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Terms of References (ToR)
for
National Context Analysis on Social Movements in Bangladesh

AA Denmark works for just and sustainable global development with a particular focus on youth, democracy, and climate justice. MSAADK supports young activists, social movements, organisations, and networks so they can fight for their rights, fight oppression and help change the world and build democratic, sustainable societies. The core of MSAADK’s work is cooperation and development work, as well as humanitarian-development and peace (H-D-P) work in fragile contexts.

MOVE is ActionAid’s global centre for social movements that works to holistically support youth activism and social movements and civil society organisations that want to become more movement minded. The centre constitutes of regional partners and works within three key elements 1) capacity building, 2) direct support for action, organising and campaigning and 2) research, analysis, and communication.

ActionAid firmly believes that the promotion of youth as agents of social change and into positions of leadership has the highest return in the country’s development. As part of MOVE, Action Aid Bangladesh has been supporting young people to develop their capacity for enhancing youth led activism and movement on different common causes to ensure a just society. To design and conduct capacity development initiatives, context analysis in terms of the social movement of Bangladesh might be a knowledge product. .

GOAL & OBJECTIVE

Goal: The ambition of this consultancy is to get in-depth context knowledge on social movements in Bangladesh (both current and historically) and on the conditions for CSOs to engage and support social movements.

Objective:

1) To strengthen AAB knowledge on history of social movements and current scenario in Bangladesh and the potentials and restraints that exist in the current political, social and governmental arena for fostering and supporting movements as a CSO.
2) To strengthen MOVE’s global movement work with country specific knowledge of the trends, characteristics, opportunity and challenges of social movements in a national context.
3) Identify the potential scope for AAB to support movements in terms of different types of support (capacity building, funding, strategic guidance, alliance building) to ensure growth and sustainability.

SCOPE OF SERVICES
The aim of the assignment is to get an in-depth and contextualised understanding of social movements in Bangladesh and the potentials and constraints for social movements to grow and create impact as well as the potentials and constraints for CSO’s to support these social movements.

Specifically, this will involve:

  • Briefly describe the historical overview of key movements in Bangladesh that has an impact on understanding the field today including a description of what and how social movements are to be understood in a Bangladesh context.
  • Collect data on the political and social context that constraints or enables movements to grow the current political environment in Bangladesh.
  • Map, identify, categories and document existing youth and young women-led movement, networks, and alliances along with its historical journey and trend and characteristics in Bangladesh that align with the political goals and values of ActionAid’s priorities and that could be connected to remarkable struggles. Include in this:
    • Map and document each movements/coalition/network/platform geographic location and spread.
    • Assess and identify their experiences, trends, characteristics, strengths and focus on their success and achievements as well as restrictions, weakness, threats, and any other limitations.
    • Examine capacity, technical, and financial support needs, identification of factors and interests in mobilization and organizing for peace, climate, and social justice.
    • Analyze, interpret, and categorize the movements in clusters of strength/weakness, focus areas and location/spread.
  • Engage with AAB management, managers and relevant staff directly working with movement to analyse our internal capacity and set up with a focus on both structure and culture to be able to transition to stronger movement engagement and support. Use this data and analyze to make recommendations that will enable AAB movement engagement plan implementation and success.

OUTPUT/DELIVERABLES
Design inception report on how to conduct the research to be revised and approved by AAB team before further work is done (how the assignment is approached, timeline and report overview and draft of form of final report, including revision of how to conduct interviews, conversations with movements and what questions will be in focus). This needs to be approved by AAB

2. An analysis delivered in a report form that is easy to understand (minimise jargon) and navigate and what can be shared with external stakeholders. The report should not exceed 15 pages in total and have appendix that highlights and makes the following information relevant for others:

  • A database will be developed on the organizations (post-independent period) who have a journey oof social movement. The database will contain organizational profile (brief) with their historical background , trends and contribution etc. for leading changes
  • Information on types of organizing, mobilizations and campaigns of youth movements as well as the geographic locations/spread of these actions.
  • Information on the policy and legal landscape in project states and national level for social movements.
  • Key issues, strength, challenges, opportunities, threats and capacity needs of the social movements in Bangladesh.
  • Recommendations on how CSOs Bangladesh in general can engage and support movements in influencing change including specific recommendations for AAB.
  • Report should be submitted in hard and a soft copy on an external hard drive or Hard disk, it should also contain relevant documentation including video clips, quality photographs (where possible), links for reference purposes and any other material produced/documented during the field work investigation.
  • Executive summary (max 3 pages) and a PowerPoint presentation with max 10 slides.

PROFILE REQUIREMENT OF THE CONSULTANT

  • The consultant has proven experience in working with and knowledge of the civil society sector and in particular social movements in Bangladesh.
  • The consultant has proven experience in writing understandable articles for external audiences. For example, reports, blogs etc.
  • The consultant has a degree in social sciences or similar and over 4 years working with social movements.

IMPORTANT CONDITIONS
AAB understands social movements as purposeful, organized groups and broad alliances of people connected through a shared identity and interest striving to work toward a common political/social change goal. The shared identity is closely linked with their change goal which means they are the constituents whose lives are affected by their struggle. (e.g., anti-apartheid movement, civil rights movement, suffragettes) They are generally unregistered, but some do register for various reasons.
What AAB is interested in exploring the analysis of progressive social movements that align with AA values and goals and how AAB can work closer with them in the coming years.

Submission of the Proposal
Interested Consultant(S)/Consultancy Agencies are requested to submit their Technical and Financial Proposals through e-mail. aab.jobs@actionaid.org

Interested Consultant(S)/Consultancy Agencies should include the name and detail contact address of the consultant/team. Detailed CVs of the team members should be included in the annexure of the technical proposal.

The deadline for submission of the Proposal is Saturday, 29 July 2023