Amplify Change Project;

Baseline line survey; Term of Reference (ToR)

  1. Introduction;

Amplify Change – Supporting Women’s Rights in Afghanistan is a five year (2017-2021), funded by Global Affairs Canada and will be implemented in three provinces of Afghanistan: Herat, Balkh and Nangarhar. The project aims to support Afghan women and girls to participate more effectively in decision-making about their society by empowering them t access and use their legal rights, and creating an enabling environment that facilitates their participation. The project takes a dual – pronged approach and by its completion will have strengthened policies and programs in support of reducing violence against women and girls, by changing attitudes, norms and beliefs about women’s rights and providing women who experienced violence with enhanced access to support services and economic opportunities. In the second component, the project will have strengthened coordination among Afghan CSOs working on women’s rights, by increasing their capacity and collaboration around accountability, knowledge-sharing, and joint advocacy.

  1. Project Objectives and focus areas;

Ultimate Outcome:Women and girls are better empowered to participate in decision making in the Afghan society

Intermediate Outcome1: Afghan society and government are more effectively supporting the protection of rights of women and girls from gender-based violence through enhanced commitment, policies and programming that defend the rights of women and girls

Intermediate Outcome2: Strengthened Afghan civil society organizations (CSOs) are actively coordinating, advocating, protecting and promoting the rights and empowerment of women and girls

Immediate Outcomes:

  • Increased awareness among women, men, religious and political leaders of legal rights and laws that defend the rights of women and girls, including the right to be free from violence
  • Enhanced access for women and girls who experienced violence to legal support and protection programs that defend their rights
  • Increased access, especially for women who experienced violence, to economic empowerment programs
  • Increased capacity Afghan CSOs to develop joint accountability mechanisms to monitor their and the Afghan Government's policies and programs on women and girls' rights and empowerment
  • Increased capacity of the Afghan Women Network to grow its membership and share knowledge on women and girls' rights and empowerment
  • Increased ability of the Afghan CSOs to promote and advocate for the participation of women and girls in decision-making processes
  1. Amplify Change Project Baseline Objectives;

This study is designed to establish a baseline for measuring progress throughout the life of the Amplify Change project. The objectives of the study are as follows:

-To create a baseline for measuring the outcomes of the project

-Provide recommendations towards program implementation backed by evidence based research

-To collect evidence towards testing the assumptions under the project theory of change

More specifically, the study will:

-Measure attitude, norm and behavior change regarding women’s rights and entitlements

-Evaluate public policy implementation that support and protect the rights of women and girls to live free from violence

-Assess the quality of existing support service providers to support women and girls who experienced violence

-Assess existing public and non-public accountability and transparency systems in place to monitor and address violence against women and girls

-Mapping of existing Afghan CSOs and WROs working on women’s rights and ending violence against women and girls

These are linked to the expected results (immediate and intermediate outcomes) and indicators of the project.

  1. Methodologies/ approaches;

The study will collect data from a representative sample with a specific time frame to provide us with a comprehensive snapshot of conditions before starting to implement the project. This baseline will be used to set targets for measuring performance of the program immediate and intermediate outcomes for the next five years. A mixed methods approach will be employed to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. The quantitative data collection will be undertaken using surveys and the qualitative data collection will involve literature review (desk review), key informant interviews (KII), and focus group discussion (FGD). The study will follow and implement Oxfam Canada’s Ethical and Safety Guidelines for Conducting Research on Gender Based Violence (Please see the VAWG/GBV Knowledge Hub space on COMPASS for the guiding document for primary data collection. More specific guidelines on the role of the external consultant will be shared by the Oxfam Canada. Oxfam Canada will also provide the Ethical and Safety Guidelines for Conducting Research with Adolescent and Children on Violence against Women and Girls – this needs to be implemented for the primary data collection with adolescents.

  1. Desk review

Desk review or secondary literature review may need to be supplemented by interviews with key stakeholders:

•Current mechanisms/policies in place by government or other intermediaries to support women and protect the rights of women and girls

•Current initiatives in place by government that promote women’s right especially their right to live free from violence

•Policy review of existing policies/framework in place that support women’s rights especially their right to live free from violence

•Local CSOs, especially women organizationscurrently implementing programs on women’s right, women’s economic empowerment and directly supporting women and girls who have experienced violence

  1. Primary Data Collection

Amplify Change will be implemented in 3 provinces in Afghanistan: Balkh, Herat and Nangarhar. Due to the unique nature of the demography across the threeprovinces, primary data collection will be conducted in all three provinces. The primary data collection will use both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Primary data will be collected using a number of different approaches:

Type of Data Collection / Target Population
Key Informant Interviews (KII – semi structured) / Traditional leaders, Community leaders, Religious leaders, Political leaders, Law enforcement officials, Media professionals
Educators
Focus Group Discussion (FGD) / Male youth, Female youth, Male adolescents, Female Adolescents, Lawyers and other support service providers
Surveys / Women, men, traditional leaders, community leaders, religious leaders, political leaders, law enforcement officials, media professionals
Personal stories / Women and girls who have experienced violence

Key informant interviews

These will be in-depth interviews with the key informants to collect information about their perspectives women’s rights, especially their rights to live free from violence and hold decision-making positions. Information will also be collected about their level of knowledge about existing policies/legislations in place and their level of implementation. Key guiding questions will be used to collect the information from the informants.

Table 2: List of key informant interviews to be undertaken

Type of Informant / Nangarhar / Balkh / Herat
Traditional leaders / 1 / 1 / 1
Community leaders / 1 / 1 / 1
Religious leaders / 1 / 1 / 1
Political leaders / 1 / 1 / 1
Law enforcement officials / 1 / 1 / 1
Media professionals / 1 / 1 / 1
Educators / 1 / 1 / 1
Lawyers / 1 / 1 / 1
Total / 8 / 8 / 8

Focus group discussions

These will be a geographically diverse (at village level) group on influencers, women and men assembled to participate on a guided discussion on women’s participation in democratic decision making processes. The goal of the FGDs will be to collect information on their level of awareness on women’s rights (especially their right to live free from violence) and their perspectives on women’s right to hold decision-making positions. A minimum of 4-5 participants need to participate in each FGD.

Table 3: List of focus group discussions that need to be undertaken

Focus Group / Nangarhar / Balkh / Herat
Male youth (16-24 years) / 2 / 2 / 2
Female youth (16-24 years) / 2 / 2 / 2
Male adolescents (12 – 16 years) / 1 / 1 / 1
Female adolescents (12 – 16 years) / 1 / 1 / 1
Lawyers/legal aid support service providers / 2 / 2 / 2
Counselling/shelter support service providers / 2 / 2 / 2
Healthcare support service providers / 2 / 2 / 2
Representatives from organizations supporting women’s economic empowerment / 2 / 2 / 2
Total / 14 / 14 / 14

Survey

The objective of the survey is to collect demographic information as well as the following:

Demographic profile (age, education, identity, occupation, personal/household income, household size)

Knowledge on public policies promoting and protecting the rights of women, especially the right to live free from violence

Perspectives on:

  • Motivation and capacity to promote/advocate for women’s rights
  • Social norms surrounding violence against women and girls

Sampling: A multi-stage stratified sampling with the parameters of 90% confidence interval, 5.78% margin of error and 50% response distribution was used to arrive at a total sample of 330 households (this includes a 15% non-response rate) to be surveyed. For the household surveys, the following parameters need to be ensured:

-Men and women from the same household or neighboring household cannot be surveyed

-Only men and women above the age of 18 can be surveyed

-Women must only be surveyed by female enumerators

In order to ensure geographic diversity, for each district, men and women should be surveyed from a minimum of three (3) different villages.

Table 4a: Survey sample for men and women

Province / District / Total number of villages/cities / Total number of households / Stratified Sample / Sample Male / Sample Female
Nangarhar / Jalalabad / 8 / 5267 / 74 / 38 / 36
Bishud / 6 / 839 / 12 / 6 / 6
Surkhrud / 6 / 1631 / 23 / 12 / 11
Sub-totals / 7737 / 109 / 56 / 53
Balkh / Balkh / 5 / 2190 / 33 / 17 / 16
Dehdadi / 6 / 3630 / 54 / 24 / 30
Khulum / 6 / 1470 / 22 / 11 / 11
Sub-totals / 7290 / 109 / 52 / 57
Herat / Guzara / 7 / 299744 / 92 / 47 / 45
Karukh / 7 / 13059 / 4 / 2 / 2
Injil / 6 / 49964 / 15 / 8 / 8
Sub-totals / 362767 / 112 / 57 / 55
Grand-total / 377794 / 330 / 165 / 165

In addition to men and women, some influencers will also need to be surveyed. In order to ensure geographic diversity, only one type of influencer should be interviewed in each district. For example, a total of 6 traditional leaders need to be surveyed from Nangarhar – 2 from each district.

