Gender Analysis for FLOW/EOWE Programme

TERMS OF REFERENCE: CONSULTANCY SERVICE - GENDER ANALYSIS for the Enhancing Opportunities for Women’s Enterprises (FLOW/EOWE) Programme Vietnam project

BACKGROUND

The “Enhancing Opportunities for Women’s Enterprises” (EOWE) is 5 year programme being implemented by The Netherlands Development Organisation SNV in Kenya and Vietnam. The Programme is part of the Funding Leadership Opportunities for Women (FLOW) programme funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Social Development Department (DSO).

FLOW/EOWE will be implemented in collaboration with local partners in three central provinces of Vietnam: Quang Binh, Binh Dinh and a southern central province (to be identified) and selected Arid and Semi-Arid Counties in Kenya, leveraging on existing projects and relationships to ensure more benefits for women.

The programme aims at advancing women’s economic participation and self-reliance in Kenya and Vietnam by creating a conducive environment for female entrepreneurship as a vehicle for change. It shall enhance implementation of gender sensitive policies while tackling socio-economic barriers at local levels to improve the enabling environment for Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) in trade. In addition, it will support women to enter business, as well as those already in businesses, to increase their profitability and viability so as to address inequalities in the economic arena. FLOW/EOWE will build the capacity of local actors to be central pillars of this change.

The programme’s objectives:

1. Increase capacity of government actors to implement and localise female entrepreneurship friendly policies and institutions.
2. Increase capacity of local actors, including CSOs, to create bottom-up pressure for women’s economic empowerment and leverage existing policy frameworks to enhance the enabling environment.
3. Challenge gender norms inhibiting women’s access to economic opportunities through behavioural change.
4. Enhance women’s capacity and confidence to lead successful businesses.

SNV Netherlands Development Organization has been working in Vietnam since 1995. Using market based approaches and balancing benefit for gender equality promotion, SNV is committed to reducing poverty by catalyzing environmentally sustainable solutions for the poor in agriculture, energy, water & sanitation, and REDD+. The Vietnam FLOW/EOWE sub-project is inheriting the successful climate smart and gender inclusive agriculture project of SNV Vietnam (Sowing Seeds of Change project) funded by the Australian Government. The project focuses specifically on the national enabling environment for women’s economic empowerment, especially in agribusiness, increasing access to agribusiness models, assets, technology, markets, and information and on promoting women leadership in cooperatives. The project also promotes a network of the Women’s Union, agriculture sector, Cooperative Union, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and local government for technical support and policy influencing. The sub-project will directly intervene at the province level, as well as undertaken national-level activities in policy influencing and setting up a women’s economic platform and gender network.

CONSULTANCY SERVICE DESCRIPTION:

1. Objective: To undertake review, survey and verification gender analysis to establish the basis for programme intervention design and help the FLOW/EOWE programme team to understand the differential gender roles and responsibilities, powers and privileges, and rights in relation to Economic Development.

2. Scope of work: The assignment will build on the rapid gender analysis done at programme inception, and further assessed nation-wide, and in the selected provinces Quang Binh, Binh Dinh and a southern central province. Amongst other things, this verification gender analysis is intend to establish:

a) The socio-economic, cultural, religious and legal factors that underlie differential gender position on economic development among the target groups.
b) The consequences of the differential gender position on women’s access to economic opportunities (economic equality).
c) The activity profiles of the different gender groups and the socio-cultural norms that underpin these.
d) Inter-personal and intra-household power relations that are at play and how these shape access to economic resources in a household.
e) The power and privileges of gender groups in relation to access, control, sale or transfer of inputs and productive resources or assets, including incomes/revenues sharing at Household level.
f) The opportunities and constraints that affect women’s effective participation in businesses, producer organisations or cooperatives, markets, leadership, etc.
g) The extent to which women have access to knowledge, information and other means of self-development.

The framework of indicators that the program shall use to assess national and county level development outcomes.

Methodology: to be developed and specified by the consultants, and will cover the following:

a) Literature review: national gender reports, most recent gender-related researches and reports, and the working paper/gender analysis developed as a part of the proposal for FLOW/EOWE
b) Stakeholders consultation: national and provincial gender key players,
c) Field survey/assessment: 3 selected provinces and a potential control province
d) Data analysis: the data collected from desk review, stakeholder consultation and field survey will be analyzed as per objectives
e) Validation: with stakeholders, target groups
f) Report: based on the data collected, analysis the data, recommend the key gaps for intervention and possible ways according to the analyses.
g) Debriefing and join-voicing advocacy

3. Deliverables

• Research proposal: co-researcher partnership, methodology, tools, research site, monitoring, materials etc.)
• A comprehensive gender analysis report addressing the scope highlighted in (2) above.
• At least 2 presentations in debriefing meeting and in advocacy event (s)

4. Assignment duration

This assignment is expected to take no more than 5 weeks to complete

5. Qualifications, skills and experience required:

A group of consultants, including a Team leader/gender expert, gender/social specialist and local resources person(s).

Team leader profile:

• A post graduate degree in gender, development studies or social sciences
• Extensive training in and understanding of gender and development issues
• Extensive experience in research and analytical work in gender equality and women's economic  empowerment
• Familiarity with CEDAW, and relevant national level gender instruments in Kenya
• Experience in undertaking similar work both amongst the pastoralist communities and at national level
• Strong analytical and presentation skills
• Proven track record and ability to liaise with different groups at different levels including policy makers, grass-root women’s organizations, field workers and technical experts amongst others
• Knowledge of participatory approaches and tools

6. How to apply

Interested consultants are requested to submit their technical and financial proposals demonstrating their ability to deliver on this assignment based on their qualifications and experience. The methodology to be used should be clearly explained. 

Deadline for submission of proposals is 17.00 pm on 9th April 2016.  Proposals should be delivered to: [email protected] with the title: “Gender Analysis for FLOW/EOWE Programme”