Facilitation of Participatory Gender Action Research Training Instilling Transformative Gender Approach through Participatory Action Research

Terms of Reference

Facilitation of Participatory Gender Action Research Training

Instilling Transformative Gender Approach through Participatory Action Research

1. Background

SOS-Kinderdorf Österreich (SOS Children’s Villages Austria / SOS AT) was founded in 1949. The idea of “a loving home for every child” has since spread all over the world. Today SOS Children’s Villages is present in 135 countries, organized as a federation with SOS Children’s Villages International as an umbrella body.

SOS Children’s Villages Austria is part of the federation and is implementing as well domestic as international programmes, together with the respective national SOS Children’s Villages Member Associations (MAs). SOS Children’s Villages Ethiopia (SOS CVE) and SOS Children’s Villages Uganda (SOS CVU) are the implementing MAs for the GREEN+ project. The cooperation with the MAs is defined by the following principles of strategic and bilateral cooperation (non-exhaustive list)

• Goals:
  • Individual support of focus countries to develop their programmes and portfolio
  • Individual support of focus countries to reach their goals within strategy 2030
  • Generating knowledge within the organization
• Activities:
  • Knowledge exchange depending on the specific need of the MA.
  • Partnerships between locations in Austria and in the focus countries
• Public Funding:
  • Watching out for funding opportunities (preferred for focus countries but also for others)
  • Joint proposal development
  • Implementation of projects funded by institutional donors (especially Austrian Development Cooperation)

SOS Children’s Villages believes in:

• Child development is best realized within a caring family environment.
• A child’s parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and the development of the child (Article 18, Convention on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC[1]).
• The state is the principal duty bearer in promoting and protecting child rights.
• The child has a right to receive special promotion and assistance from the state when deprived of his/her family environment and to be provided with alternative care (Article 20, UNCRC).

Civil Society Organizations, such as SOS Children’s Villages organization, have an obligation regarding children’s rights. Working with governments can support the state in fulfilling its responsibilities about children’s rights.

1. GREEN+ project context of the assignment

Funded by the Austrian Development Agency (www.ada.gv.at), GREEN+ project runs from January 2019 to December 2023 focusing on three thematic areas, namely:

• Sustainable socio-economic empowerment of families and youth (green economy)
• Gender equality and participation of marginalized persons
• Social protection and child protection
• This multi-country project has been under implementation in Entebbe and Fort Portal of Uganda and Hawassa and Mekelle of Ethiopia.

With regards to promoting gender equality and the participation of marginalized persons, the project has employed an empowerment methodology to activate the capacities of vulnerable women and girls to access green economic opportunities to participate more actively in local decision-making processes. Key project components to strengthen the socio-economic empowerment of vulnerable community members include business and marketable vocational skills development and community-based saving/loan services as well as improved access to social protection services.

The next project phase, which is currently at design stage will focus on women and girls, in an effort to compensate for existing structural inequalities and to enhance gender equality in terms of access to green income-generating activities. The upcoming project will also address the fact that vulnerable women and girls largely lack access to community decision-making processes, including those on environmental and economic issues – yet they are strongly affected by the degrading environmental conditions and lack of sustainable economic opportunities.

1. Purpose of the assignment

Generally speaking, the main purpose of the assignment is to identify the key activities, the mechanisms of change needed to achieve gender transformative outcomes, the stakeholders and the conditions needed for the process to work through participatory action research. The specific purpose of the assignment is to facilitate a training on participatory gender action research, designed to develop the capacity of MA Ethiopia and MA Uganda staff on how to design, plan and conduct action research, and how to capitalize on the learnings from this process for the upcoming gender-focused strategic partnership.

Ultimately, the acquired knowledge and skills will enable staff to build a sound body of evidence that can shape the design, implementation, and evaluation of a gender transformative programme within SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia and Uganda.