Table 4b: Survey sample for influencers

Type of influencer / Nangarhar / Balkh / Herat
Traditional leaders / 6 / 6 / 6
Community leaders / 6 / 6 / 6
Religious leaders / 6 / 6 / 6
Political leaders / 2 / 2 / 2
Law enforcement officials / 6 / 6 / 6
Media Professionals / 6 / 6 / 6
Educators / 6 / 6 / 6
Total / 38 / 38 / 38

Questionnaire: The study will be employing one overall questionnaire for both men and women and influencers. However, skip patterns will be present to ensure only relevant data is collected from relevant respondents.

Data Collection: The data for the survey will be collected using smart phones or tablets (will be given by Oxfam). The data collector will be able to access the survey from a pre-installed application on the device. The questionnaire will be in local language. The digital platform allows data entered into the questionnaire to be directly saved in the database, thereby eliminating data entry and alleviating the overall data quality. It also allows real time tracking of the collected data remotely. Measures will be taken to address any misuse of the devices.

Personal Stories

Personal stories are first person personal narratives collected from women and girls who have experienced violence and have also sought support. The objective of this exercise is 3 fold: to understand first-hand the type of violence experienced by these women and girls; what motivated them to seek support and; their satisfaction with the support service providers (and how they could have been better supported). From each province, 3 women (above the age of 24) and 3 female youth (between the ages of 14-24) need to be interviewed. For female youth, those who participated in focus group discussions could be selected for personal story collection.

  1. Data Analysis, Validation and Reporting

All data collected through qualitative approaches will be analyzed by the consultant and summary of original field notes (translated to English) for KII and FGD will also be retained and provided as a separate Annex document with findings presented for each district separately. The quantitative dataanalysis will also be undertaken by the consultant in collaboration with Oxfam. The draft report will be shared for feedback and validation with key project stakeholders. The final report is due within 7 business days from the time the official feedback has been provided on the draft report

  1. Support by Oxfam and Partners;

Oxfam:

  • Support in coordination with Partners at the field level for data collection
  • Develop Data Collection Tools (English)
  • Provide an orientation on the application how to do data collection through mobiles
  • Provide mobiles for data collections
  • Quality check of the whole process

Partners:

  • Field support for data collections
  • Provide facility for KII interviews with stakeholders
  • Facilitate and support the team during data collection process
  1. Assignment keys deliverables/outputs;
  • Translation of Baseline tools in Dari and Pashtu
  • Data collection based on methodologies,
  • Develop a draft findings for PIP (Project Implementation Plan)
  • Developing project baseline survey final report,
  • Provide presentation to Oxfam programme teams and partners’ organization programme staff regarding baseline survey findings.
  1. Timeline:

KEY TASK / DATE
3) Complete field test/translation / August 4/2017
4) Complete data collection / August 15/2017
4) Share draft findings for PIP / August 20/2017
5) Share draft report of PIP / September 3/2017
6) Final report / September 15/2017
  1. Individuals and Consultancies’ experience;
  • Five year demonstrated experience in women and youth project evaluation/review or similar assignments and tasks.
  • More than 10 year work experience with INGOs and INGs include government ministries and departments.
  • Excellent facilitation skills ensuring participation and involvement.
  • Sound understanding of Afghanistan gender strategies and policies, particularly on advocacy
  • Excellent comprehension of issues and challenges of power, governance, gender, and their relation to conflict in Afghanistan
  • Ability to meet deadlines with satisfactory outputs.
  1. Budget;the interested consultancies and organizations / Individuals are highly encourage to coming up with a fair and realistic budget and proposal. Maximum available budget for this assignment is around USD 15,000 which includes all the expenses (transportation, surveyor salaries, accommodation…etc)
  2. How to apply: The interested consultancies, organizations and individuals can send their documents to;

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Closing date for application:

Note; Oxfam is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to diversity and gender equity.