CARE International

CARE International (CI) is among the world’s largest international non-governmental humanitarian relief and development confederations. Drawing on more than 75 years of experience, through its 21 Members, as both a practitioner and thought leader, CI’s work reaches over 100 countries worldwide to save lives, defeat poverty and achieve social justice. 

CARE’s vision is to seek a world of hope, inclusion, and social justice; where poverty has been overcome and people live in dignity and security. CARE focuses heavily on women and girls, and the areas of gender equality, diversity, and inclusion are at the center of our work because we know that we cannot overcome poverty and social injustice until all people have equal rights and opportunities. We recognize that power relations between people and within systems and structures are unequal and that these are entrenched in our broader systems, structures, and institutions.

At the core of the CI Confederation is a globally distributed Secretariat, which provides coordination and support to its Members in areas including governance, strategic planning, communications, membership development and accountability, advocacy, humanitarian response, and program development. In addition, the Secretariat represents the CI Confederation at the United Nations and the European Union, and with other external stakeholders.

Context in Ukraine

On 24th February 2022, the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine marked a significant escalation to the conflict that started in 2014. It continues to profoundly impact the lives of people across the country at various levels. The front line is continuously shifting and there are areas controlled by Russian forces as well as cities under siege. Aerial attacks on military installations and critical civilian infrastructures are conducted in the whole territory of Ukraine, often resulting in collateral civilian casualties. The conflict has caused the largest population movement in Europe since World War II, with 6.24 million displaced within Ukraine and 7.68 million refugees having fled to neighboring countries. By October 26 2022, OCHA had counted 17.7 million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

Amid the ongoing winter, which is anticipated to be the worst in decades, at least one-third of the country’s energy infrastructure is damaged, leaving millions without heating and access to water. In October, the Russian Federation claimed to have annexed four Ukrainian oblasts, further increasing the challenge of access to these areas. Therefore, in addition to preparing the population for the approaching winter, an ongoing priority for the international humanitarian response is to secure access to recently liberated and recaptured areas in the East and to provide aid to previously unreachable and particularly hard-hit areas of Ukraine.

CARE Ukraine

As a new actor in Ukraine since March 2022, CARE prioritizes a locally led response and is partnering primarily with Civil-Society Organizations (CSOs), National NGOs, local authorities, and when needed, INGOs with a longstanding presence in the country and access to hard-to-reach areas. CARE Ukraine deliberately and strategically prioritizes partnerships with local and national Women Led and Women Rights organizations (WLO’s/ WRO’s), further strengthening CARE’s Gender in Emergencies (GiE) principle and the Women Lead in Emergencies (WLiE) approach.

In the first few weeks after the escalation of the war, virtually all humanitarian aid inside Ukraine was organized and implemented by local actors. These groups (together with local authorities) remain the principal aid providers but are quickly being exhausted of funds, fuel, and psychological, emotional and physical energy. Thereby, a considerable proportion of CARE’s resources is dedicated to strengthening and supporting the capacities of local partners. 

As of November 2022, CARE Ukraine has established partnerships with twelve local/national organizations (incl. four WLOs/WROs) and five international NGOs. From the more than 28 million € that has been raised for Ukraine thus far, more than half is allocated to local/national partners. Through the activities that have been implemented so far, CARE Ukraine has been able to reach 550,030 people, including IDPs and affected populations in hard-to-reach areas. 

While CARE Ukraine’s office is currently located in Lviv, we are continuously working on strategically expanding CARE’s presence and reach with plans to open an office in Kyiv as well as field offices in Dnipro and Odessa, covering both the East and South of the country.

GENDER EQUALITY PROGRAMMING encompasses all strategies to achieve gender equality and strengthen gender-sensitive and gender-transformative approaches. Examples include gender mainstreaming, gender analysis, gender monitoring, prevention and response to Gender Based Violence (GBV), promotion and protection of human rights, empowerment of women and girls, and gender justice in the workplace.

