INVITATION TO BID FOR CONSULTANCY

CRS Somalia program hereby invites interested consultants to bid for the consultancy assignment detailed below.

Title of Consultancy

TERMS OF REFERENCE (ToR) of Gender and disability inclusion assessment

Period of Consultancy

The assignment will be conducted within 45 days inclusive of weekends and travel days

Consultant type required

FIRM

Taxation Provisions

CRS will pay the consultant fee in installments and the consultant will cover their own logistical arrangements and costs; including food, accommodation and local transport and all cost associated with data collection work and other activities

Travel requirements

The consultant is required to visit target locations and will cover their travel costs (tickets) and arrange local travel to field sites

Background and Context

Through 12-month Kaafia Plus activity, CRS, and consortium partners New Ways Organization (NWO), Save Somali Women and Children (SSWC), SOS Children’s Villages Somalia (SOS) and Trócaire Somalia will integrate health, nutrition, protection, WASH and multipurpose cash assistance (MPCA) interventions to support an estimated 625,503 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities in Gedo, Bay, Bakool, Banadir, Middle Shabelle, Lower Shabelle, and Galguduud Regions. Building upon successes from previous SHARPEN activities, Kaafia Plus will advance gender-responsive and safe programming across sectors, mitigate the risk of gender-based violence (GBV) and support GBV survivors and ensure that people with disabilities, youth and older people have equitable and safe access to health, nutrition and WASH services and products.

Kaafia Plus will advance community access to essential health services while strengthening local health systems. SOS and Trócaire will support 8 existing static facilities and 8 mobile medical units (MMUs), extending quality service provision to IDP camps with high numbers of recent arrivals, improving the capacity of healthcare providers to reach hard-to-access and newly displaced populations, respond to disease outbreaks and strengthening referral systems among facilities, ensuring regular delivery of necessary medical supplies and pharmaceutical commodities, and increasing the knowledge and understanding of households to seek care in a timely manner. These services will be fully integrated into the Somalia Ministry of Health (SMoH) health system but managed through NGO partners.

Kaafia Plus will support reduction of acute watery diarrhea (AWD) and cholera by increasing access to clean water and safe sanitation; improving hygiene practices and access to hygiene products; and increasing community engagement in waste management. Kaafia Plus will improve maternal, newborn, infant, and young child nutrition (MIYCN) by enhancing caregiver knowledge of key nutrition practices; providing a full package of services to manage malnutrition; and integrating community messaging and education with the WASH sector to increase knowledge and ensure that communities connect good hygiene practices with improved nutrition. The WASH sector will support health and nutrition outcomes by extending access to clean water, effective hygiene promotion and safe sanitation to protect privacy, safety, and accessibility to people with disabilities and older people.

The MPCA sector complements the other sectors. Kaafia Plus will provide households with unconditional cash transfers so that they can purchase food and other basic items and services that will also contribute to improving their health and nutrition status, while health and nutrition commodities will be provided free of charge. All sectors will incorporate protection principles to keep all participants safe from harm.

Kaafia Plus will enhance the protective environment for women and girls against GBV and improve their ability to recover from GBV incidents, expand access to comprehensive, high quality and safe services for GBV survivors and support legal actors to adopt a survivor-centered approach; legal actors in this instance refer to councils of elders who resolve cases informally as well as any legal representatives of NGOs and civil society who work in the protection sector on behalf of humanitarian service providers; these legal representatives may or may not be lawyers depending on their personal qualifications,. Male and female Community Champions will be engaged to promote positive social and gender norms with the aim of preventing GBV and community members will have improved understanding of the rights of women and girls to be free from GBV and women will be empowered to advocate for their rights.

KAAFIA Plus target objectives per sector are:

Kaafia Plus will advance the goal of improving the welfare of crisis-impacted Somalis through the following interrelated purposes.

Purpose 1: Health status of target populations is improved. 

Purpose 2: Nutritional status of CU5 and PLWs improved.

Purpose 3: Incidence of AWD/Cholera in target communities reduced.

Purpose 4: Protection of vulnerable women and girls from GBV is enhanced.

Purpose 5: MPCA Sector: IDPs’ basic survival needs met.

CRS and Implementing Partners:

Catholic Relief Services currently addresses water, hygiene, sanitation, health, nutrition, and protection needs of vulnerable Somalis. CRS has been working closely with and channeling resources and support to local organizations in Somalia since the 1960s and has implemented activities in Mogadishu since 2011, in Baidoa since 2012, and in Gedo region since 2014. CRS builds on its global experience implementing high-quality humanitarian programming and its strong experience in South- Central Somalia. CRS provides overall management and technical direction to the activity, ensuring strong coordination, integration, and compliance.

SOS Children’s Villages International - An independent, non-governmental international development organization, working in Somalia since 1983. The SOS School was converted into an emergency clinic during the war, and the mother and child clinic became part of emergency relief programming. More recently, the SOS Vocational Training Center was established, which offers training courses for nurses and midwives. SOS has been working with CRS since 2011 on emergency programs to provide livelihood recovery, basic health, and nutrition services to vulnerable IDPs and host communities.