Role of the consultant

• Process leader/facilitator
• Leader of the analytical processes

The researcher also participates as a facilitator in setting the research agenda, defining problems, collecting information or data, and analyzing problems considering the social, economic, political, and technical context. The researcher further assists in the design and implementation of actions to solve the problem identified.

Desired approach of the consultant

The desired approach of this assignment is participatory action research. In this approach, it is expected that there should be a balance between the knowledge and experience contributed by the researcher/consultant and that provided by participants. Assumptions that one party knows more than the other are at odds with the democratic essence of this research approach. Participatory researchers caution against either dichotomy: “They know, I don’t know” or “They don’t know, I know.” Instead, participatory research offers a partnership: “We both know some things; neither of us knows everything. Working together, we will know more, and we will both learn more about how to know.” Participatory research assumes that both parties have knowledge and experience to contribute (Patricia Maguire (1987) “Doing Participatory Research: A Feminist Approach”).

1. Principles of participatory gender action research

Inquiry-based: Topics of investigation are grounded in participants’ (women and girls) life and experiences of staff on the ground and concerns.

Participatory: Participants of the research share power with the researcher/consultant in making decisions about the planning, design, and implementation of the research.

Transformative: The purpose of action research is to contribute to gender transformative outcomes of the project.

1. Methodology
   1. Proposed procedures

• • With expert guidance, participants begin exploring gender equality and social inclusion issues in a specific project/programme to choose a topic (research/learning question) to explore in depth. – Once they have selected their problem of interest, they are provided with hands-on capacity development experience on research methods and tools. – Then, participants collect data from stakeholders to answer their research/learning questions, with guidance to think strategically about how to forward actionable recommendations.

1. 1. Proposed methods

The exact methodology is to be determined by the participants co-leading the research, however, the following are suggested for consideration:

• Data will be collected from one of the current or next phase project locations (i.e., Hawassa, Entebbe, Fort Portal, or Jimma) where a gender-focused project has been implemented recently. This will help to take advantage of existing networks identify potential participants.
• The criteria for any proposed research setting are based on retaining flexibility with respect to the feasibility, budget, and purpose of the assignment, and situation on the ground.
• An appropriate sample size of participants consisting of women and girls will be selected along with the participants.
• In addition to primary data (FGDs, KIIs, observation, and/or qualitative surveys), secondary data will be gathered through desk review of related internal and external literature.

1. Responsibilities

The consultant is responsible for

• Submitting the preliminary research protocol to SOS CV within one week after signing the service agreement (3-5 pages, excluding annexes).
• Submitting draft research report of the facilitation of the writeshop (5-10 pages, excluding annexes).
• Facilitating the validation workshop, presenting the draft report to the participants/stakeholders, and incorporating the feedback in the draft research report.
• Facilitate a writeshop for participants in which they explore gender justice issues concerning their lives or their project, choose a topic(s) to explore in depth, develop action research methods and tools.
• Conduct training to build the capacity of participants on hands-on experience in various research methods and tools, such as interviews, focus group discussions, qualitative surveys, and/or document reviews.
• Coach the participants as they collect data from stakeholders (data sources) to answer their research/learning questions.
• Coach participants to identify the main findings from their research and draw practical recommendations.
• Conduct workshop to validate research findings through stakeholder consultation.
• Conduct after action reviews to document the lessons learnt from the researching process.
• Submitting the final research report.

SOS Children’s Villages is responsible for

• Handling the logistical requirements for handling the entire consultation work including flight, transportation, accommodation, and leading the arrangement of meetings with relevant stakeholders and/or data sources.
• Covering costs of taxation, flight, transportation, accommodation, and graphic-design, as applicable.
• Provide feedback to the specific deliverables and guidance to the overall processes of the assignment.
• Making payment in two installments, first upon contract signing and second upon accomplishment of deliverables.

