Scoping study/mapping and review of relevant gender responsive education programs and policy gaps and strengths to inform project advocacy efforts. At War Child Canada

Title of the Consultancy

Scoping study/mapping and review of relevant gender responsive education programs and policy gaps and strengths to inform project advocacy efforts.

Title of the Project

Geared for Success

Project Period

August 9, 2022 – March 31, 2029

Project Goal

Enhance equitable and inclusive Education for refugees and host community children and youths especially girls and adolescent girls in Uganda and South Sudan.

Donor

Global Affairs Canada (GAC)

Project Location

Uganda: Yumbe, Terego and Obongi Districts

Reports to

GFS Project Manager (Uganda), War Child Canada

Background

1. Background of War Child Canada

War Child Canada (WCC) is an international charity organisation registered in Toronto, Canada, dedicated to helping children and their communities overcome the devastating effects of active and post-war. Its vision is “accelerating Peace by disrupting the cycle of violence” and its mission is “driving Generational Change for The Hardest Hit by Investing in The Power of Local Communities.”

Since its establishment in 1999, War Child Canada has worked in 20 countries across the world and currently implement programming in Afghanistan, Yemen, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Uganda.

During the past five years, War Child Canada has reached over 2,500,000 conflict-affected children and adults; 985,000 people benefitted from War Child’s educational initiatives; 480,000 people were helped to climb out of poverty and 1,075,000 people learned more about their rights and had better access to justice systems.

War Child Canada (WCC) in Uganda: Since 2014, War Child Canada has worked in 10 districts in Uganda, primarily focusing on refugee hosting, integrated education, access to justice (incuding peacebuilding), and livelihoods. War Child Canada has worked in the districts of: Adjumani, Obongi, Yumbe, Madi Okollo, Terego, Koboko, Isingiro, Lamwo, Kikuube, Koboko, Kamwenge and Kyegegwa.

1. Background of RELON-Uganda

The Refugee Organization Network (RELON) traces its origins back to 2011 when the Refugee Grassroots Network (RGN) was formed to address challenges faced by refugees and other related organisations. In May 2016, recognizing the need for a dedicated platform to examine and tackle these issues, the Refugee Led Organization Network was established. RELON aims to advocate for meaningful refugee participation in decision-making processes that affect them and to bolster the capacity of refugee-led organisations (RLOs) to address the tasks ahead. Initially founded by four refugee-led organisations (RLOs) — Young African Refugees for Integral Development (YARID), Hope of Children and Women Victims of Violence (HOCW), Hope of Refugee in Action (HRA), and Coburwas International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA) — RELON has since evolved.

Over the past 8 years, RELON has provided support to 37 RLOs through subgrants, trained 45 refugees and host community leaders on Human Centered Design (HCD) and trained 135 RLOs on regional, continental, and global legal refugee instruments, as well as advocacy at national and settlement levels. Notably, RELON Uganda played a pivotal role in establishing the Global Refugee Network (GRN) and the Africa Refugee Led Network (ARN).

Project Background
The Geared for Success (GFS) project is a five-year, gender-responsive initiative aimed at enhancing equitable and inclusive learning outcomes for refugee, internally displaced and host community children and youth, particularly girls and adolescent girls, living in South Sudan and Uganda. As part of Global Affairs Canada’s (GAC) “Together for Learning” campaign, the GFS project works towards supporting community-based organizations (CBOs) with financial and technical support in order to enhance their programming aimed at enabling access to gender-responsive education for refugee, internally displaced and host children in targeted communities. The project is implemented by War Child Canada (WCC) and Oxfam Canada (OCA) in close collaboration with six local implementing partners in South Sudan and Uganda. The contribution agreement between WCC, OCA, and GAC was signed on August 9, 2022 and will conclude on March 31, 2029.

