PATHWAYS TO ELIMINATING CRITICAL BARRIERS TO WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT IN KENYA 210 views0 applications

TERMS OF REFERENCE

PATHWAYS TO ELIMINATING CRITICAL BARRIERS TO WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT IN KENYA

BACKGROUND

Oxfam is a global movement for empowering people to realize and advocate for their rights and making key stakeholders responsive and accountable towards their needs. We work with the poorest and vulnerable communities across the globe on issues of women, water, work and inequality. Oxfam has been operating in Kenya since 1963 in the poorest and marginalized arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of Northern Kenya. Our initial focus was to meet the humanitarian imperative on food security and water and sanitation. With time, Oxfam evolved its programmatic focus from humanitarian response to building longer term programmes that increase community resilience and address the root causes of poverty and inequality – including gender inequality. Oxfam’s approach to addressing inequality and achieving change has increasingly focused on influencing policy makers and mobilizing active citizenship as opposed to programmes which consist solely of direct service delivery interventions.

In its interventions on Women’s Rights, Oxfam in Kenya seeks to address gender inequalities in women’s participation in political and economic spheres. Its aim is for women to gain power over their lives to participate in, and contribute to, public life. Research highlights that deeply entrenched patriarchal attitudes and practices, has meant that women take a secondary position to men.[1] Indeed, even as women comprise over 50 percent of the Kenyan population estimated at 47.6 million[i][ii], their limited participation and power in political and economic spaces does not reflect this demographic reality. At the institutional level, the Constitution of Kenya 2010 has been lauded as one of the best in the world, particularly in its provisions on human rights, equality, and inclusiveness. Despite this significant constitutional gain, women in Kenya remain marginalized in political and economic spheres. In as far as economic justice is concerned, Kenya has a worrying disparity between men and women entrenched in disproportionate representation in the economic space, incommensurate remuneration in the formal labour market and unfair distribution in unpaid care work. As it stands, there are key development initiatives in Kenya to stimulate economic growth, including the Big 4 Agenda, it is true that these development initiatives could potentially serve to bridge the gap of gender inequality in the economic space by having women meaningfully participate in economic ventures, however, this has in the past not proven to be the case. For these reasons, it becomes important to identify the visible and invisible barriers to women economic empowerment in Kenya focussing on marginalized women.

PATHWAYS TO ELIMINATING CRITICAL BARRIERS TO WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT IN KENYA RESEARCH

OBJECTIVE OF THE TASK

The research will provide evidence on the status of women’s economic empowerment for the Kenyan women especially the poor and marginalized. Oxfam will be keen to understand the underlying issues (both systemic and structural) that makes it difficult for women to thrive and benefit substantially in the economic space.

The aim of this research will be to identify the barriers and establish workable pathways that would improve women’s full participation and contribution in the economic sector; and recommend strategies that can be employed to re-design programmatic interventions for the Women Economic Empowerment strand of Oxfam’s Women’s Rights Programme. The findings will further inform the programme’s engagement framework at the national and county level.

Additionally, the research is expected to provide recommendations on gender transformative and innovative approaches that fit within Oxfam’s overall influencing strategy.

We envisage this consultancy as part of Oxfam’s investment in deepening our own feminist analysis and skills – and for that we are seeking to work with a mutual/peer learning approach, whereby we can better build and deepen the skills and technical expertise of our own Gender Justice/Economic Justice teams with this new thinking

BROAD OBJECTIVES

1. Through an intersectional lens, the research will aim to understand the current landscape of women’s engagement in economic activities in Kenya, particularly related to micro-, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), but also women’s access to jobs in the formal and informal sector
2. To carry out a consolidated review of existing best practices (documented and undocumented) in promoting women’s access to economic opportunities in Kenya
3. To understand the key constraints that diverse group of women in Kenya are facing regarding their access to economic opportunities including access and/or ownership of individual and collective productive assets, access to information and markets, commodities and value chains; access to finance and technical assistance

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

The consultant(s) research report will provide/analyse:

1. The overall economic framework including a deeper social norms and institutional systems/structures that underpin and shape today’s economic ecosystem as well as gaps in terms of access to and control of resources, access to markets highlighting opportunities to women accessing and participating substantively in the economic space.
2. Institutional and partnership arrangements while identifying policies, legislation and programs that support economic growth-and how these are structured to allow/disallow or limit women’s access to capital and economic opportunities.
3. Key emerging areas of economic growth and embedded technologies, analyzing opportunities for gender transformative change that enables equitable participation and leadership of women and the investment/changes/support services required for this.
4. Details on issues of intersectionality (class, age, education, gender identity) and how inclusion/exclusion aspects of the economic framework affect them; paying attention to Sustainable Development Goals, national strategies and programmes as well as county planning/budgeting and strategies.
5. Systemic and Structural barriers to the equitable participation of women, out of this, tease out key critical barriers to women’s participation in the economy.
6. Socio-cultural barriers to women’s access to economic participation. Determine the gendered implications (socio-economic, cultural impacts), as well as the impacts on gender roles and relations of economic participation.
7. A key stakeholders’ analysis to identify the players within the women economic empowerment space, (those that shape the tide and institutional systems/structures that underpin and frame today’s economic ecosystem) and their contribution to women economic empowerment. This will also include analysis of formal and informal power dynamics between the stakeholders. Focusing on government (national and county) private sector, community capturing decision making patterns and how this affects the participation of women in the economic sector.
8. Review of existing good practices in promoting women’s access to economic opportunities for women in Kenya.
9. Highlight any innovative (including undocumented traditional approaches) programs /strategies/Models that have /has the potential of unlocking new potential for impact for scale on women economic empowerment.
10. Propose a set of milestones (including operationalization, implementation and an acceleration strategy) and measurement plans for suggested innovative approaches/models/programs.
11. Provide a clear set of recommendations on measures that can be applied for more gender-transformative and sustainable policy and programme results in economic rights.
12. Provide recommendations for addressing the barriers and providing clear pathway to women economic empowerment through Oxfam in Kenya, Women Economic Empowerment strand.

