RFP – Gender Analysis and Strategy for Going Beyond – Partnering for a Youth-Led Future

Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) seeks a consultancy team to complete a gender analysis (GA) for Going Beyond – Partnering for a Youth-Led Future, a multi-country project operational in Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.

Organization – Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT), Ottawa, Canada

Assignment – Gender Analysis and Strategy

Project Name – Going Beyond – Partnering for a Youth-Led Future

Project Location – Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia

Assignment Timeline – September 5, 2023 – November 15, 2023

Assignment Budget – $45,000 USD

Deadline to Apply – Wednesday, August 30, 5:00 PM EDT

Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) is a Canadian-based not-for-profit organization headquartered in Ottawa, Canada and was established in 2002. DOT has locally managed offices in Africa, the Middle East; Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, and Lebanon and Jordan; Canada and the UK, and we operate in Ghana, Uganda, Malawi and Zambia through partner networks. DOT’s mission is to mobilize and inspire all underserved and disadvantaged young people with digital literacy, 21st-century skills and the self-confidence that will enable them to thrive in an inclusive digital economy.

Project Background

Going Beyond -Partnering for a Youth-led Future is a five year project, that places young people at the center of community development, unlocking their potential and tapping into their creativity, energy, and passion for making a difference. Using a peer-to-peer model and working exclusively through local youth-serving and youth-led organizations, the project will equip young women and men in Côte D’Ivoire, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia with the digital and business skills, confidence, and leadership skills, needed to create and sustain dignified and fulfilling work. The project has three pillars: 1) strengthening the capacity of youth-led and youth-serving organizations to deliver high-quality digital livelihoods programming; 2) training and supporting young people as digital business coaches and facilitators to deliver programs to their peers; and 3) training disadvantaged youth in nascent Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in digital and entrepreneurship skills.

The project will identify 40 youth-serving and youth-led organizations in the selected African countries and DOT’s Regional technical teams will strengthen their capacity to deliver youth-led, high-quality, gender-responsive, digital livelihoods programming at scale. These same organizations will recruit and train 4,000 under and unemployed university graduates to serve as Youth Leaders, who will participate in DOT’s 8-month Youth Leadership Program and gain ongoing career development support coaching. Finally, Youth Leaders will cascade locally appropriate and culturally relevant digital inclusion and enterprise growth programs to 300,000 peers with nascent MSMEs (70% young women) and provide ongoing coaching and supportive supervision, including linkages to ecosystems partners for Business Development Support, sectoral expertise, access to finance, and networking events.

The project’s goal and strategic outcomes are listed below. The full Theory of Change and KPIs will be shared at the start of the baseline study assignment.

Goal: Increased quality of life, resilience, agency and voice of African youth in four countries.

Strategic Outcomes:

1. Increased scale of a youth-led, peer-to-peer approach for youth economic empowerment programming
2. Enhanced agency and work opportunities for young women and men to participate in the socio-economic development of their communities
3. Improved enterprise performance and dignified and fulfilling work for youth

Scope of Work

The focus of this request for consultancy support is to complete deliverables for the completion of a Gender Analysis and Gender Strategy:

• Develop and finalize overarching research questions for the GA, and conceptual framework for understanding gender equality in the Going Beyond project;
• Develop robust qualitative data collection tools that will enable us to produce an analysis of the gender context within our 4 project contexts in which DOT will be operating (Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, and Cote d’Ivoire), including Key Informant Interview guides and FGD guides
• Work with (and train as necessary) young women researchers in all 4 project contexts to complete data collection, analysis, and reporting of gender analysis findings in one consolidated project gender analysis, and 4 country-specific reports.
• Complete one consolidated project-wide Gender Analysis and Strategy report, and 4 country-specific gender analysis reports, with any country specific recommendations for the strategy.

Qualifications

The consultancy should be an evaluation firm, composed of a diverse team that includes the following competencies:

Required Qualifications

• Excellent English language verbal communication and report writing skills (final deliverable will be in English, requiring strong English writing skills)
• Core team should include at least one team member with fluency in French in order to provide oversight to research activities in Côte d’Ivoire and ensure quality assurance.
• Significant experience and/or a presence in the project’s core countries of Côte d’Ivoire, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.
• Access to high quality and reliable youth research associates (especially young women) in the project countries of operation.
• Experience designing and leading complex gender analyses, particularly those focusing on or related to thematic areas of youth empowerment, agency and resilience, digital literacy/digital inclusion, and youth entrepreneurship/ livelihoods.
• Strong technical and analytical capabilities and demonstrated ability to collect, analyze and interpret qualitative data.
• Demonstrated ability to apply a feminist, gender-sensitive, intersectional, and youth-friendly approach.
• Demonstrated use of participatory approaches (especially to engage youth) in order to understand gender norms, and complex gender outcomes related to empowerment, resilience, and agency.
• Safeguarding policies and procedures and adherence to ethical M&E practices.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and sensitivity to cross-cultural collaboration.
• Experience with virtual data collection methods and virtual collaboration tools.
• Strong preference will be given to African based firms, particularly those with staff or existing consultants in the countries of operation.