In Uganda,the project is implemented in partnership with three other organizations comprising the and Community Empowerment for Creative Action (CECI) Refugee Led Organization Network of Uganda (RELON) and Youth Social Advocacy Team (YSAT). These Refugee-Led Organizations are leading project implementation in close collaboration with Oxfam and WCC in the target districts of Yumbe (Bidibidi Refugee Settlement), Obongi (Parolinya Refugee Settlement) and Terego (Imvepi Refugee Settlement). WCC will support partners to implement school-based activities while Oxfam will support the same partners to implement community-based activities in selected school communities.

Project outcomes include:

**Ultimate Outcome:**Enhance equitable and inclusive Education for refugees and host community children and youths especially girls and adolescent girls.

Intermediate Outcome 1100: Improved CBO performance in the provision of gender-responsive education.

Intermediate Outcome 1200: Increased access to gender-responsive quality education for refugees and IDP children and youth, particularly for girls and adolescent girls.

Intermediate Outcome 1300: Increased ability and knowledge of CBOs to collectively advocate with the government for the implementation of gender-responsive quality education policies, programs, and services for refugees/IDPs.

Purpose and Specific Objectives of the Consultancy:

The purpose of this consultancy

War Child Canada with RELON-Uganda are seeking the expertise of a qualified consultancy firm to conduct a scoping study/mapping study and policy review exercise aimed at; 1) identifying and analyzing relevant local education policy gaps, strengths and available advocacy spaces and 2) Identify opportunities and spaces at the national and subnational level for effective advocacy.

This initiative contributes to the project goal through increasing the ability and knowledge of refugee-led organizations to collectively advocate with the government for the implementation of gender-responsive quality education policies, programs, and services for refugees/IDPs by strategically engaging with key policy stakeholders and decision-makers.

Specific objectives

• To map out and analyze existing policy & program gaps/strengths, regulations, and frameworks related to gender-responsive quality education.
• To examine stakeholders’ understanding of policy influencing, mapping of spaces and moments for meaningful and constructive policy influencing engagements that enhance equitable and inclusive education.
• To provide actionable recommendations to leverage on identified policy & program gaps, policy influencing spaces, and moments to maximize advocacy impact.

Approach/methodology

The consultancy firm will be responsible for designing the study, developing assessment tools, coordinating data collection, leading data management and analysis, and reporting. The firm will report to the WCC Project Manager who will coordinate with RELON-Uganda as well as other GFS project consortium partners on the study methodology and agreement on assessment tools. A mixed-method assessment study design involving both primary and secondary data collection using qualitative and quantitative methods is preferred for this study.

Primary data collection will require engaging stakeholders from War Child Canada, implementing partners, development agencies, local government departments of Education and Community Development, community-based leaders, schools and community members. In consultation with GFS Project Manager, the consultancy firm will organise meetings in schools and communities during the document review, scoping, and mapping exercise.

Secondary data collection will include a review of existing national and local policies and programs/bylaws, regulations, and frameworks related to education plus all project documents and relevant organisational documents.

The final study report shall be prepared, submitted, and disseminated as per the War Child Canada and RELON-Uganda requirements.

Ethics and Child Safeguarding

War Child Canada, RELON Uganda and partners are committed to ensuring that the rights of those participating in this study are respected and protected. The consultant shall abide by the War Child Canada Ethical MEAL Framework and safeguarding policy for children and young people.

All applicants shall include in the proposal details on how they will ensure research ethics and child safeguarding during the study. Specifically, the consultant shall explain how appropriate, safe, and non-discriminatory participation of all stakeholders will be ensured and how special attention will be paid to the needs of children and other vulnerable groups. The consultant shall also explain how the confidentiality and anonymity of participants will be guaranteed.

During the conceptualization phase of the study or at inception, the consultant, RELON-Uganda, and War Child Canada team shall complete a Child Safeguarding Risk Assessment to measure the level of risks to potential participants.

