Call for proposals: Gender analysis and training (FAIRWAY Programme)

Background

About the FAIRWAY Programme

The FAIRWAY Programme funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), is a four-year (December 2019 – November 2023) inter-regional development cooperation initiative that aims to improve conditions of labour migration across migration pathways from Africa to the Arab States, thereby enabling migrant workers to contribute more fully to sustainable development in both countries of origin and destination.

Overall, the programme addresses underlying causes of decent work deficits at their source through national-level interventions in selected countries of origin (CoO) in East, West and North Africa (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Morocco) and four countries of destination (CoD), Bahrain, Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait. Further sub-regional and inter-regional interventions serve to identify areas of common interest and improve understanding of key actors’ respective needs, so as to improve cooperation across labour migration corridors. Focusing on two sectors, domestic workers and construction workers, FAIRWAY aims to explore ways to address the interlinked structural, behavioural, and practical barriers to improved labour migration.

The four objectives of FAIRWAY are to engage private sector, employers’, and workers’ organizations to produce decent work for migrant workers; develop and strengthen gender-responsive policy frameworks to realise fair recruitment and decent work and regulatory compliance; diminished discriminatory attitudes towards women and men migrant workers; and improving migrant workers’ access to information and support services throughout the migration cycle.

To strengthen gender -responsive policy frameworks and to deepen gender sensitive implementation, the project seeks to undertake a focused analysis of the livid experience of migrant women and the prevailing environment in order to identify their strategic needs. This analysis will also assist in terms targeted support services for migrant women specifically.

Justification for the assignment

A mid-term project evaluation conducted from February - August 2022, found that FAIRWAY’s work on gender equality could be strengthened, noting that ‘although the intervention focuses predominantly on women, [the project] still lacks a broader analysis of how gender inequality manifests itself throughout the migration cycle, and needs a more coherent, overall strategy to address issues at each point [of the cycle]’. Specifically, the evaluation team found that, through its activities and communication, the project saw women migrant workers in a passive way, more likely as ‘victims’ or recipients/beneficiaries. The evaluation team noted the importance of understanding the social contexts and the drivers and mechanisms of migration that exist within them at a local level, highlighting some promising practices in this regard, and practices that could be promoted based on other projects’ experiences, such as giving an active role to returnee migrants in running migrant resource centres and as local community workers in Nepal and Jordan.

The evaluation team recommended three strategies:

- Adding a women’s empowerment focus;

- Embedding work on gender inequality within local contexts and align across locations; and

- Using case studies and research focused on women migrants to evolve the programme strategy and improve choices and protections for women

The Programme is now seeking a qualified consultant to undertake a gender analysis which will assist in deriving a better understanding what we know and don’t know about the different needs of migrant men and women from FAIRWAY’s COO. This analysis will help to inform and reform project activities that will firstly strengthen the agency of the women migrants themselves and enable continued implementation of activities that take account of the local context, including the existing gender dynamics.

The consultant will also undertake training to ‘demystify’ and build the knowledge base on the concept of gender equality. Awareness raising and capacity -building will strengthen gender sensitivity and tackle the issue of both conscious and unconscious bias in implementation. The training activities will target all FAIRWAY project staff (around 8 people), and key implementing partners including service providers and other relevant stakeholders.

Objectives of the assignment

The key objectives of this consultancy are:

1. Undertake an abridged gender analysis to highlight the prevailing gender dynamics and identify the strategic needs of both women and male migrants between project countries of origin and destination; and make recommendations that will strengthen the mainstreaming of gender and effectiveness of project interventions targeting women migrants needs.

2. Provide training to project staff and key implementing partners to build the knowledge base on the concept of gender equality to promote gender sensitivity and tackle conscious and unconscious bias in project implementation.

Specific activities

Methodology

The proposed methodology is as follows:

Data collection

- Desk research relating to migration from the African countries of origin to the Middle East (academic research, policy reports, etc). Suggestions for materials will be provided by the ILO team before the contract is signed.

- A literature review of key project documents (Project document, mid term evaluation; latest annual progress report and key implementing agreements). Given that the recent mid-term evaluation undertook a number of focus group discussions with migrant workers in Nigeria, Uganda, Jordan and Kuwait, the consultant should have regard to the summary and case studies from these FGDs (if this is insufficient, the project team will organize 2-3 additional virtual FGDs).

- Interviews with the project team and a selected number of stakeholders (total of approximately 20 people), including:

o ILO Gender, Labour migration specialists and project staff;

o Domestic worker representatives (affiliates of the International Domestic Workers’ Federation in FAIRWAY Project countries);

o Key implementing partners including constituents and other stakeholders.

Development of gender analysis

- Based on the above data collection, the consultant will develop a short gender analysis, to

o Short term recommendations to improving specific activities/work with specific implementing partners to make more gender-sensitive; and

o Mid-term recommendations for gender-transformative change (with a view to implementation in the next phase of work).

Training programme

- Develop draft training programme for 1 day virtual training to each of the FAIRWAY project team and FAIRWAY implementing partners, and conduct the training.

- Deliver the trainings and produce a short meeting report.

Deliverables and reporting

The consultant will accomplish the following deliverables:

1. Inception report

2. Draft gender analysis report, outlining the desk research and assessment of project activities (approximately 20-30 pages, not including Annexes) including actionable recommendations and modifications to the activities, and suggestions on incorporating into next phase of work;

3. Final gender analysis report; and

4. Training report documenting the two virtual trainings for FAIRWAY project team and FAIRWAY implementing partners respectively.

Organization of the assignment

The consultant will report to the FAIRWAY Programme Manager in Beirut (Sophia Kagan, kagan@ilo.org) and FAIRWAY Programme Manager in Nairobi (Grace Sebageni, sebageni@ilo.org). The deliverables will be reviewed by the Senior Gender Specialist for Africa (based in Pretoria). 1 For example, staff of the migrant resource centres supported by FAIRWAY.

Essential qualifications and experience

• Advanced university degree in gender studies, social sciences, development studies or other related field;

• Subject matter expertise in the areas of gender and development, and migration issues across several regions (6+ years), preferably in the context of migration from Africa and/or to the Middle East;

• Understanding of labour migration and recruitment aspects desirable;

• Experience designing and utilising development cooperation project tools including logical frameworks, project documents and monitoring and evaluation frameworks;

• Proven ability to conduct qualitative research;

• Record of authoring and collaborating on a range of publications relevant to the topic; and

• Excellent command of English.

Implementation plan of the assignment

The duration of the consultancy is an estimated at 23 person-days. The timeframe for this assignment is anticipated to commence on 20 January 2023, or other agreed date subject to conclusion of contracting modalities, and shall be conducted as mentioned in the attached table.