Save Somali Women and Children (SSWC) was founded in 1992 by a group of Somali female intellectuals from a cross section of the community and has a longstanding history of promoting women’s rights and advocacy. SSWC has worked in the areas of protection, WASH, and livelihoods, and prioritizes supporting grassroots economic projects for women, enhancing their capacity for advocacy on the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), providing training to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) on women’s rights, and raising awareness on the conditions of women and girls in Somalia in Baidoa, Mogadishu, Afgooye, Caadado, Dusamareeb and Kismayu. SSWC has been working with CRS since 2011.

Trócaire – Trócaire is an international non-governmental organization that works with local partners to support communities with a focus on food and resource rights, women's empowerment, and humanitarian response.  Trócaire has been operational in Somalia since 1992 and is one of the few organizations that continued to provide life-saving interventions without pause throughout the chaotic decades of civil war. Trócaire employs a unique, community-led approach through all its work that has ensured access and safety for its staff and operations. Trócaire has been working with CRS since 2018.

New Ways Organization – New Ways Organization was established in 1993 and is one of the most established NGOs in Lower Shabelle. Baraawe In Baraawe district, NWO is implementing integrated health, nutrition, protection, and WASH interventions, including operating a safe house and providing essential services to GBV survivors. NWO has the infrastructure and community acceptance to provide on-site and outreach services in hard-to-reach areas. NWO has been a regular recipient of funding from UNICEF and other UN agencies to implement programs in Lower Shabelle, Bay and Galguduud. NWO is a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of Somalia and the co-chair of the Somalia Nutrition Sub-Cluster for the Bay and Lower Shabelle regions.

CRS has been working closely with and channeling resources and support to local organizations in Somalia since the 1960s and has implemented activities in Mogadishu since 2011, in Baidoa since 2012, in Gedo region since 2014 and barawe since October 2023. CRS builds on its global experience implementing high-quality humanitarian programming and its strong experience in South- Central Somalia and addresses water, hygiene, sanitation, health, nutrition, and protection needs of vulnerable Somalis. CRS provides overall management and technical direction to the activity, ensuring strong coordination, integration, and compliance to its implementing partners.

Background information about the consultancy

Gender and disability inclusion analysis is a systematic attempt to identify key issues contributing to gender inequalities and exclusion of people with disability, many of which also contribute to poor development outcomes. This process explores how gendered power relations and disability status give rise to discrimination, subordination, and exclusion in society, particularly when overlaid across other areas of marginalization due to class, ethnicity, caste, age, disability status, sexuality, etc.

CRS Somalia will conduct gender and disability inclusion analysis to highlight different needs, capacities, and coping strategies of women, men, boys, and girls with and without disabilities in Kaafia plus locations. The assessment will capture specific information to inform CRS Somalia programming towards gender equality and disability inclusion. 

Purpose of the assessment:

The purpose of the gender and disability inclusion analysis is to provide an understanding of the gender dynamics and people with disabilities in Somalia, and more specifically in CRS’s areas of operation, and the implications at project level for enhancing equal and equitable access to all categories of the community regardless of their gender and disability status. The gender and disability analysis will inform project design and adaptions to promote social justice, inclusiveness, and equality, and assess how CRS Somalia programme has contributed to change for women and men, boys and girls.

 Specific Objectives of the assessment:

The specific objectives of the gender and disability inclusion assessment are as following:

a.    To identify and analyze the specific gender dynamics, inequalities and vulnerabilities related to the targeted sectors within Somalia context and particularly the project locations.

b.    To understand the different needs, interests, capacities and coping mechanisms of girls and boys, women, and men.

c.    Are there differences in the care and feeding practices, access to food and risk of food insecurity between people with disabilities and people without disabilities?

d.    What forms of violence, abuse and neglect do people with disabilities experience and how does it impact their well-being?

e.    Provide recommendations/action plan on the finding/gaps of gender equality and disability inclusion and improve integration gender equality and disability inclusion interventions into sector programs.

Methodology

The study is expected to involve mix-methodology of structured questionnaire, including GESI and Washington Group Disability Questions, and qualitative data collection methods such Key Informant Interviews and Focus Group Discussion will be implemented. The consultant(s) shall come up with a detailed methodology including proposed sampling approach and representative sample size. Consultant and CRS staff will further discuss and agree on the methodology and data collection approach as well as tools before the commencement of field activity. Irrespective of the type and methodology of the data collection, data should be disaggregated by age, sex, location, and Washington Group Questions’ six core domains of functioning: seeing, hearing, walking, cognition, self-care, and communication.

The consultant(s) will develop data collection tools in collaboration with CRS staff. The study should use both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Qualitative tools need to capture voices of all target categories of the study including women, men, boys, girls as well as people with and without disabilities in target locations.

The following methodology will be employed:

·         Literature review (of published and grey literature) and review of current/previous program evaluations.

·         Focus Group Discussions with project participants with sex disaggregated groups.

·         Key informative interview (KII).