Scope of work

The consultant is expected to perform the following tasks:

• Conduct a comprehensive review and analysis of existing national and subnational (includes local) policies and programs, regulations, and frameworks related to education.
• Identify and scope/map key policy spaces at the local, national, and regional, levels where advocacy efforts can be strategically focused.
• Explore the various moments/opportunities in which equitable and inclusive education advocacy-related activities would be done.
• Engage with key stakeholders, including government officials, NGOs, implementing partners, and experts, to gather insights and perspectives on relevant policies, spaces, and moments for advocacy supporting equitable and inclusive education.
• Provide 2 detailed reports outlining the findings, including a comprehensive list of identified policies and programs, spaces, and moments, along with an analysis of their potential impact on advocacy initiatives.
• Propose specific policy-influencing plans containing issues generated from the mapping/scoping study.
• Suggest a set of actionable recommendations for effective engagement with the identified policies, spaces, and moments.
• Present the findings and recommendations in a one-day workshop with all the GFS and other education actors

Deliverables

Specifically, the following shall be expected to be delivered:

A. Pre-activity level.

1. Draft inception report: Upon signing the contract, the consultant will submit a detailed inception report on the proposed approach to this assignment. The inception report will include a detailed description of the methodology, tools and expected outputs. This shall be done within 5 working days after the contract is signed.
2. Revised inception report: Following the feedback provided on the draft inception report from War Child Canada, RELON-Uganda and partners, the consultant will incorporate revisions and recommendations and submit a final report.

B. During activity delivery level

1. Undertake the assignment. The consultant will conduct the document review, scoping, and mapping exercise within 30 days from the start of the contract. The first draft report shall be submitted for review by War Child Canada, RELON-Uganda and its partners. Review feedback shall be shared within two weeks from the date of submission of the draft report.
2. Review and submit the final document review and scoping/mapping study report. Upon receiving feedback and comments, the consultant will revise and submit the final scoping report addressing the concerns raised within 7 days. The final report shall incorporate specific, practical, and a set of actionable recommendations for advocacy initiatives based on the identified policy spaces and moments as well as advocacy strategies to aid implementation.
3. The review and scoping tools and other relevant documents shall be submitted with the report as annexes.
4. Two study reports shall be done and submitted; one for the mapping/scoping study for advocacy spaces and moments; another report for Policy review for relevant local education policies, programs and indicating gaps and strengths identified to inform advocacy efforts.
5. A PowerPoint presentation of summary recommendations used during the advocacy workshop for education stakeholders.

Scope (coverage area and timeline)

This assessment will be conducted in Yumbe, Obongi and Terego districts in the West Nile sub-region. The final report and all other deliverables should be submitted to War Child Canada by 15th August 2024.

Experience and skills

War Child Canada and RELON-Uganda are looking for a competent firm with the skills, knowledge, and proven experience to successfully execute this study. Applications from consulting firms/individuals will be assessed based on their ability to demonstrate the following qualifications, experiences, and competencies:

• Team members must have an advanced university Degree in Social Sciences, Gender and Development Studies, Law, Project Planning, Education or other related qualifications from recognized academic institutions.
• The team should have both a Gender and Advocacy technical specialist and an Education technical specialist.
• Team members must have skills, training and demonstrated experience in conducting education or related policy reviews, gender analysis, mapping and scoping for advocacy spaces and moments, or advocacy strategy development.
• The consultancy firm should have a minimum experience of 5 years carrying out related work in advocacy research, education policy reviews, education training experts, and demonstrated experience in development advocacy strategies and plans in development and humanitarian work with references from reputable organisations.
• The firm should have experience working with both refugee and host communities in an emergency setting.
• The form should have experience working with the youth, adolescents and persons of concern such as refugees.
• The firm should have experience working in Uganda.
• Strong English language skills are required; other local languages in the sub-region are an asset.

Evaluation criteria

Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

• Relevance of experience and expertise (team composition).
• Methodology and approach proposed for the review and scoping study.
• Qualifications and expertise of the proposed team.
• Cost-effectiveness of the proposed budget.

Travel

Travel to the project field locations is required.

*Travel costs are the responsibility of the consultant and should be included in the proposed budget