Call for Tender: Review of Save The Children Norway’s Gender Equality work

The gender review will assess Save the Children Norway’s (SCN) gender equality work in two main framework agreements:

 

• The Norad programme “Leaving No Child Behind” within the 2019-2023 framework
• agreement.
• The NMFA programme “Protecting children in conflict and crises” through the strategic
• partnership application (SPA) 2020-23.

It will also address how the country offices progress in gender equality in programming.

The Norad programme

The Norad programme aims to secure children’s right to education and protection, focusing on gender equality and inclusion. To achieve this, Save the Children and partners have designed an intervention that addresses three key issues affecting the rights of girls and boys:

• Children learn and are safe
• Children are protected
• Children’s rights are implemented

The Norad programme is implemented in 12 countries: Somalia, South Sudan, Uganda, Colombia, Guatemala, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Lebanon, and Palestine, and in four countries where Norad support will be phased out during the agreement period: Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and Zimbabwe.

SCN has set out to mainstream gender equality throughout all interventions and implement programmes in five countries explicitly targeting girls. The targeted programmes focus on reducing teenage pregnancies and child marriages in Malawi, Mozambique, Uganda, Niger, and Nepal.

The NMFA programme

The NMFA programme is providing protection and humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable children in ten conflict-affected countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Lebanon, Palestine (oPt), Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Venezuela response (Colombia/Venezuela), Sudan and Afghanistan.

The strategic objectives are

1. expanding access for the hardest-to-reach children with appropriate and specialized services.
2. building resilience in community and national response structures to cope more positively with future shocks and crises.
3. addressing children's rights through improved availability of information and analysis on specific protection issues to reduce rights violations and inform humanitarian response and advocacy.
4. leveraging SC’s leadership role at the national and global level to improve timely, appropriate safe, and accountable humanitarian responses for children.

The purpose of the review
This study will provide information on how country offices progress with gender equality within and beyond the Norad and NMFA framework agreements. Moreover, it will help identify needs and ways to strengthen gender equality programming in the country offices.

Gender equality is a priority for Save the Children International and Save the Children Norway, articulated in our Gender Equality Policy, the Gender Equality Action Plan, SC and SCN strategies, the Gender Equality Marker, and several support documents. In addition, Norad and NMFA require all aid recipients to work and report on gender equality. Moreover, the Norwegian government has Gender Equality as one of their top six priorities for Norwegian development aid, implying that this aspect will become even more pertinent.

As the two programmes are approaching the end and new proposals will soon be developed, assessing results, progress, challenges, and lessons learned is essential. Learnings and recommendations from this review will be used to strengthen the gender equality aspects of our work.

Please refer to the Terms of Reference.

The scope of the review

The review will cover SCN’s two framework agreements with Norad and the NMFA. Within the Norad agreement, all three issues will be covered in order to get a representative picture of the level of gender mainstreaming:

1. Children learn and are safe
2. Children are protected against violence and abuse
3. Children’s rights are implemented.

The 12 Norad countries will be subject to review, whereas the four phase-out countries will be excluded. For NMFA, all ten country programmes will be subject to review unless otherwise agreed upon.

Objectives and key review questions

To improve gender mainstreaming within our upcoming Norad and NMFA proposals, we need advice and recommendations based on what we do well and what our challenges are in our current work. For example, we want to know whether we have achieved what we set out to do regarding gender equality and understand to what extent our work has been gender sensitive and gender transformative. We also want to learn about country offices’ experiences using the
SC gender equality marker (GEM), whether gender analysis is underpinning all new proposals and the status of gender equality knowledge and capacity in the Country Offices.

The main objectives of the review are to:

1. Assess and document to what extent the Norad and NMFA programmes are gender sensitive/gender transformative.
2. Assess how country offices work on gender issues and identify capacities and needs.

Please refer to the Terms of Reference for key review questions for objectives 1 and 2.

Design and methodology 

The review requires a mixed method approach using a desk study of relevant documents, surveys, interviews, and focus group discussions (FGDs) with SCN and country office staff.

Please refer to the Terms of Reference.

Child participation

The review should strive to collect information about how boys and girls in our programmes perceive the gender dimension in our programming work. For example, this information could come from interviewing boys and girls, child parliaments, surveys, and consultations held with children during the programme. This aspect will be further discussed between the consultant and SCN and will be developed accordingly.

Organization, roles, and responsibilities

The entire process will be led by (an) external consultant(s), who will drive the process forward and ensure high-quality deliveries on time. Within the agreed timeline, the consultant is expected to collaborate closely with the SCN’s gender adviser and submit the draft review report on time for comments and feedback from SCN. The consultant is responsible for incorporating feedback provided and submitting the final report within the agreed timeline. SCN
will share the report template to be used for report writing. Finally, the consultant will present the preliminary findings to SCN and other relevant stakeholders.

Please refer to the Terms of Reference.

Desired competencies and skills of the consultant

• Minimum master’s degree in social sciences or equivalent.
• Documented understanding of gender mainstreaming and gender issues.
• Strong experience designing and conducting independent gender evaluations/reviews, gender analyses, desk studies, and/or research on gender and development programmes.
• Good communication and facilitation skills.
• Documented analytical and report writing skills in the English language.
• The ability to conduct interviews in Arabic, French, and Spanish is desired.
• Familiarity with rights-based approaches.
• Knowledge of and interest in participatory methods.
• Identification with Save the Children’s values and principles.

Deliverables

• A technical proposal including a detailed description of the proposed methodology, timeline, and budget.
• A short inception report/detailed work plan for the review to be approved by SCN.
• Draft and final review report (including concrete recommendations for future programming) of 40 pages, excluding the executive summary and annexes.
• Minimum two workshops/presentations of the review to various audiences after finalization.

Timeline

September	Recruitment, inception meeting, and the inception report
28th October	Desk Study/GEM screening, Remote interviews, and FGDs
11th November	Draft Report
18th November	Feedback
25th November	Final Report
December	Dissemination workshops

Budget/Resources

The consultancy has a maximum budget of NOK 300 000.

Application procedures

Deadline: September 15, 2022.
Please submit your application through SCN’s webpages. Scroll down and click “apply for position”.

Applications submitted by email will not be considered due to GDPR regulations.