collection tools;
• Establish and conduct a data collection program (sampling, duration, etc.);
• Present the method for analyzing the data collected;

Timeframe / Schedule:

The proposed duration is a maximum of 21 days.

The 21 days include travel to the project area as well as the activities of document preparation and analysis, preparation of field surveys, interviews and information collection, report writing and the restitution/validation meeting of the study report. Although the consultant could make modifications, an estimated schedule is as follows:

Schedule/Activity/ Persons responsible:

2 days/Review background and conduct literature review /Consultant

2 days /Design and test qualitative and quantitative tools, develop survey protocols, and design survey databases. /Consultant in collaboration with the technical committee

2 days/ Training of investigators on survey protocols, data collection and database tools/ Consultant

6 days/ Data collection and data entry / Consultant

3 days/ Data Analysis /Consultant

1 day/ Restitution of first results /Consultant

2 days/ Draft study report/ Consultant

2 days/ Draft review and comments/ Consortium team

1 days/ Final report /Consultant

Consultant Deliverables:

• The gender diagnostic document in the localities of Bangui and its suburbs, Bouar, Berberati, Carnot and Mbaïki.
• The survey protocol;
• The final report of the study

Report Format :

The baseline report should be structured according to the following guidelines:

• Cover page, list of acronyms
• Table of contents that identifies page numbers for the main content areas of the report.
• The Executive Summary (2 to 3 pages) should be a clear and concise stand-alone document that gives readers the essential content of the study report in 2 or 3 pages, previewing the main points to allow readers to build a mental framework for organizing and understanding the detailed information contained in the report. In addition, the executive summary helps readers identify the main findings and recommendations of the report.
• Methodology: sampling method including the strengths and weaknesses of the method used, inclusion of stakeholders and staff, approximate timeline of activities, description of any statistical analysis undertaken, including rationale and software package used. Discussion of any random sampling used should include details on how random respondents were identified and invited to participate. This section should also discuss the constraints and limitations of the data collection process and rigour.
• Results: Consider how best to organize this based on the evaluation and research questions. In some cases it is useful to organize the report in relation to the study objectives, but in other cases it makes more sense to organize the report in relation to the evaluation questions.
• Appendices: French-language data collection instruments; list of stakeholder groups with number and type of interactions; Statement of Work, interview protocols developed and used, all data sets can be provided in electronic format, any photos required, participant profiles or other special documents needed.

Required Experience & Skills:

• A thorough understanding of the legal and institutional framework and a good knowledge of the Central African socio-economic context;
• The consultant will have an academic background in the field and has a university degree in social and legal sciences;
• Proven experience in the implementation of gender promotion projects in the Central African Republic, with particular emphasis on young people and women;
• Previous experience in producing professional reports;
• Relevant professional experience, including proven experience in carrying out similar studies and proficiency in French.

Application Form :

Applications must include:

• A letter of intent.
• A technical proposal explaining the understanding of the TOR, the proposed approach and methodology for conducting the baseline study including sampling, a detailed schedule of activities.
• A detailed budget in Excel format.
• Consultant’s CV with references.

• Appendices: similar work if possible.