Project co-funded by EU 'Jukta Hoe Mukta – United We Stand' I DCI-NSAPVD/2015/359-821

Terms of Reference (TOR)
For
Garments workers: Situation analysis on their Financial Inclusion

Background
Phulki has been working in the Early Childhood Development (ECD) area in Bangladesh since 1991, establishing mainly clusters (comprising of Day Care Centres - DCCs/ Learning Centre – LCs) to support marginalized children and their families living in urban settings. The systematic work with children and working women has enabled it to earn a lot of goodwill and developed a brand image of childcare and ECD blended programming in Bangladesh.

Building on its experience, in February 2016 Phulki partnered with Terre des Hommes (TDH) Italia, an Italian NGO working for child protection, under the European Union (EU) funded project Jukta Hoe Mukta – United We Stand. The project is implemented with several local partners, based both in some Dhaka urban slum areas and in the South West part of Bangladesh (Khulna District). The project aims at creating safe patterns of internal migration and providing adolescents girls/ young women moving towards and living in the capital slums to work in the garment sector with a platform of services in order for them to experience a more secured everyday life.

Under the expected result 3, Phulki is the main actor to continuously provide to migrant women working in the Ready-Made Garment (RMG) sector information, social services and rights based support so that they can experience safe, secure, enabling working environment and fulfilling social conditions. Phulki established and it is running in Gazipur City Corporation 8 clusters which are opened in the afternoon also as Women’s Cafés (WCs), a safe place where garments’ workers and adolescent girls can meet and receive training to increase their awareness on SRHR and labour rights. In addition, considering the challenges these women/ girls are regularly facing, individual and group counselling sessions are also provided by the field staff.

During these sessions and the training, it often emerged that women are not properly aware on how to save and use their salaries. For this reason it is planned to hire an external consultant to undertake a situationanalysis on garments' workers' financial inclusion to validate these findings.

Objective

• To develop a situation analysis on garments workers’ financial inclusion and to gather recommendations on how they can improve their capacities to manage their wages and their knowledge about savings.

Scope of the work

• To collect data on how women garments workers in Gazipur (project’s area) are utilizing their salaries/ wages (life priorities, i.e. food, health, etc.), with a focus on the financial capabilities for themselves/ their family members, their behaviour in terms of knowing/ accessibility of formal and informal financial services, and their knowledge about savings.
• To identify which are the main challenges they are facing in utilizing their earned money, including the social factors they are perceiving as affecting them, and up to which extent they are able to influence their families’ financial decision making process.
• To identify and analyse different available formal/ informal financial services in the projects’ areas.

Study Content and Methodology Selected
The consultant should propose the approach and specific data collection methods to best achieve the objectives of the consultancy. A mixed methodology (quantitative and qualitative) is foreseen. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Desk study of relevant Bangladesh context documentation as well as stock taking of ongoing initiatives related to garments workers’ financial empowerment/ inclusion
• Analysis of the different formal vs. informal financial services available in the project’s areas.
• Data collection;
• Focus Group Discussion (FGD)/ in-depth interviews among general garments’ workers/ WCs members;
• Briefing, brainstorming, focus group discussion, in-depth interviews with other stakeholders in the project’s areas (garments workers’ husbands/ guardians, community members, financial service providers, etc.) to understand the dynamics related to the women’s financial inclusion.

Expected Deliverables/Outputs from the Contractor
Report of the situation analysis undertaken (with both quantitative and qualitative findings), including:

• analysis of formal/ informal financial services available in the project’s areas;
• recommendations related to the capacity of women working in the RMG sector in Gazipur area to manage their salaries/ wages and conclusion.

Time-frame and deadlines
This assignment is expected to be carried out from September 15th 2018 to December15th2018.
The total duration of the scoping and project design mission will be of 30 working days including background study, field visits, report writing and finalization, as detailed below:

Required Skills and Experience
The consultant shall have:

• Extensive experience in data collection, designing and conducting situation analysis;
• Previous working experience particularly with garments workers and their financial situation will be considered as an added value;
• Relevant academic background;
• Ability to meet the deadline;
• Strong analytical skills and relevant working experience for at least 10 years;
• Cultural, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, race, nationality and age sensitivity;
• Fluency in English (both writing and communication skills);
• Target group-sensitive Bangla communication skills.

How to apply
Interested candidates must submit a proposal to phulkicareer@gmail.com of the following documents within August 24th 2018:

A. For Individual Consultant

• A short CV maximum 3 pages highlighting experiences (work as lead investigator) on related assignment completed with detail client name, address, contact persons & communication detail.
• Proposal with methodology and work plan;
• For other members of team include short CV highlighting relevant tasks or assignment.
• Detailed budget (in excel with detailed breakdown).

B. For Consultancy Firm

• Short profile of the firm highlighting experiences on related assignment with client detail as mentioned for individual consultant.
• Lead Consultant’s (team leader) with 2 pages of CV highlighting related work experiences and assignment completed.
• Other Team members’ (engaged in this assignment) with very short CV highlighting related task and assignment completed.
• Proposal with methodology and work plan;
• Detailed budget as per provided format.

Incomplete applications will not be considered. In case you need further specification, please contact the abovementioned email address.