Plan International Bangladesh

TERMS OF REFERENCE:
Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the Girls Get Equal project in country Bangladesh

Plan international is an independent development and humanitarian organisation that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We strive for a just world, working together with children, young people, our supporters and partners. We work globally at the grassroots to advance these rights. We conduct long-term development work in more than 50 countries and raise money in more than 20 countries. Plan International is religiously independent, politically neutral, and has worked for children since 1937.

Plan International has been operating in Bangladesh since 1993 Plan International Bangladesh Country Strategy (2020-2030) set its vision partnering to empower girls and young women, to be heard, to live without fear of violence and to achieve their rights. in doing so, Plan international Bangladesh will empower children and young people as drivers of systemic change to gender norms and power relationships; Promote an enabling environment for girls and young women to realize their sexual and reproductive health and rights and to live free from violence; Raise public and private sector support for young women to access decent work opportunities in the twenty- 21st century labour market and have control over resources.

Plan International Bangladesh (PIB) has the Country office in Dhaka, from where we are operating projects in Dhaka, Rangpur, Barisal and Chittagong divisions. Since 2017, we have a strong presence at Cox's Bazar.

Project Background

The Girls Get Equal Programme is a five-year framework agreement of NOK 246 400 000 between Plan International Norway and Norad. The Programme aims to reduce the prevalence of Child, Early and Forced Marriage (CEFM) in selected target areas in six countries: Bangladesh, Malawi, Nepal, Niger, Tanzania and Uganda through five integrated outcome areas:

Outcome 1: Retention of girls in school
Outcome 2: Knowledge of SRHR among adolescents
Outcome 3: Economical opportunities for girls and families at high risk of CEFM
Outcome 4: Communities embrace norms that value the girls and support girls and boys to delay marriage
Outcome 5: Responsiveness of duty bearers at national, district and sub-district levels to prevent and respond to child rights violations, particularly CEFM

The Girls Get Equal programme in Bangladesh will reach 26,000 children and youth in Barguna District with interventions to reduce child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) across the five outcome areas.
Within the girls’ retention in school and youth economic empowerment outcomes, GGE Project support schools to introduce a more gender responsive and child-friendly pedagogy and school codes of conduct. Mainstream formal education will be linked up in partnerships with Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions to provide an attractive offer and encourage girls to stay in school. Plan will train girls and their families in livelihood skills and establish linkages to the private sector to provide employment opportunities.

In terms of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), in-school adolescents receive training through the integrated Gender Equity Movement in Schools Module (GEMS) package, a 2-year curriculum on SRHR, gender-based violence (GBV), and gender equality for younger adolescents. Out-of-school adolescents will be trained on SRHR by using Plan’s Champions of Change methodology.

Within the social norm change work, the programme working with boys and men to promote positive masculinities to change stereotypes, social norms and behaviour that work against the potential of girls. Youth organisations and individual youth will be mobilised and receive support to act as drivers of change and bring about improvements to gender norms, policy and legislative changes. The programme will furthermore conduct awareness trainings on CEFM with community religious leaders, teachers, marriage registration officers (kazis), and solemnisers of marriages.

When it comes to child protection, the programme working to influence the implementation and enforcement of the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2017, to form effective and well-functioning local level child marriage prevention committees and to encourage reporting on child marriage cases.

Globally, the programme will benefit more than 317,000 children, adolescents and youth, 544 schools and 741 communities, and inclusion of children and youth with disabilities (CwDs) will be mainstreamed. In Bangladesh, we are working with 108 schools and communities according to the village is 245. For Bangladesh following are the target group as per objectives:

Outcome 1: Retention of girls in school

108 secondary schools, including madrassahs and TVET institutions will be supported to strengthen the implementation of ‘Safe, Inclusive and Girls-friendly schools’
5760 out-of-school children receive accelerated or alternative basic education
1040 educational staff will be trained in code of conduct and inclusive pedagogy

Outcome 2: Knowledge of sexual and reproductive health and rights among adolescents

13678 adolescents have knowledge of quality SRHR
688 educational staff and trainers are trained on SRHR
4936 traditional initiators, parents or relevant local actors receive training on SRHR

Outcome 3: Strengthened economic opportunities for girls and families at high risk of CEFM

Facilitate skills and employment opportunities for decent incomes for 2200 youth, focusing especially on girls
2000 critically poor families at high risks of CEFM receive economic support so they do not need to marry off children due to poverty

Outcome 4: Communities embrace social norms that value the girl child and support them to delay marriage

23540 community members receive awareness-raising on gender equality, child rights and CEFM
5120 girls and boys receive training on gender equality, child rights and CEFM (using the Champion of Change methodology)

Outcome 5: Increased responsiveness of duty bearers at national, district, and sub-district levels to prevent and respond to child rights violations, particular CEFM.

133 CBCP committees/mechanisms are functional and with higher sustainability level
64 civil society organizations engaged in advocacy relating to CEFM, including child protection, child rights, inclusion, gender equality

1638 official duty bearers/CBCP members trained

32 civil society organisations have increased capacity on policy advocacy

Outcome indicators are added as an Annex to help understand the project.

Purpose of the Mid-Term Review

The MTR is a requirement set by Norad, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation. The main purpose of this MTR is to assess program implementation, draw lessons on the progress made so far in each country program and to identify areas of improvement to ensure that the program meets the intended outcomes. The review should serve to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and evaluate interventions and results in the specific contexts based on findings and in line with Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) standards. The MTR must deliver relevant and actionable recommendations for the remaining program period. The findings and recommendations in the MTR will also be important for informing the next application for a second framework agreement with Norad.

Key objectives:

Review project progress to date in line with OECD/DAC standards
Analyse results achieved, identify areas of improvement and make specific and actionable recommendations for the remaining project period
Analyse findings related to key thematic questions as per section 5 of this ToR
Identify the value of each outcome and intermediate outcome indicators as per define and disaggregated in Project RF. Compare the value with Baseline to measure the progress of the project against the target for the Midterm.

Terms of Reference (TOR) for the assignment can be downloaded from this link.

Submission of Proposal

The technical and financial proposals should be submitted electronically to the email address: planbd.consultant.hiring@plan-international.org with title ‘Proposals for Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the Girls Get Equal project in country Bangladesh’ as subject.

Proposal submitted to any other email account except this and in hard copy will be treated as disqualified. Submissions after the deadline 29th May, 2022 before at 3:00 PM will be treated as disqualified. Two different folders i.e. technical and financial should be submitted into one zip folder with a covering letter. The proposals should be submitted in pdf format.

Any direct or indirect pressure/persuasion/harassment to any Plan staff shall disqualify shortlisted vendors’