TERMS OF REFERENCE
Gender, food and nutrition security, and agriculture market systems policy analysis in Ethiopia
Background
CARE’s flagship Pathways to Secure Livelihoods Program (Pathways) aims to empower poor women smallholder farmers to overcome the gender-based constraints that hinder women’s productive and equitable engagement in agriculture. The program strives to achieve three inter-related objectives: 1) Increase the productive engagement of 50,297 poor women in sustainable agriculture and contribute to their empowerment; 2) Enhance the scale of high-quality, women-responsive agriculture programming at CARE; and 3) Contribute to the global discourse that surrounds women and agriculture. The Pathways Theory of Change was designed to respond to the underlying causes of low productivity, poverty, and women’s disempowerment in the agriculture sector. This research defined five key “change levers” that together could catalyze lasting change toward empowerment, equity, and food security. These change levers are as follows: 1) Women’s capacity (skills, knowledge, self-confidence); 2) Access to productive assets and resources (including inputs, markets, and financial tools); 3) Increased productivity (including profitability and nutrition outcomes; 4) Increased influence over household decisions and assets, and 5) Improved enabling environments, which encompass cultural and social norms and attitudes, markets and extension systems and gender-sensitive policies.
The Pathways “push-pull” operational framework outlines a coordinated effort to a) enhance women’s individual and collective agency (“push interventions”) and b) engage other direct stakeholders in the structural changes required for sustainable change and equitable agriculture systems (“pull interventions”).
This assignment seeks to contribute to the adoption, scaling up and uptake of the Pathways model by generating decision-making evidence on key agriculture, nutrition, land, and gender policies that Pathways and its partners can influence in a Phase 2, in order to institutionalize FFBS and take to scale other critical pieces of the Pathways model. Pathways phase I was implemented in six countries; Malawi, Mali, Ghana, Tanzania, India and Bangladesh from 2012-2016 followed by a bridge period (April, 2016 – March, 2018) where Pathways implementation in Ethiopia is initiated. National policy analyses in 4 countries –Malawi, Ghana, Mali and Ethiopia will be undertaken with government, private-sector, and social movement consultations. A consolidation of these will be undertaken linking them to Pan-African regional & sub-regional as well as global policy
Gender in Agriculture: Women play a critical role in food production and the policy analysis should analyze the regional and national policies and agreements and how they affect agricultural investments especially on needs of women small-scale farmers
o CCR: Governments increase scale-out of climate resilient agricultural practices and approaches that particularly target small-scale women farmers
o Nutrition: Nutrition-sensitive and specific interventions are integrated into African and sub-regional agricultural policy development and implementation processes.
o Governance: sub-regional Agriculture and Global mandates, frameworks and systems are implemented in a transparent and accountable manner involving particularly small scale women farmers.
The policy review and analysis aims at influencing the development and implementation of policies that focus on and prioritize the needs of women small scale farmers. It is critically important to empower small-scale women farmers to participate in the development and implementation of agriculture and agriculture-related policies.
This ToR defines objectives, activities and other terms for undertaking a first set of policy analysis for Ethiopia.
Objectives
The overall objective of the assignment is to determine the Gender and FNS Policy status in Ethiopia to support implementation of Pathways Phase 2.
The specific objective of the assignment is to analyze the existing Gender and FNS policies, relevant to the small-scale farmers, in Ethiopia and key opportunities (or areas of need) for policy change.
There are also other broad objectives that the assignment will indirectly contribute to, including,
o To prepare the ground for the subsequent elaboration of a policy engagement strategies in the targeted countries[1].
o To help CARE global advocacy prioritization processes, by helping to identify which Gender and FNS multilateral processes and global frameworks are more relevant in country level policy making.
o To help establishing a FNS policies’ assessment methodology, that CARE may eventually replicate when designing advocacy frameworks in the context of the elaboration of impact growth strategies in other regions of the world.
o To inform current programming – (e.g. Pathways) and suitable and effective entry-points for achieving systemic change through advocacy and influencing in the respective gender and agriculture sectors.