Rational for RGA in Ukraine

Gender analysis is the systematic attempt to identify key issues contributing to gender inequalities, many of which also contribute to poor development outcomes. This process explores how gendered power relations give rise to discrimination, subordination, and exclusion in society, particularly when overlaid across other areas of marginalization due to class, ethnicity, caste, age, disability status, sexuality, etc. The gender analysis process seeks to collect, identify, examine, and analyze information on the different roles of people across genders. Gender analysis primarily seeks to understand these three questions: 

• What are gendered-related rights denials in a given context? How do unequal gender relations, gendered discrimination, subordination, and exclusion influence rights denials? How do these rights abuses intersect with other areas of discrimination – based on ethnicity, culture, class, age, disability, etc.?
• How will gender relations affect the achievement of sustainable results? For example, if the project’s sustainable result is increased productivity among female smallholder farmers, then gendered norms in household divisions of labor, and workloads may greatly influence production outcomes,
• How will proposed results affect the relative status of men and women? Will it exacerbate or reduce inequalities?

Since the escalation of the war in February 2022, CARE has conducted several RGAs in Ukraine and neighbouring countries. February 2023 will mark the one year since the escalation of the conflict. In light of this calendar event and in line with its new programmatic strategy, CARE Ukraine wants to produce a new RGA in current and potential areas of intervention.

Objectives of RGA

• Analyse the level, type and extent of changes that have occurred and are taking place at the household and community level in relation to gender and power differentials (structure, relations and agency). Unravel the reasons/factors behind those perceived changes, or lack thereof before and after the conflict, and changes in the past year. CARE is cognizant of unintended negative effects of promoting gender equity in household and communal decision-making roles. This analysis is expected to capture what type and level of female engagement and empowerment is possible without jeopardising their safety and security. Additionally, the analysis will capture decision-making functions, roles and examples that have positively contributed to female coping behaviours.
• Capture the methods, techniques and approaches that have worked in reaching and supporting marginalised women and men of different ages and people with disabilities in the areas of GBV, Protection, SRHR, WASH, Shelter, and Food Security & Livelihoods, as well as the cross-cutting areas of Women Lead in Emergencies and Cash.
• Understand the role of women-led organizations (WLOs), women’s rights organizations (WROs) and LGBTQI+ organizations in the humanitarian response, as well as how they can be best supported.
• Review the functionality of formal or informal support structures established for GBV survivors of any age.
• Develop a set of actionable recommendations short and medium-term, based on key findings. Recommendations should echo and emphasize the direct asks, requests, and demands from the women and marginalized groups affected by the crisis. Recommendations should be presented based on the targeted audience (humanitarian organisations) with sector specific recommendations included.

What will be included in the RGA?

• A comprehensive desk review drawing on secondary data, grey literature and published documents provided by CARE Ukraine, as well as collected by the report writer to obtain wider access to published and non-published documents. The desk review should serve to capture the recent or current status of females, young males and LGBTQI+ groups, in terms of agency, structure and relations in order to address the following questions:
• What are gendered-related rights denials in a given context?
• How do unequal gender relations, gendered discrimination, subordination, and exclusion influence rights denials?
• How do these rights abuses intersect with other areas of discrimination – based on ethnicity, culture, class, age, disability and so on?
• How will gender relations affect the achievement of sustainable results?
• How will proposed results affect the relative status of men and women? Will it exacerbate or reduce inequalities?
• An analysis of consultant-collected primary data to shed light on perceived changes in agency, structure and relations, capturing changes, if any, in cultural norms and practices, division of labour, decision-making practices and opportunities for meaningful engagement/empowerment and equity related to accessing and benefitting from humanitarian aid and resilience interventions before and after the crisis. Changes will be assessed based on RGA participants’ perceptions from pre- crisis to now.
• A list of clear actionable recommendations for protection, gender equality mainstreaming, and gender-focused programming, including references on how existing programming can be improved in relation to gender equity

Target group of the RGA

The RGA Assessment tools use purposive sampling. This means that included groups are selected according to specific characteristics, in this case gender and age, which are important related to vulnerability. Sites are selected to gather information from women, men, boys and girls at different locations (different communities) and from different groups (ethnic, religious, etc.). The consultant will work with CARE Ukraine and its implementing partners to identify sampling groups within the project communities.