·         Household survey

·         Workshop with CRS and partners staff to validate findings and recommendations.

Target location

The assessment will cover all districts of Kaafia plus project such as Mogadishu, Afgooye Corridor, Kahda & Daynile, Baidoa, Xudur, Cadaado, Dollow, Luuq, Balcad, Garbaharey, Burdhubo, and Belethawa and Baraawe

Roles, responsibilities, and Deliverables of this consultancy include:

Consultancy

·         Inception report with methodologies and tools.

·         Secondary data collection plan

·         Review and analysis of secondary data sources entification of critical information gaps.

·         develop and implement primary data collection plan and tools including HH survey, FGDs and KIIs

·         Design and program the ODK farms for all quantitative tools.

·         Provide final questionnaire tools to be used in the survey in both paper and ODK form.

·         Completed datasets and detailed analysis plan.

·         Comprehensive report summarizing the findings, analysis, and gender and disability inclusion action plan. The final report will consist of the following sections as a minimum:

a.    1. Table of contents

b.    2. Executive summary

c.    3. Intervention description

d.    4. Scope of the evaluation

e.    5. Purpose and objectives of the evaluation

f.     6. Methodology

g.    7. Finding

h.    8. Lessons learnt

i.      9. Conclusion

j.      10. Recommendations

·         Workshop for presentation of the findings, recommendations, and action plan to relevant stakeholders/ sectors.

·         Share list of annexes including

·         Relevant maps

·         Annotated photographs with consent for publication where relevant

·         List of existing data

·         Finalized data collection tools.

·         List of interviewees from primary data collection

·         Raw datasets, transcribed notes from FGDs and KII and observation notes

·         File containing analyses of data, both secondary and primary data collection.

CRS

·         Recruit external consultant for the assessment.

·         Provide consultant with project documents, reports, and available secondary data for review.

·         Review data collection tools and inception report.

·         Oversee the recruitment of enumerators by the consultant and ensure all the survey team are well briefed on safeguarding policies and sign the code of conduct.

·         Review and provide input on the consultant’s deliverables.

·         Organize validation workshop for the presentation of preliminary findings to the project stakeholders.

·         Ensure smooth flow of consultancy engagement processes including contractual obligations.

·         Share the findings of the assessment with all key stakeholders, including key project staff, partners, donor representative and government.

Intellectual property rights:

All data that will be collected should be considered as CRS properties and can’t be used for other purposes without CRS’s formal approval. 

The following are minimum requirements for the Consultant/Firm to be considered for carrying out the assignment: -

1. The lead consultant should have a minimum bachelor’s degree in social science or equivalent experience and training in gender equality and disability inclusion.
2. At least 7 years’ work experience in conducting assessments, in the field of gender equality, child protection and disability inclusion. Both   focused and mainstreaming.
3. Proven work experience in Gender equality, disability inclusion analysis or similar assessments and provide comprehensive report conducted for INGO or UN agencies.

4.    Specific experience and expertise in the use of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Toolkit and Washington group questions on disability

5.    Experience working in a resource poor environment with rural and IDP communities in southern Somalia context.

6.    Experience analysing qualitative and quantitative data sets and producing context appropriate recommendations is required.

7.    An understanding of security / political / economy dynamics in Somalia.

8.    Ability to objectively identify and interpret sensitive information, e.g. regarding clan dynamics and how those relate to power and influence.

9.    Ability to travel to target locations and conduct FGDs and key informant interviews with a broad range of individuals, including local government officials, traditional Somali clan elders, businesspersons, and civil society organizations and project participants.

10.  Fluency in English and somali (both written and spoken).

Applicants when applying should submit their technical proposal outlining how they understand the TOR and proposed methodology. In addition, applicants should submit their profile highlighting key areas of expertise and experience matching the required skills specified in these terms of reference. We also request links to at least three recent examples of relevant work, and the contact details for three references.

CRS will expect the following costs to be included in the consultant’s rate as appropriate[Ma1]  and applicable: professional fees, data collectors, data processors (as needed), logistics of survey teams, etc. CRS will provide consultant services based on a competitive bidding process and ability to complete the assignment within the proposed timelines. Indicative budgets should be prepared in line with the expected deliverables and should show all related costs including travel costs and anticipated overhead costs.

Interested consultants should submit their applications via email to [email protected]  with the subject line “KE10316 - Consultancy Services for Gender and Disability Inclusion Assessment in Somalia”. The deadline for applications is 19th May 2024 close of business (EAST AFRICA time). Any clarifications/questions to be sent to [email protected] latest by 15th May 2024.

 The applications should be submitted in PDF format as one document comprising Technical and Financial sections as detailed below.

a)     technical proposal – including but not limited to:

b)    Consultants understanding of the assignment and context

c)     Approach to the assignment

d)    Detailed methodology including sampling approach and sample size

e)     Proposed data collection tools

f)      Deliverables

g)     Workplan

h)    Key staff CVs and registration

i)      financial proposal – providing a breakdown of all charges related to the assignment.

All applications MUST be submitted on or before the closing date below to be considered for the assignment.

 [Ma1]