Scope of work
The consultant will analyze, the existing public policies, (including key legislation, sector strategies, national nutrition plans, national agriculture investment plans and action plans, budget allocations and other public policy measures) in the Gender, FNS and CCR spheres, and will provide an informed opinion on gaps in these policies and how these policies are implemented, with a specific focus on,
o The transparency, accountability and involvement of small-scale farmers, particularly women, in the national food and nutrition security, gender, and agriculture and market systems policies
o The integration of climate change resilient practices targeting small scale women farmers[2]
o The integration of nutrition-sensitive and nutrition specific interventions
o Gender policies and gender policy-making processes – including Continental, regional, and national policies and frameworks in particular the following:
o African Charter on Human and People’s rights on the Rights of Women (2004) which deals with the elimination of discrimination, affirmative action to increase the equality of women, elimination of harmful practices, protection of women in armed conflicts, right to positive cultural context, rights of widows, right to family planning, reproductive rights, inheritance rights of women and special protection to elderly women and those in distress among others.
o The SADC Declaration on Gender and Development (1997) and its addendum on the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against Women and Children (1998),
o The 2008 SADC Protocol on Gender and Development.
o Land rights and inheritance policies
o Unpaid care policies, GBV policies and strategies
o National Gender/Women Policy Frameworks policies for political participation of women, recourse to natural resources.
o Review of gender machinery/structures and capacity to implement pro-women laws and strategies. (Gender budgeting)
As part of the assignment, the consultant will identify possible gaps in the existing policies, as well as successful experiences in pro-small-scale farmers’ and/or women’s-empowerment policy measures.
The consultant will also take stock of the experience by CARE county office in Ethiopia on FNS and CCR advocacy, gender and Agriculture, leveraging any ongoing analysis as part of projects.
Particular attention will be given in the Analysis on how the global (e.g. CFS, UNFCCC, ICN2, SUN, Voluntary Guidelines on Governance of Tenure), Pan-African (Maputo Deliration, Malabo Declaration, NEPAP, CAADP) and regional (SADC, COMESA) commitments in FSN and CCR, gender, and agriculture are reflected in the national policies and the extent to which these global frameworks influence or are relied on by national governments or civil society to shape policy.
Methodology and main activities
The analysis will be of qualitative nature and quantitative, to the extent it is available, needed and accessible.
For comparative purposes, references to relevant policies in other African countries may be taken into consideration as part of the analysis.
The assignment will include (but will not necessarily be restricted to) the activities listed below,
1. Desk review of available literature relevant to the assignment
2. Regular feed-back e-meetings with Pathways Core team lead and Policy lead, and the country office contact point (every two weeks)
3. Elaboration of the first draft
4. Presentation of the first draft to CARE relevant parties, also in the targeted countries if required (i.e. meeting with CARE partners and other selected stakeholders from the targeted countries, to be proposed by CARE country offices)
5. Integration of the inputs rom the partners in the draft and production of the final draft
6. Sharing of the final draft with Pathways Core team and Program managers
7. Incorporation of feedback to the final draft, and elaboration of the final version of the assignment outcomes, i.e. country report of 20 pages & Power Point Presentation (see below)
8. Presentation to Pathways core team and Program Managers
Organizational arrangements
The assignment will be conducted under the supervision and in close coordination with the the Pathways Team, which will be kept regularly informed on the mission development.
The Pathways Program Manager will inform about the mission aims and objectives to the country office, seeking for support to the mission and nominating contact points.
The contact points will suggest local stakeholders for further consultations and will provide their contact details. They will also facilitate relevant information (reports, studies, etc.) on CARE programs, CARE advocacy endeavors and other available materials relevant to the mission including policy analysis form third sources they may be aware of.
The implementation of this assignment will be overseen by the Pathways Ethiopia team as well as the Pathways global Team Leader.
The draft reports will be submitted for its final reviewing to:
o The Pathways Country Team
Deliverables
A report (max 20 pages) will be produced, as well as a Power Point Presentation summarizing the report.
The objective of the policy analyses is to provide specific, decision-making information to Pathways teams and country programs to help identify the most viable policy levers and institutional partnerships that Pathways can influence or work with to institutionalize and take to scale the FFBS approach and to create an enabling policy environment for gender-transformative, pro-poor agriculture and market systems (SuPER) that foster inclusive growth while explicitly promoting gender equality.
The reports will broadly follow this structure,
1. Executive summary
2. Context and background: Gender, agriculture and market systems, and FNS in national development strategies
· Brief political context (politics, stability, conflict…)
· Gender context (profile, statistics, characteristics, problems, involvement in agriculture)
· Macroeconomic context: Trends in overall development policies and role of agriculture in growth and development policies
· Trends in the attention to smallholder agriculture within agriculture policies
· Overall trends in focus on gender as part of development strategies and within agriculture policies
· Review of regional and pan-African treaties and agreements and extent of involvement with them (gender, agric., climate change, nutrition, trade)
· Institutional setup at national level (institutional mandates on gender equality, smallholder agriculture, nutrition across various institutions)
· Extent of coordination across Ministries for gender, agriculture, nutrition, and climate change
2. Overview of agriculture, and extension market systems, policies
· Small-scale farmers’ context (profile, gender composition statistics, characteristics, problems)
· Extension services – delivery mechanisms, reach, coordination, gender composition, gender mandates and smallholder mandates
· Agriculture research systems—Gender composition, smallholder focus
· Gender- and smallholder-specific commitments
· Smallholder market systems and policies to support smallholder market integration and sustainable, resilient seed systems (smallholder access to resources and markets)
· Trade policies and subsidies pertinent to agriculture and effect on smallholders and cash/subsistence crops
· Land context (gender, fragmentation, land-grabbing, etc.)
3. Gender, smallholders, and CCR policies
· Environmental and climatic context (disasters, climate change effects…) and gender-specific challenges
· Description of the CCR policies and mechanisms for implementation
· To what extent gender is explicit in the policies
· To what extent they address smallholder agriculture
· To what extent Market resilience is addressed
· Investments and financial implications
· Difficulties and challenges encounter during implementation
· Main results achieved
4. Small-scale farmers and food and nutrition security policies
· Main food and nutrition security indicators of the country
· Overview of national and regional policy commitments on nutrition (nutrition-specific)
· Description of the nutrition policies within agriculture and gender Ministries (nutrition-sensitive and nutrition specific)
· Mechanisms and funding for delivering nutrition
· Gender commitments (and engagement of men) in nutrition-specific policies
· Difficulties and challenges encounter during implementation
· Coordination mechanism with other Ministries (agriculture, health)
5. Gender machinery, gender-mainstreaming, and Social movements.
· What is the structure and influence of the gender machinery, at national and sub-national levels?
· What are the mechanisms for mainstreaming gender; to what extent are gender commitments explicitly in the relevant Agriculture, Nutrition/Health, climate change institutions? What are the gaps?
· Funding mechanisms and coordination mechanisms
· Description of the main social movements for gender equality (women’s movements, Men-engage movements) and their advocacy objectives; extent of coordination between social movements; to what extent they focus on agriculture, food and nutrition security as advocacy objectives
6. Gender and inclusion in the policy making processes
· Gender composition of leadership at national, subnational and local levels; quotas and policies in support of women in leadership;
· Structural and informal barriers to women’s leadership in government
· Representation of smallholders and pro-poor commitments in respective policies
· Gender composition and budgetary commitments and expenditure for gender and smallholder farmers in respective Ministries[3] (agriculture, nutrition, climate change, gender) and agriculture research
· Transparency and accountability
· Gender and policymaking process[4]
· Role of development partners (policy dialogue, donors’ support)
· Policy monitoring and evaluation mechanisms
7. Conclusions and recommendations for the country policy engagement strategy
ü What are the existing policies (within different Ministries and institutions) that already favour holistic, gender-equitable agriculture systems?
ü What are the gaps?
ü What are the most promising opportunities for uptake/institutionalization of the FFBS and Pathways-type model?
ü What are the opportunities to improve policy outcomes or implementation through better coordination among stakeholders?
ü What are specific policy adjustments and changes that Pathways could advocate for that would have the greatest impact on smallholder female farmers?
ü What are the roles for potential new players within Pathways (social movements, etc.)?
ü What are the obvious capacity building needs (gender, integrated approaches, etc.) that Pathways 2 could help to support with a Phase 2?
Timetable
CARE expects the report no later than 20working days upon signing the contract for the assigning.
Let Employers Find You
Upload/Update Your CVFeatured Jobs