Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Comprehensive Analysis - Central Africa Region

Background

IRC is one of the world's leading humanitarian and post-conflict development agencies, working with communities in over 40 states. IRC's core mandate is to support and empower people who have been affected by conflict and disaster. IRC's portfolio consists of government, multilateral, and foundation funding that covers both short- and long-term humanitarian response through long-term development initiatives.

Comprehensive GEDI (CGEDI) Analysis

The IRC work in Central Africa (Tanzania, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the Central African Republic) addresses a very complex environment with many ongoing crises over the past several decades, resulting in the displacement of "more than 700,000 refugees and 4,000,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the six countries. IRC supports displaced people, those who can return home, as well as host communities and those who cannot, to flee the multiple conflicts that affect the region.

As a result of this unstable environment, there are massive displacements of people facing high levels of vulnerability and risk, particularly women, and children in the forefront, risks increased by patriarchy, structural inequalities, harmful social, cultural, and traditional norms and practices. In response to these disparities, IRC's Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) Action Plan aims to advance gender, equality, diversity and inclusion by focusing on (3) pillars: who we are, what we do and what we say.

The IRC aims to ensure that GEDI is integrated into program design and delivery, as well as to provide programs grounded in intersectional analysis, and to have external engagement focused on the needs of our clients, staff, and partners. To achieve this, we aim to ensure an evidence-based approach to our work. This GEDI analysis will provide an in-depth understanding of the different levels of marginalization among the clients we serve in the Great Lakes: specifically in DRC, Burundi, and Chad among internally displaced populations (IDPs) and refugees.

The full GEDI analysis will target health, education, and protection sectors and programs in the different contexts (urban/rural and camps) in DRC and Burundi, and Chad. The results of the CGEDI will be used to inform existing and future program activities; to enable IRC to design and implement programs that address the needs of the most marginalized groups based on gender, ethnicity, age, ability, and other categories to ensure sensitive and transformative program approaches.  

The CGEDI analysis will enable IRC country programs to fully understand the causes and context-specific factors that drive and perpetuate inequalities, their impacts on different social groups, and the social and cultural norms/practices that have enabled and/or constrained different social groups from enjoying their rights and full potential. Any such analysis conducted will provide first-hand information to enable the country team to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate gender-responsive and transformative programs.

We would like to ensure not only that interventions do not exacerbate pre-existing inequalities and reduce the harm, inequities, and risks of unintended consequences for women, girls, people living with disabilities (visible and non-visible) and other marginalized groups, including yet not limited to: ethnic/religious minorities, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV), transactional sex workers (TSW), and other vulnerable groups.

Recognizing the social and cultural norms that create inequalities will enable IRC programs to understand how specific activities targeting women, men, girls, boys, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups transform power relations.

Scope of Work:

1. Conduct a contextual analysis of key gender issues and gendered power dynamics across DRC, Burundi and Chad, as well as conduct a need assessment based upon these gendered imbalances.

2. Map the intersectional identities of the most marginalized IDPs and refugees, understand their unique challenges.

3. Explore the gendered needs of women, girls, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups, including ethnic/religious minorities, survivors of gender-based violence, and other vulnerable groups.

4. Identify and understand the social and cultural norms that fuel current inequalities.

5. Identify factors and facilitators that can contribute to increased power, access to and control over resources and decision-making for women, girls, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups, including ethnic/religious minorities, survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), OVC, PLHIV, SWs, PWDs and other vulnerable groups.

6. Gather information to better understand the impact of gender inequalities on what individuals do, how they relate, and how they interact with the systems around them.

7. Assess and determine if available interventions and strategies of the existing IRC are meeting the identified needs.

8. Better understand where the existing IRC program falls on the gender continuum (gender exploitative, gender neutral/blind, gender sensitive, gender transformative), and how our interventions might affect men, women, girls, people living with disabilities, and other marginalized groups, including ethnic/religious groups, minorities, survivors of gender-based violence (GBV), OVC, PLHIV, PWD, and other vulnerable groups.

9. Provide recommendations on how IRC program activities should adapt to improve accessibility, safety, and relevance for women, girls, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups, including ethnic/religious minorities, survivors of Gender Based Violence (GBV), OVC, PLHIV, PWD, PSH and other vulnerable groups.

10. Suggest concrete recommendations for future programs on how to design, plan, implement, and evaluate IRC programs to change the social and cultural norms that shape the inequities identified.

Methodology

IRC's programs in DRC, Chad, and Burundi aim to obtain a detailed understanding of gender gaps and inequalities and gender power dynamics within host and refugee communities and to review all relevant sector projects with the aim of designing and implementing gender-sensitive or transformative programs.

The tools will be designed to collect information using a mixed-method approach that include quantitative and qualitative approaches.

The desired consultant will use approaches that are inclusive of participatory (community-based) methods and appropriate for data collection and analysis. The CGEDI Analysis will comprise of the desk review, data collection, analysis & reporting.

Deliverables:

The consultant will be responsible deliver the following outputs:

1.       Summary report (initial summary to cover the consultant's understanding of the assignment, detailed work plan, contextualization of data collection tools (developed by IRC), analysis template, final report).

2.       Detailed Final Report

3.       Recommendations (to be attached to the report)

4.       Presentation on the outcome (PowerPoint format with raw data collected in the field)

5.       Final report (containing summary, findings and interpretation of findings, conclusions and recommendations).

6.       Conduct (3) virtual workshops (focused on each country) of the analysis to review the data and identify trends.

Role of the IRC:

During the CGEDI the IRC will be responsible for the following support to the consultant:

•  Ensuring quality assurance and monitoring progress throughout the life of the CGEDI Analysis
•  Providing input on the methodology (which includes data collection tools, research design in the inception phase, summary report, final report)
•  Providing information on programs and activities to support document review.
•  Organization support and participation in (3) reporting & analysis workshop(s)
•  Supporting data collection logistics

The consultant/consulting firm will be responsible for organizing the logistics for conducting interviews with IRC clients and not IRC field staff. The consultant/consultant will be autonomous (without IRC presence) during data collection to ensure data quality and viability.

Treatment of Information

All data and information received during this assignment shall be treated as confidential and shall be used only in the performance of these Terms of Reference. All intellectual property rights arising from the execution of these terms of reference are assigned to IRC. The contents of the documents obtained and used during this assignment may not be disclosed to third parties without the express prior written permission of IRC.