Request for Proposal

“Understanding the impact of DFAT-AHP consortium project’s gender transformative interventions in the project areas in camps and host communities in Cox’s Bazar”

Plan International is one of the oldest and largest children's development organizations in the world. We work in 52 developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas to promote child rights and lift millions of children out of poverty. Plan International worked with 100 million children in 85,282 communities. Plan International is independent, with no religious, political or governmental affiliations but having a vision of a world in which all children realize their full potential in societies that respect people's rights and dignity.

Plan International has been operating in Bangladesh since 1994. Plan International seeks to ensure the rights of children to education, health, safe water and sanitation, protection, youth social and economic empowerment and climate change, environmental degradation and natural or man-made disaster hazards throughout the country.

Project overview

The Rohingya crisis is the largest and most complex humanitarian crisis in the Indo-Pacific region, with over 1.3 million people needing humanitarian assistance in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. This project is a three-year program of the Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP) Bangladesh Consortium that will "contribute to international efforts to meet humanitarian and protection needs and increase resilience and self-reliance of Rohingya and host populations in Bangladesh" through the delivery of a well-coordinated and inclusive program in strong partnership with national and local partners. The AHP Bangladesh Consortium draws on the experience and operational capacity of six AHP partners and their networks to enable broader geographic reach, better coordination of and with the key stakeholders, and improved collective response to the needs of Rohingya and host communities affected by the crisis. The AHP Bangladesh Consortium supports Australia's wider efforts to assist crisis-affected people where gender is the cross-cutting issues across the consortium.

The AHP Bangladesh Consortium program seeks to equally address the specific needs of women, girls, boys and men, and members of sexual and gender minority groups. Gender equality and women's empowerment is strongly reflected across the program, in particular ending violence against women and girls and promoting women's economic empowerment. These strongly align with the objectives of DFAT's Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment Strategy (2016). Across the program, women and girls will be supported to make and influence decisions affecting their and their children's lives and futures.

Objectives:

The overall objective of this impact study is to measure the outcome of the gender transformative interventions in the project areas among the project’s targetted communities.

• To understand the impact of project interventions in terms of influence of gender norms
• To understand the impact of the project interventions in terms of strengthening girls’ and young women’s agency over the decisions that affect them
• To understand the knowledge, confidence, skills and access to and control over resources of girls and young women
• To understand the impact of the project in terms of embracing positive masculinities and promoting gender equality by boys, young men and men
• To understand the improvement of conditions and social position of girls and young women brought by the project interventions
• To understand how the project contributed to consider girls, boys, young women and young men in all their diversity when identifying and responding to their needs and interests.
• To understand the impact of project interventions in ensuring enabling environment where all stakeholders work together to support beneficiaries on their journey towards gender equality

Assignment deliverables:

• An inception report containing the final methodology and work plan.
• Study tools development and translation
• Study instruments pre-tested, finalized and in Bangla.
• Study report¹ in acceptable English. If required, the consultant/Consulting firm will arrange for proofreading to maintain the quality. The report should contain detailed findings a well-blended qualitative and quantitative analysis of findings. The draft report should be shared with Plan International Bangladesh for review. By addressing the feedback, the report should be finalized.  
• Presentation of the key findings to the staff members of consortium partners including Plan International Bangladesh and different relevant stakeholders.
• A policy brief/summery based on the findings of the data
• The final report in soft copy in MS Word and PDF format.
• All field notes, quantitative data sets (in SPSS) and other relevant materials in one folder

The consultant /organization will submit an inception report including detail methodology, timeframe, workplan within a week of signing the contract; this work plan will be reviewed and approved by Plan International Bangladesh. It is anticipated that the final report will be produced within 60 calendar days of signing of the contract. During the whole period of the assignment, follow up meetings will be held between the contracted consultant/consulting firm and Plan International Bangladesh as frequently as possible. Any field problems should be anticipated and addressed beforehand. 

Submission of Proposal

The technical and financial proposals should be submitted electronically to the email address: Planbd.consultant.hiring@plan-international.org with ‘Understanding the impact of DFAT-AHP consortium project’s gender transformative interventions in the project as areas in camps and host communities in Cox’s Bazar’ as the subject. Proposal submitted to any other email account except this and in hard copy will be treated as disqualified. Submissions after the deadline will be treated as disqualified. Two different folders, i.e. technical and financial, should be submitted into one zip folder with a cover letter. The proposals should be submitted in pdf format.The deadline of proposal submission is on or before 15th  February 2023.

Terms of Reference (ToR)

Terms of Reference (TOR) can be downloaded from this link. For any technical issue related to the assignment, please communicate to Iffat Ara Arna–Gender Advisor, AHP Consortium at: Iffat.Arna@plan-international.org