Gender Analysis In Lebanon

Terms of Reference     Gender Analysis in Lebanon   1. Background   Oxfam has worked in Lebanon since 1970s, providing humanitarian assistance to those affected by emergency situations in country with national partners, while at the same time maintaining long term partnerships in areas of economic development, municipal service delivery and women’s rights, including in Palestinian areas. For example, following the war in 2006, Oxfam implemented a humanitarian response in South Lebanon focussing on water and sanitation and distribution of non-food items, as well as approaching municipalities for post-reconstruction activities. In 2007, Oxfam continued its humanitarian work in response to the destruction of the Nahr el Bared camp, as well rehabilitation of WASH facilities after residents returned to the camp. Oxfam has also provided support to Palestinian organisations for over twenty years and runs a regional gender equality programme from Lebanon that focuses on women’s political participation, women’s access to justice and ending violence against women.  With field offices in Tripoli and Beka’a, Oxfam is currently implementing programmes in the North, Beka’a, and South in the areas of economic development, active citizenship and governance, women’s rights, cash support, protection and WASH, including in Palestinian areas. Oxfam has a wide network of effective partnerships with both local and national organisations and institutions, and local and national governance structures. Oxfam deliberately aims to undertake humanitarian and development work in parallel, with a strong emphasis on national and international influencing, ensuring root causes of poverty and inequality are addressed while responding to humanitarian needs. Given the protracted nature of the crisis in Syria, refugees and vulnerable Lebanese host communities are in need of more sustainable solutions. Oxfam is providing urgent humanitarian assistance to refugees from Syria in Lebanon, while working alongside Lebanese civil society to build community resilience and maintaining a commitment to uphold the rights of crisis affected people, improve national policies, and hold duty bearers to account.   Key Programmatic Work streams: Providing urgent life-saving humanitarian relief to refugees who fled Syria living in  Informal Tented Settlements (ITSs) and host communities in Lebanon, particularly emergency WASH and protection services and livelihoods assistance, while at the same time working on community resilience as to respond appropriately to the protracted nature of the crisis. Ensuring that women and men, including youth, from urban and rural communities are empowered to increase their access to and control over livelihood assets in order to cope, in a resilient manner, with structural and underlying causes of poverty and inequality. Strengthening dialogue between citizens, civil society organizations (CSOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), the private sector, and informal groups with public authorities (including local authorities and central government) to promote joint and inclusive local development processes and support accountability under the Active Citizenship and Good Governance programme. In addition to promoting gender justice for women in Lebanon by mainstreaming the rights of women in all programming, Oxfam in Lebanon will be working towards the goal of women and girls in Lebanon, particularly the most vulnerable, enjoying their rights, exercise decision making within private and public spheres, and live a life free from violence.     2. Rationale   With the Lebanese context continuously evolving as the Syria refugee crisis persists, Oxfam in Lebanon is shifting from pure humanitarian programming to more resilient and long term approaches in Oxfam’s work, both in host communities and in the refugee communities. A comprehensive gender analysis is needed to better mainstream gender in the current and upcoming programs as well as feed into Oxfam Lebanon’s Country Strategy - planned to be finalized during June-July 2016. Aside its current programming, the Gender Justice is meant to become one of the work streams of the future strategy, focusing mainly on women’s access to justice, women’s political participation and transformative leadership and ending violence against women and girls.   Oxfam in Lebanon is seeking: After an initial desk review by a regional team, identifying relevant knowledge gaps, develop methodologies and tools for the Lebanon gender analysis, a consultant to undertake approximately 5-10 days of comprehensive fieldwork based on the developed methodologies and tools and draft the report with support from the regional and country team.     3. Objective   Oxfam in Lebanon is currently in the process of developing its OCS and the timing is perfect to conduct a comprehensive gender analysis in the communities where Oxfam is implementing its projects, making sure that the future strategy and programming will meet the reality, needs and interests of women, men, boys and girls in Lebanon across all communities in Lebanon: . Therefore, a Gender Analysis will be conducted to: Understand the structural barriers to women’s rights and gender equality in Lebanon and the way they interact with other dimensions of inequality (class, nationality, age, rural/urban, etc.) to affect women’s ability to claim their rights. Explore the different gendered impacts of the crisis on Syrian refugees, Palestine refugees and Lebanese host communities, including potentially changed and/ or changing gender roles and dynamics on women, men, boys and girls.   The primary use of findings will therefore be for internal thinking to: Provide strategic steer  for the design of future stand-alone gender justice programming (incl. influencing) particularly, but not restricted to, on women political participation & leadership, elimination of violence against women & girls, women access to justice;    Provide concrete recommendations for effectively integrating gender in our long term development work across all work streams, Provide concrete recommendations for effectively mainstreaming gender in our Humanitarian and Resilience Work stream.           4. Scope of Work   A.     Geographical coverage   The initial desk review will have a national focus and a) understand the structural barriers to women’s rights and gender equality in Lebanon; and b) explore the different gendered impacts of the crisis on Syrian refugees, Palestine refugees and Lebanese host communities, including potentially changed and/ or changing gender roles and dynamics on women, men, boys and girls. The desk review will also identify knowledge gaps in our current projects that include WASH and protection interventions, and will also look at knowledge gaps on gender and cash assistance – and thus will refine the research questions. This will inform the next phase of the analysis. In the second phase and based on the recommendations from the desk review, the consultant is expected to triangulate data and conduct field research relevant to Oxfam’s target communities in the Beka’a, North Lebanon, South Lebanon and some Palestinian refugee camps, to compliment and contextualize the findings of the desk review. The selection of the communities participating in the gender analysis shall be done in close collaboration with the Programme teams    B.      Methodology   This research is expected to largely use a qualitative methodology. Acknowledging that there is considerable ‘assessment fatigue’ amongst communities and many studies to date have been largely extractive with little direct feedback on findings to the original interviewees, the methodology will need to tailor to this specific situation.   The methodology of the field research will also need to take into account Oxfam’s commitment to ethical data collection and active participation of beneficiaries. This includes: 1. Use of high quality methodology and tools; 2. Meeting the highest ethical and risk management standards, 3. Ensuring meaningful involvement of the surveyed community as appropriate for the context. 4. Ensuring that the surveyed community understands the purpose of the research and how the information will be used.   The regional gender team will be expected to lead on the development of the methodologies and tools and to oversee the overall quality of the report. This will include: Literature review to identify existing information in relation to gender Research questions - development and testing Proposing sampling method, selection of participants Identifying appropriate data analysis tools Develop TOR for consultant Provide technical guidance to consultant The consultant will be expected to conduct the actual field work and draft the report. This will include:  Training of data collectors and practice sessions Managing the data gathering Managing the data entry Data analysis Report writing  C.      Components of the gender analysis   The Gender Analysis will develop findings and recommendations which will inform the gender justice work stream and other ‘development’ work streams (Active Citizenship & Good Governance and Economic Justice) as per the Oxfam MECIS guidance note on gender integration in the OCS. This will provide a general overview of the current situation of gender justice in Lebanon with a particular focus on the following themes:           i.            Social and cultural norms in relation to gender, specifically perceptions on women’s rights and gender equality, and masculinity         ii.            Legal framework regarding women’s rights and gender equality                                                          iii.            Women’s economic participation, including access and control over resources   While the emphasis should be on poor and vulnerable women as the core target of Oxfam’s work, variations related to geographic location, class, nationality and age should be explored to better understand the complexities behind the barriers to gender equality in Lebanon and the opportunities for Oxfam’s interventions.   2.The Gender Analysis will develop findings and recommendations for mainstreaming gender and applying the Minimum Standards for Promoting Gender Equality in Humanitarian Programs within Oxfam’s current Humanitarian Programming and Resilience Work stream and will look at the gendered impact of the Syria Crisis on the different communities residing in Lebanon, with a specific focus on:         iv.              Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH);          v.              Emergency Food Security Livelihoods, in particular cash assistance; vi.              Protection (in particular SGBV, mobility and legal status).  3. The gender analysis is expected to contribute to a greater understanding on the factors contributing to increased vulnerabilities of women in Lebanon within the current context. This component will be dedicated to identify, if any, how certain factors/conditions can intersect to create groups of “women at the margins”. This last part will be instrumental to shape the thinking of the strategy in a way that it addresses the needs/interests, or part of it, of the most vulnerable women in Lebanon. It is not intended to give an in-depth review of vulnerability criteria for women in Lebanon but rather look at the amplified effect of intersecting factors/layers of vulnerability.       5. Expected deliverables   Regional Gender Team is expected to: 1.1.   Desk review of relevant secondary data sources so that assessment activities can be built upon existing knowledge and analysis including Oxfam’s secondary data report, CLARA Cohort Livelihoods and Risk Analysis, baseline survey, etc; 1.2.   Consolidation and presentation of key findings from desk review to Oxfam staff; 1.3.   Development of methodology and tools, that covers: key existing knowledge or assumptions to be tested; priority areas for the gathering of new information; focus group discussion guidance questions; key stakeholders to be engaged; gender balance in research team, questionnaire; data collection tools to be used; sampling parameters; process for generating, testing and finalizing findings and recommendations.   The consultant is expected to: 2.1.   Conduct focus group discussions 2.2.   Map key external stakeholders and conduct interviews 2.3.   Analysis of data using information from interviews and FGDs 2.4.   Draft the Report that includes the findings and the recommendations. 2.5.   Do a presentation of the findings and recommendations at Lebanon CMT+   3. Validating the Final Report     6. Timeline (tentative)   Deliverables Deadline Who Desk review Before 07 June Regional Team Development of Tools and Methodology   By max 07 June  Regional Team Validation Tools and Methodology by Country Team By max 10 June Regional Team and Country Team Recruitment consultant for fieldwork Start date: 13 June Country Team Individual Interviews with key stakeholders   Between 13 and 16 June Consultant Focus Group Discussions Between 17 - 24 June Consultant Data Analysis   ongoing Consultant First draft report including findings and recommendations and submit for review   30 June Consultant Consolidating feedback 07 July Regional Team, Country Team to consultant Submit final report 14 July Consultant     7. Management of the consultant   The consultant will be contracted and managed by the Oxfam Lebanon Head of Programmes, with technical support from the regional team. Oxfam is seeking a consultant, or team of consultants, to undertake the fieldwork component of the gender analysis and drafting the report. Fees, suggested methodology and timelines should be submitted as part of a proposal (maximum 2 pages) to Oxfam by interested parties, in addition to CVs and relevant experience.