Terms of Reference
Background
CRS Ethiopia developed its first five-year Gender Strategy (2015-2019) with a two-year action plan (2015-2017) in 2014; based on the recommendation of the participatory gender audit undertaken by the country program (CP) in 2014 and guided by CRS’ Global Gender Strategy. The purpose of developing the strategy was to guide CRS Ethiopia in implementing a twin-track gender integration approach in all areas of work. The first track is directed inwards at strengthening leadership, staff and building partner capacity and commitment, and promoting gender responsiveness in organizational and programming systems and culture whereas the second track looks outward at improving gender responsiveness, gender equality, and women’s empowerment in CRS programming. In order to articulate the necessary steps to achieving this objective, the strategy sets 4 strategic objectives (SOs) with a total of 14 intermediate results (IRs): (1) CRS/ET’s leadership and staff promote gender responsiveness in the workplace, (2) CRS/ET’s staffing, organizational culture and systems are gender responsive, (3) CRS/ET designs and implements high quality gender responsive programing, and, (4) CRS/ET and partners are gender responsive learning organizations.
CRS Gender Working Group (GWG) exerted relentless effort and has been fully engaged in implementing the strategy and action plan so far, in order to realize these SOs and IRs. In line with this, CRS has been carrying out staff capacity building of sectors and its partners to ensure high quality gender responsive programing; creating spaces and organizing gender events for staff to freely discuss about and raise awareness on gender issues; strengthening its collaboration with gender networks to ensure gender learning; among others. All CRS Ethiopia sectors/ programs integrated the gender action plan into their annual program implementation plans, developed their own sector specific gender action plans for 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 and have been implementing them till date using checklists/guides. The progress in implementing the first two-year strategic plan so far has been encouraging. Major lessons have also been learnt that form the basis for the development of the next phase action plan.
Due to the completion of the first two-year gender action plan (2015 and 2016) implementation period and as depicted in the current CP gender strategy, it is time to develop a new action plan for the period June 2017 through September 2019. As indicated in the current strategy, the focus of the first two years’ strategy implementation period is directed towards internal affairs: increasing staff gender parity and improving internal culture, capacity and systems effectively design more gender responsive programs with proven good practices and gender impact. However, the focus of the strategy for the following two and half years will be on increasing investments in gender-specific and gender mainstreamed programs and projects. In view of that, it is necessary to review the progress of strategy implementation to date and develop the next phase action plan which is directed towards achieving the above stated objective; incorporating lessons learnt, emerging opportunities and gaps.
Objectives
The overall objective of reviewing the CP gender strategy and action plan is to review or assess the implementation status of the CP gender strategy/action plan and develop an action plan for the coming 2 and half years by, incorporating lessons learnt, and considering the emerging opportunities and gaps.
The specific objectives are:
Scope of Work and Major tasks/ activities
The strategy review will be carried out by an external consultant with the full participation of CRS Ethiopia GWG in reviewing the strategy and developing the next phase action plan. As mentioned above, the review will focus on providing direction to achieving the strategy’s next three years’ objective: increased investments in gender-specific and gender mainstreamed programs and projects. The overall process will involve reviewing the implementation of current CP gender strategy and action plan (2015-2019). In the process, the current CP gender strategy and action plan, sector specific gender action plans, and reports on the implementation of the action plan among other key organizational documents will be reviewed. Review of progress made in implementing the current strategy and action plan will also be carried out. Key achievements and contributing factors, implementation strategies/ tools, implementation gaps, challenges faced and good practices during the implementation of the first phase of the action plan (2015-2017) will be identified and analyzed. The institutional and operational environment will be assessed in terms of achieving the overall strategic objectives. This includes identifying the major staff capacity gaps, technical, institutional and financial factors that may affect the implementation of the next phase action plan.
The review process will include the preparation of a summary report on the findings of the overall review process; highlighting areas that require attention and suggested measures to be taken for effective implementation of the strategy and next phase action plan. Revised CP strategy and action plan will be developed by taking in to consideration the lessons learnt from the strategy implementation to date and input from GWG. In addition, the next phase of the action plan (2017-2019) will be developed in a way that ensures full and effective implementation of the strategy.
Methodology
Deliverables
The outputs of the review will be:
Time Frame
The strategy review will be carried out over a period of 50 days starting from April 1st, 2017 to 3rd week of May, 2017, including preparation dates. Detailed activities to be carried out include the following, including preparatory activities:
Activities to be undertaken | Timeline | Number of days required | Responsibilities | Remark |
Produce and submit inception report to CRS including development of tools for the review process | April 1-2, 2017 | 2 days | Consultant |
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Address comments and submit revised inception report with review tools to CRS | April 6, 2017 | 1 day | Consultant |
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Conducting strategy review:
· document review · focus group discussions · interviews |
· April 10-13, 2017
· April 17-18, 2017
· April 19-20, 2017
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· 4 days
· 2 days
· 2 days | Consultant with CRS staff
| · 5 FGDs with program management staff, other program staff, operation management staff, other operation staff, senior managers each (2 FGDs per day)
· 10 interviews with 4 program and operation staff, 4 program and operation managers and 2 senior managers (5 interviews per day) |
April 24, 2017
| 1 day | 1 day for interview and FGDs in Adama FO (including travel date) | ||
Draft and submit summary report on the findings of the overall review process including recommendations for effective implementation of the gender strategy and next phase action plan (2017- 2019) to CRS | April 25-28, 2017 | 4 days | Consultant |
|
Incorporating feedback and submitting final report and action plan to CRS | May 8, 2017 | 1 day | Consultant |
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Conducting validation workshop on the findings of the review and recommendations for future improvement in strategy implementation to CRS staff and other stakeholders | May 12, 2017 | 1 day | Consultant |
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Revising and finalizing the summary report and drafting next phase action plan (2017- 2019), incorporating inputs from CRS | May 15, 2017 | 1 day | Consultant |
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Education:
Experience: