November 8th, 2021 at 12:22 pm
BACKGROUND
Women face many complex barriers to their economic empowerment, such as prohibitive social norms, restricted access to productive resources, patriarchal structures, the traditional division of labour at the household level and lack of education.
In the WEACT project, Oxfam alongside its civil society, governmental and corporate partners takes a systemic approach to tackle the barriers women face when they are seeking to increase the agency and leadership to be economically empowered.
The Project adopts multiple entry points – individual, collective, formal and informal to address these barriers.
This is the heart of the systemic approach which will involve different -stakeholders (women’s rights organizations, governments, private sector, civil society, primary change agents, etc.) leading to sustainable transformations and shift in attitudes and behaviours across the agricultural sector to promote Women Economic Empowerment (WEE).
Oxfam plays a facilitating, supporting and convening role to ensure the success of this initiative.
The Project brings together seven key partners: SEND Ghana, Friends of the Nation (FoN), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), TungTeiya Women’s Association, Shea Network, NORSAAC and Viamo.
These partners share responsibility for the implementation of the project in their operating districts across six selected regions.
PROJECT RESULTS
Over the next 5 years, Oxfam aims to contribute to enhancing economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive economic growth for women, in the shea and cocoa chains across 9 districts in the Upper West, Upper East, Northern, Savanna Western North and Western Regions in Ghana.
The project is seeking to address the systemic barriers to women’s economic empowerment and give women a voice.
Approximately 5400 women and girls will benefit directly from the project with 3510 men and boys as direct beneficiaries.
4 MAIN project PILLARS:
1. Improve the ability of women to individually and collectively overcome legal and social barriers to their participation in agriculture and economic activities. Through increased access to information about their legal rights via a Legal Literacy Volunteer Model, women will be empowered to claim their rights and report abuses hampering them from participating fully economically.
2. Improve the capacity for household members (women, men, boys and girls) to recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid work freeing time for women to actively participate in economic activities. Women, men, boys and girls will better understand the importance of addressing the heavy and unequal paid and unpaid workloads of women and girls, so that women and girls have more choices about their time and participation in economic, political and social activities. This will be done through the implementation of a gender model family (GMF) approach.
3. Increase access to economic opportunities by implementing a gender-responsive skills development programme focused on transformative leadership, business acumen and negotiation skills; as well as providing technical and financial assistance for women to develop alternative livelihoods. Women will be empowered individually to increase their productivity and revenue through innovative new models.
4. Enhance equal access to productive resources for women by using a multi-stakeholder social lab approach. The project will establish a social lab with diverse actors coming together to identify the cross-sector challenges to WEE, implement multiple and collaborative interventions across the shea and cocoa value chains, learn how change happens to address systemic barriers to WEE and potentially scale-up interventions based on the findings of the initiative.
KEY STAKEHOLDERS
The Women in Agriculture Directorate at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Gender at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social protection. Other key stakeholders are the private sector actors (Mars, Mondelez, The Body Shop, Cargill, Nestle, etc.) who will work together to contribute to strengthening WEE, ensuring awareness-raising, and positive changes in attitudes, capacities and policies related to WEE.
Ultimately, Oxfam believes that a systemic approach to WEE is central to provide changes in scale and requires the expertise, influence, reach and resources of the different partners to be successful.
It also believes that for WEE to be sustainable, and for all women to benefit, parallel progress must be made on women’s social and political empowerment.
This will lead to women’s economic empowerment, which is about more than material resources, it is fundamentally about a woman’s ability to enjoy all other human rights.
OJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF THE CONSULTANCY
SEND GHANA through the WeACT project seeks the expertise of a consultant to conduct a baseline survey of power dynamics among couple using storytelling, interviews (e.g. time diary, mapping of roles and responsibilities) and to identify needs for technology, labour constraints and existing technical solutions.
The survey hopes to provide a bases for the project’s second key intervention in the area of locally driven technical solutions by women for them to save time, labor and energy in order to realise the immediate outcome of improving capacities for household members (women, men, boys and girls) to recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid work, freeing time for women to actively participate in economic activities.
Specifically, the project seeks through this assignment to:
- Collect baseline information on the power dynamics among GMF couples.
- Understand when women’s labor peaks occur, what type of labor-saving technologies they need, and how these can contribute to reducing work burden.
- Identify technologies adapted for women and for women-specific priorities.
- Determine how these technologies can be introduced and what measures and support are needed for their adoption.
The main services to be undertaken by the consultant include, but not limited to the following:
1. Produce a detailed inception report
Not later than a week after contract signing, the consultant will be expected to embark on an inception mission and produce an inception report detailing:
- Background/introduction
- Proposed methodology detailing the study area, type and number of respondents.
- A list of potential stakeholders to be consulted and interviewed and an analysis plan.
- A detailed work/implementation plan
- Other key issues identified so far and relevant to the study, and relevant attachments: maps, data etc.
- An annotated outline of the final report
2. Undertake a comprehensive review and analysis of the power dynamics that exist among couple and identify needs for technology, labour constraints and existing technical solutions.
The consultant is expected to undertake a desk review of the emerging power dynamics among couples practicing gender transformative approaches and also identify women needs for technology, their labour constraints and existing technical solutions. Documents among which to review include the reviewed Gender Model Family (GMF) manual and the Gender audit/analysis of WEACT project communities report. This should be complemented with primary evidence based on a well-represented sample. Guided by interview guides prepared by the consultant and approved by SEND Ghana, the consultant will be expected to use both qualitative and quantitative data collection methodologies including interviews and focus group discussions, to collect data from GMF couples.
3. Develop a draft and final report
The consultant will prepare a draft report based on a detailed desk research and the outcome of the fieldwork. After a few iterative processes based on review of the draft report by the WeACT project partners, the consultant would be expected to submit a final report. The report is expected to cover, but not limited to, the following areas:
- The power dynamics among couples who are practicing the gender model family approach.
- The labor constrains of women and the technical solutions they need to address them.
- The type of labor-saving technologies that are available and how they work to reduce women’s labor burden.
- Determinants of women technology acceptance and adoption.
- The technologies engineered or driven by women themselves and how they have been adapted for women use and for women-specific priorities.
Deliverables and Output
The deliverable schedule for services to be provided under this engagement is as follows:
How To Apply
Contract Duration
The anticipated duration of the contract is thirty (30) days, starting 22nd November to 22nd December, 2021.
During this period, the consultant is expected to deliver on the key outputs detailed above.
Expression of interest documents should be sent via e-mail to career@sendwestafrica.org and copy mumuni@sendwestafrica.org
Application Closing Date: By 17th November, 2021 before 5: 00 PM