Consultancy Service – CARE Ethiopia

Consultancy and Training

CARE Ethiopia

CARE Ethiopia

CARE started working in Ethiopia in 1984 in response to severe drought and famine that devastated the population and claimed the lives of nearly one million people. Since then, the organization’s activities have expanded to address the root causes of poverty and vulnerability.

In 2008, CARE Ethiopia’s office moved from a project-based approach to a more focused and strategic program-based approach. Over the eight years since that transition, CARE Ethiopia has implemented a series of programs with successful outcomes, while simultaneously impacting the policies and practices of government, serving as a thought leader amongst NGOs, and bringing transformative change to rural communities. These broader and deeper impacts go beyond the direct impacts of its programs and are a result of CARE Ethiopia’s overall country strategy, which enables CARE to design for scale.

CARE Ethiopia works in various sectors but has particularly targeted the following:

·         Food Security and Resilience

·         WASH         

·         Nutrition

·         Sexual and Reproductive Health and

·         Emergency Response as cross-cutting (focusing on the above sectors).

Terms of Reference (ToR) for consultant to Conduct Gender Audit and Context Analysis

1.       About CARE Ethiopia

Founded in 1945, CARE is a leading international humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE started working in Ethiopia in 1984 in response to severe drought and famine. The main focus of our work is addressing the root causes of poverty and vulnerability through nexus and development programing as well as humanitarian response. This includes programing for improved governance; water and sanitation; food security; women’s economic justice; sexual and reproductive health and rights; and nutrition; and household and community level resilience. Our programs are implemented across both rural and urban areas. CARE Ethiopia works in multiple sectors including the following priorities: Food Security; Livelihoods & Resilience; Nutrition; Water, Sanitation & Hygiene; Humanitarian Response; Sexual & Reproductive Health & Rights; Women’s Economic Justice; Dignified Work. CARE’s operation spans the majority of the country: Afar, Amhara, Oromia, SNNP, Sidama, Somali, Tigray, Addis Ababa, and Dire Dawa.

1.1 About the project 

The inclusion of women in water governance is key to both achieving gender justice and ensuring high-quality service delivery on the ground. Evidence suggests that ensuring women’s participation and leadership roles in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) decision making increases the provision, satisfaction, quality, and sustainability of WASH services. Yet, women participate at far more limited rates than men in community and local WASH decision making, businesses and utilities, and fill a minority of leadership positions in WASH governance and service provision. A World Bank study of WASH utilities showed that, on average across the world, fewer than 18% of workers in water utilities are women, and fewer than 25% of engineer and management roles are women. Globally, fewer than 12% of environment-related Ministries are headed by women. This means that decisions about WASH service provision – of which women are key clients, and which disproportionately impacts women – are made predominantly by men.

There has been increasing effort to understand the importance of hearing women’s voices when it comes to locating WASH services and of ensuring that women are involved in local WASH governance, via WASH committees. Where there are women in governance positions in WASH committees, this has been linked to more effective, efficient, and sustained WASH services. Moreover, the WASH sector impacts women particularly strongly and therefore the need for a gender transformative lens is particularly relevant to this sector. This is for many reasons: culturally, women are responsible for water collection; they are exposed to dangers during water collection; they are responsible for feeding and the healthcare of families; and they have particular needs linked to menstruation and childbirth. Without a strong gender lens, both the constraints to women and the opportunities from their involvement are likely to be missed.

In Ethiopia, as elsewhere, there is an understanding of the importance of addressing gender issues in WASH service delivery; however, for the most part, the work has focused on services at point of provision and use. There is a need for a gendered approach that also looks at a higher level – at the very government institutions responsible for ensuring and regulating service provision. However, the reality is that the institutions – including government line ministries that should be involving women and aware of gender inequality – also require transformation. A ministry needs systems and staff sensitized to gender issues will deliver services that replicate gender inequalities.

With the support of Hilton Foundation, CARE Ethiopia is piloting a project to strengthen the one selected ministry by looking into organizational culture, staff capacity and policies and creating links with the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs (MoWSA) to facilitate better incorporation of gender into decision-making and service delivery design. The project will establish communication channels, policy tools, and accountability mechanisms to lay the groundwork for sustainable gender integration at the federal and regional level. As well as working at a federal level, exploration of these same issues at a regional level will be undertaken, starting initially with the Amhara region.

It is within this scope that CARE seeks to hire a qualified national consultant to conduct both a Gender Audit for the selected Ministry providing a baseline of the situation as is and a shorter Context Analysis for the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs (MOWSA), providing an update on a previous Analysis undertaken in 2019.

2.    Purpose of the Consultancy

There are two aspects of this consultancy. The main one, requiring the most time and effort is the Gender Audit of the selected Ministry and its regional bureau. The secondary one is an updated context analysis of the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs. Overall, the project explores the linkages between these two institutions.

2.1 The Gender Audit of Selected Ministry and Regional Bureau  

The Gender Audit should focus on the federal level and the Amhara regional bureau. It should cover:

Organizational issues: Assessing the gender sensitivity of the organizational structure at all levels – from field-based agents to senior level leadership and all layers in between; staff sex parity; integration of gender in the human resource (recruitment, staff development, performance review, promotion, etc.), budget as well as organizational culture; existence and functioning of institutional mechanisms like job descriptions and performance reviews fostering accountability to gender integration.

Programmatic aspects: Assessing the extent to which gender is integrated across the programming cycle, including design, implementation, and monitoring, evaluation, research and learning; the extent to which programme/project issues are informed by international, national, regional and organization-specific gender equality instruments; the extent to which resource allocations reflect gender equality concerns; and the existing knowledge and capability on gender.