1. Work Schedule including training facilitation week

No Key actions Unit/

Schedule Milestone

1 Desk Review of secondary data 2 days Preliminary research protocol

2 Training material development 1 day Training Material developed

3 Research facilitation/training & joint research protocol development – questions/methods/tools Training (Day 1 of 4) Research protocol developed

4 Research facilitation/training – piloting of tools & data collection Training (Day 2 of 4) Primary data collected

5 Research facilitation/training – analysis & findings Training (Day 3 of 4) Preliminary findings identified

6 Validation of findings, incorporation of feedback into recommendations Training (Day 4 of 4) Findings and recommendations validated

7 Research report writing 2 days Research report written

8 Learning brief development for design 1 day Design ready learning brief developed

9 Revision of Research report and learning brief 1 day Comments incorporated

Total number of days: 11

Daily rate in EUR (Exclusive of applicable taxation):

Total Cost (Exclusive of taxation, flight, accommodation, graphic design):

Expected deliverables and timeline

Ta

Task Order Type of Deliverable Timeline

First Deliverable Preliminary research protocol (3-5 pages, excluding annexes) 27 June 2023

Second Deliverable Training report (3-5 pages, excluding annexes) 10 July 2023

Third Deliverable Draft Research Report (5-10 pages, excluding annexes) 12 July 2023

Fourth Deliverable Draft Learning Brief (1-2 pages) 13 July 2023

Fifth Deliverable Final Research Report and Learning Brief 17 July 2023

1. Management of the research consultancy

The research, analysis of the findings, writing of the report as well as dissemination of the report findings will take place between 26th of June 2023 and Friday 17th of July 2023 with the total engagement of not more than 11 workdays. The location of the assignment is Jimma of Ethiopia, or any other Programme Location and home-based. Jimma is suggested because it is likely to replace Mekelle in the follow-on phase of GREEN+ strategic partnership. In addition, Jimma has had a Girls Empowerment project that we can collect data about, and the follow-on Phase focuses on gender. The face-to-face facilitation of the action research will be conducted in four days, excluding arrival and departure, during week of July 3, 2023. 40% of payment will be made upon contract signing and the remaining 60% will be made after submission of the deliverables.

Interested bidders should submit the following:

1. A succinct technical proposal, including work plan and/or schedule of activities
2. A financial proposal (in EUR) setting out the cost for the consultancy per day, exclusive of taxation.
3. CV of the consultant
4. Renewed business license, along with VAT registration certificate

Proposals should be submitted by 19th June 2023 in email to SOS Children’s Villages, at Veronica.Nansasi@sos-kd.org, Sophie.Bussjaeger@sos-kinderdorf.at, Valerie.Neuhold-Maurer@sos-kinderdorf.at and Leul.Abera@sos-kd.org

We regret that only short-listed candidates will be contacted and invited for an interview to take place in early June 2023. Submissions to this call for proposals will be assessed based on the technical quality (70%) and the proposed budget and value for money (30%). For technical quality, the following will be considered: Experience and qualifications of consultant, strength of proposed methodology, work plan, and schedule of activities.

1. Required qualification and experience of the research consultant.

• Postgraduate degree in Social Research, Social Sciences, Gender Studies, Development Studies, or other related fields.
• Over Seven years of INGO, academia, or consultancy experience as a researcher in the local context.
• Experience of relevant research design, data collection and analysis processes.
• Proven communication skills and academic writing skills to produce well-written report.
• Knowledge of global, regional, and national gender and social inclusion programmes, policies and strategies.
• Knowledge of local language (Amharic).
• Work experience in local context
• Previous work experience in conducting participatory research, experience in working with children is an asset.

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child

How to apply

Proposals should be submitted by 25th June 2023 in email to SOS Children’s Villages, at Veronica.Nansasi@sos-kd.org, Sophie.Bussjaeger@sos-kinderdorf.at, Valerie.Neuhold-Maurer@sos-kinderdorf.at and Leul.Abera@sos-kd.org

 

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