Methodology

The methodology will be refined jointly with the consultant upon recruitment, however, it is anticipated that the research will use a mixed method approach which will involve reviewing and analyzing relevant policy and legislative documents for secondary data and; Focus Group Discussions, meetings and Key Informant interviews with a broad range of stakeholders in the sector. The methodology will be approved by Oxfam before commencement of the assignment and it is expected that the consultant proposes innovative, participatory, feminist and utilization focused methods that fully respond to the terms of reference.

TIMELINES

The research will consist of 5 phases

1. Recruitment of research team; preparatory meeting with Oxfam to discuss TOR, design and agree on methodology and to draw up a detailed work plan; Initial briefing with Oxfam to ensure that the research team is clear on the principle proposition for this exercise.
2. Preparatory desk review: drafting research matrix with research questions, data requirements and sources; secondary data and literature review
3. Main research phase: design of data collection tools, possible pretesting of tools, training of data clerks, planning of field visits and discussions/interviews with stakeholders including Government offices, other local and international CSO’s, conduct field visits to collect data through a combination of data collection methods. It is expected that the team will apply a gendered lens and feminist approaches to seek the views of communities.
4. Reporting: Analysis of data (data should be collected, analysed and disaggregated by gender and data sets),
5. Production of a draft report, review and validation of this report with Oxfam to give opportunity for feedback; submission of final report and presentation of findings and recommendations.

DELIVERABLES

i. Complete bibliography of documents/materials/data used during desk review of secondary sources.

ii. Power point presentation of evaluation plan, timelines and activities.

iii. Final data collection tools, data bases and analysis plan.

iv. First draft of research report.

v. Final research report.

vi. Power point presentation of main findings and conclusions for debriefing purposes; and

vii. All data collection questionnaires, hard copies of filled in questionnaires, clean data set and analysis files.

Confidentiality of issues discussed MUST be stressed during interviews and safeguarded by the partners and the research consultant(s). The data should be disaggregated by gender and age as it is extremely important when identifying key issues of the response and assessing community vulnerability.

RESEARCH REPORT

The production of the report will be the liability of the research team covering all the aspects as outlined in the ToRs. The final report should be:

· Produced in English language and should be simple in expression and easy to understand.

· The final research report (including an Executive Summary) and presentation of a summary report in PowerPoint. The final report should be no more than 60 pages excluding Executive summary, appendices and bibliography.

· The report format and text should be an A4 paper size and a legible font.

· The evaluation team will be liable to submit an electronic copy of the research report by the agreed deadline.

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE OF CONSULTANTS

The study shall be carried out by a consultant or team of consultants that shall have the following skills and competencies:

· Academic qualification- At least a master’s degree in Gender Studies, Law, Social Science, Development Studies, Economics or other relevant disciplines. (A PhD in Gender and Development would be an added advantage), with experience of 5 years and above.

· High quality skills and demonstrated experience in similar researches, particularly, gender and/or women’s rights-related research, contextual analyses and baseline studies.

· Demonstrated understanding of constitutional and policy environment, national strategies and programs, county integrated development plans and strategies, and women’s economic empowerment.

· Familiarity and practical research with frameworks such as market systems, women economic empowerment and transformative approaches to women economic empowerment.

· Familiarity with the context, (Kenya, the Region) or that similar to Kenya

· Consultants should be willing to share evidence of their work

· Excellent analytical and report writing skills.

· Fluency in spoken and written English and Kiswahili.

TAX AND VAT ARRANGEMENTS

Oxfam Kenya will deduct withholding tax from the consultancy fees in conformity with the prevailing government rates and submit the same to the Government of Kenya. The consultant will be entitled to a copy of tax submission certificate on request from Oxfam.

TIMEFRAME

The process will take approximately 60 days that include preparation, field work, data analysis and report writing. The expected date of the start of the evaluation is October 8,2020 and final report will be produced by December 30,2020

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

Consultants who meet the requirements of this assignment should submit Expression of Interest of maximum of 10 pages which should include the following:

i. Suitability statement that express commitment to availability for the entire period of the assignment.

ii. Brief statement on the interpretation of the ToRs and proposed methodology including a detailed work plan.

iii. Updated curriculum vitae of the consultant clearly spelling out the relevant qualifications and experiences and especially similar assignments and evidence of similar work.

iv. Contacts of key organizations that have recently contracted the consultant(s) to carry out similar tasks.

v. Financial proposal with daily costs per activity which shall be part of the 10 pages.

Applicants should be actively working on women empowerment or gender equality field. Those working within established research or academic institutions are highly encouraged to apply

Reporting lines -The consultant shall work under the supervision of the Women’s Rights Strategist with strong liaison with Oxfam’s MEAL Advisor and Programme Officers

[i] http://data.worldbank.org/country/kenya, 2014

[ii] https://www.knbs.or.ke/?wpdmpro=2019-kenya-population-and-housing-census…