The audit will require:

 1) A study of important organizational documents such as policies, procedures, and strategic plans from a gender equality perspective and identifying of gaps between policies and procedures and practice

2) A review of organizational structure, staff gender parity, job grading, division of tasks and responsibilities and decision making structures from a gender equality perspective. The review should look most specifically at the placement of the gender directorate in the organizational structure, its capacity, functions and powers to influence the institution.

3) An assessment of staff attitude, behavior, norms and values towards equality and identifying the type of interventions that would help promote equality sensitive behavior and organizational culture within the organizations. There should be a particular focus on assessing leadership commitment and organizational approach to gender issues.

4) An analysis of overall organizational capacity to deliver on gender equality outcomes and recommend strategies for improvement and

5) Examination of the coordination and accountability mechanisms between the federal MOWE and regional BOWE as well as where there are links with MOWSA and BOWSA.

The audit should provide practical and specific recommendations so that it can provide the basis for action to address identified weaknesses and threats, build on strengths and harness opportunities.  

2.2 Context analysis of MOWSA and BOWSA

A Context analysis of the Ministry of Women, Youth and Children was undertaken for CARE in 2019. Since then, much has changed including the restructuring of the ministry to now include all vulnerable groups and social affairs and changes in the relationships between directorates. An updated assessment of the recently restructured Ministry of Women and Social Affairs is therefore needed and will focus on the current roles, responsibilities and relationships between and amongst different units/directorates and line ministries. It would also analyze the implications of these changes on how gender transformative the ministry can be and how best to support it.

In addition, the context analysis should explore its current relationship with other ministries and government counterparts who are also meant to integrate the mandate of MOWSA into their work such as the Ministry of Plan and Development, Ministry of Finance and others. A key point of exploration will be:

·       Harmonization and mandate issues: Assessing the relationships within the ministry in terms of Federal and regional mandates and mechanisms for coordination and collaboration when it comes to gender related issues.

The Context analysis should focus on the Federal level but also include an analysis at the Amhara Regional level (Amhara region BOWCY/BOWSA). The final output should propose recommendations based on the identified gaps and support the project which aims to build capacity of both ministries.

3.        Methodology

The consultant is expected to use participatory research methodologies, primary and secondary data collection techniques, and will employ a range of methodologies that include the following: document review, self-assessment questionnaires, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, observation, and a workshop to validate the findings at Federal and regional levels.

• A desk review and analysis documents including but not limited to: internal policies and regulations, strategic plans, HR policies and regulations, administrative and financial rules and regulations, and external facing policies and reports.
• Quantitative research methods will be employed with emphasis on self-assessment and reflection of staff. A gender audit questionnaire will be prepared and circulated to staff at federal level and at the Amhara regional level.
• Qualitative research methods will be used through focus group discussions, key informant interviews and observation to collect depth of information and triangulate the findings of the quantitative research and desk review.

4.       Geographic focus

The analysis should focus both on the Federal level, with work being done in Addis Ababa, and on the Amhara region (Bahir Dar).

5.       Expected deliverables

The consultant is expected to deliver the following products:

• An inception report which describes for both tasks, the detailed methodology, data collection tools and conceptual frameworks they will use together with a detailed action plan
• Two comprehensive draft reports (gender audit of selected ministry and one region, Context Analysis MOWSA and BOWSA) and applicable recommendations both in hard and soft copy
• Two comprehensive (gender audit of selected ministry and one region, Context Analysis MOWSA and BOWSA) final reports and applicable recommendations both in hard and soft copy
• The soft and hard copy of the raw data collected for the audit and assessment purposes
• Presentation for Validation workshops and present/ defend for approval, particularly with the ministers/senior leaders.

6.       Timeframe

The activities of contract/assignment will take place in 45 working days, starting from date of signing contract.

7.       Submission of proposal

The consultants who meet the requirements below should submit a proposal, which should include the following:

·       Cover letter describing how the consultant previous experience matches the consultancy objectives as well as the candidate’s interest for the consultancy. This letter should not be longer than one page.

·       Technical proposal containing the interest and motivation of the consultant, clear framework, methodology and approach, timeline/work plan, comments on the Terms of Reference (TOR), brief experience and profile of the consultant, and any other relevant information regarding the specific assignment. A workplan for this assignment should be developed in relation to the methodology suggested by the consultant and the number of days set for this assignment. This technical proposal should not be longer than [15] pages.

·       Copy of the following:

o   Renewed trade license

o   TIN Certificate

o   Tax clearance

o   VAT Certificate

·       Business Registration CVs, including detailed work experience and education

·       No other annexes or attachments should be included.

·       Financial Proposal. The consultant should estimate the cost and prepare a detailed budget to the key activities or phases in the workplan. Cost estimates may cover items including local transportation, professional fees, per diem and other expenses, payments for interviewers, data processors, and secretarial services, applicable tax, etc. This should be presented in a separate envelope and should indicate the breakdown of the proposed cost.

·       The deadline to submit the proposals is 23 September 2022, at 4:30pm.

·          The technical and financial proposals should be separated and clearly marked and submitted to CARE Ethiopia as per the bellow address:

·       CARE Ethiopia, Procurement Unit, Addis Ababa, around 22 Mazoria, behind Lex Plaza building, next to Ha’Geez Cultural Restaurant. The original and the copy should be clearly marked.

·       For any further clarification please contact the CARE Procurement team through +251-116-183294.  

 Applicants should submit their technical proposal and financial proposal separately. The technical and financial proposals constitute 80% and 20% of the total evaluation score, respectively. The three consultants with the highest technical points will have their financial proposals evaluated, and the bidder with the highest total of technical and financial scores (with their respective weights) will be selected.  CARE Ethiopia has the right to contact short listed and potential candidates to present their proposal to the team and negotiate on terms and conditions if required.

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