Consultancy to Conduct Safety Audits - Samburu at International Rescue Committee

 Project Objectives

The overall objective of this assignment is to conduct safety audits in Isiolo, Turkana, Kajiado, Garissa and Samburu counties. The specific objectives of the consultancy are:

• Objective 1: To gather information from various groups of girls and women about their main safety concerns in the community, the places where they feel safe and unsafe, the threats that contribute to these feelings, and the best ways to increase their protection and safety.
• Objective 2: Assess the specific needs of women and girls in relation to their exposure to GBV risks. Determine the types of gender-based violence (GBV) that are occurring, the needs of the community in relation to GBV, any gaps in meeting these needs, and factors affecting girls' and women's risks of and resilience to GBV.
• Objective 3: Ascertain the presence of GBV prevention and response measures at the county level, as well as the views and awareness of GBV among healthcare workers and the community.
• Objective 4: To recommend an action plan with short-, medium- and long-term changes and recommendations to improve women’s safety in public spaces.

Scope of Work

In liaison with the Women Protection and Empowerment (WPE) Program Team, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) team, guidance from UNFPA and input from partners, the consultant will be required to:

• Undertake a desk review related to County safety audits and gender-based violence situation in Turkana, Isiolo, Garissa, Kajiado and Samburu.
• Conduct consultations with relevant stakeholders and use the recommendations to enrich the safety audits.
• Collect qualitative and quantitative data from women and girls to assess their safety and security concerns, safe access to services and other concerns that put them at risk of GBV in the four counties. 
• Develop, in consultation with IRC, a detailed data management plan, including Developing /adoption of tools; recruitment and training of research assistants; pre-testing and review of tools; sampling methodology; implementation of data collection in the field; quality assurance; ethical considerations; qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and reporting.
• Lead data collection in the counties including designing and leading key informant interviews and focus group discussions.
• Analyze data in a rigorous, robust manner using appropriate statistical and qualitative analysis techniques.
• Conduct a validation exercise with stakeholders, including IRC.
• Submit the approved safety audits reports per County to IRC.
• Using a feminist approach, the safety audit assessment will gather information on the various needs, abilities, and coping mechanisms of men, women, boys, and girls. The following primary areas of inquiry will be the focus of data collection, with the consultant expected to develop data collection tools that capture sufficient information.
• Deliverables / Outputs
• An inception report defining the audit study approach, methodology including the sampling criteria, and tools used for both qualitative and quantitative data collection. The sampling plan should be inclusive of all demographic groups and take gender equality into account.
• A thorough and well-structured safety audit report not longer than 25 pages per County.
• Supplementary files, including photographs, original and cleaned datasets, and statistical output files.
• Presentations using PowerPoint and a fact sheet, abstract, or both will be utilized to share results with stakeholders.
• Present the report to relevant parties, such as the protection, GBV and SRH working groups, who will be asked to validate the findings and contribute.
• An executive copy with a summarized summary of findings in words of no longer than 15 pages, and in power point presentation.

Date and Duration of Consultancy

The consultancy period shall be for 15 days per County. The Executive reports and county specific audit reports must be submitted to IRC within 10 days after validation exercise.

Qualifications

The ideal consultant should have: -

• A post-graduate degree in Gender and Development, social sciences or another relevant field.
• Over 5 years of experience conducting gender studies with evidence of publications or field reports on gender and gender- based violence issues with experience in women and adolescents programming.
• The consultant must be able to demonstrate experience in conducting safety audits of a similar or related assignment.
• Experience in working collaboratively with government and other development partners. 
• Experience working with marginalized and special groups.
• Ability to communicate in English and Kiswahili and in local languages in Turkana, Isiolo, Samburu, Kajiado or Garissa is an added advantage.

The successful candidate will be required to:

• Follow protection guidelines when engaging with all participants in the safety audit process.
• Adhere to organization policy of different partners that will be involved in the safety audit assessment.
• Adhere to human rights, Protection Principles, socio-ecological, systems strengthening and MHPSS approaches.
• Be guided by the spirit of collaboration, cooperation, partnerships, balance of power, meaningful engagement of marginalized voices and women, girls, young people, vulnerable, persons living with disability among others.