Scope of the RGA

The scope of this assignment is to conduct a comprehensive desk review of available secondary data/literature, complete data analysis from consultant-collected primary data, triangulate findings and write an RGA report (max 20 pages), including key practical programming and operational recommendations to support the design of the activities and improve CARE’s gender mainstreaming and inclusion approach.

The consultant will work with CARE Ukraine and its implementing partners to identify which locations will be sampled to ensure that the different needs and experiences of key participant groups are gathered and analysed in the RGA. 

The study will focus on changes, both unintended negative and positive, as well as opportunities and entry points for CARE to implement the gender equitable benefits from humanitarian and recovery resources provided by CARE implementing partners.

Elements of the analysis will include:

• The effects of a protracted conflict on females and males of different ages and disabilities.
• Access to, ownership of, and benefit from resources disaggregated by gender, age and disability as well as other aspects of diversity available in data.
• Access to SRH, GBV and Protection services and humanitarian assistance including WASH and Shelter.
• Control and decision-making power over resources.
• The impact of the conflict on food security and livelihoods.
• The effects from the intersectionality of gender, age, disability and other diversity factors.
• Shifts in engagement in governance structures, including description and distinctions of roles, power, and authority.
• Changes in household dependencies to meet needs because of the conflict.
• How changes (positive/negative) in roles and responsibilities related to household and care tasks, and social engagement in formal and informal spheres have impacted on the target groups (basic needs, coping strategies, physical needs, psychosocial/self-esteem) by drawing on CARE’s Gender Equality Framework.
• Changes, if any, with perceptions of the gendered social norms in the community by drawing on CARE’s Gender Equality Framework.
• The impact of community participation in the improvement of humanitarian assistance.
• Mapping of services for GBV survivors and referrals for GBV survivors.
• Changes in trends around GBV such as changes in intimate partner violence, access to care, and opportunities to mitigate risk.
• A succinct description of coping/risk-reducing behaviours used by females of any age, boys, elderly males and LGBTQI+ groups.
• The role of WLOs, WROs and LGBTQI+ organizations in the humanitarian assistance, and the support needed from international humanitarian actors.

Sequence and process: technical oversight of the Gender Analysis

The below table is an outline of the steps usually required for an RGA process. This should be adapted by the consultant in their application, with inclusion of proposed number of days for each step. 

Key deliverables: 

• Detailed workplan on approach, methodology, scope, outline of tools, etc.  
• An outline of quotes and secondary references from the literature review which will be used and cited in the report
• Adapted RGA primary data research tools 
• Enumerator training materials 
• Tools/presentation for validation session  
• Draft report 
• Final report including executive summary

Examples of secondary data available

• MSNA database conducted by REACH in December 2022
• Rapid field assessments reports conducted by CARE and its implementing partners in Kharkiv and Donetsk oblasts in January 2023
• RGA-P on Power and Participation conducted by CARE and its implementing partners in Kharkiv and Odessa oblasts in February 2023. The RGA-P focuses on the specific barriers women face to actively participating in, influencing and leading aspects of the humanitarian response in their communities. It also identifies opportunities to address and overcome these barriers to ensure their unique needs and priorities are met. The RGA should be informed by the RGA-P where relevant, to ensure the optimisation of synergies between the two processes. 

Key Internal Contacts

DCD Program Quality Director, and other deployed assessment staff as appropriate

Local partners

Indicative length of assignment: 25 days 

Indicative timeline: February 15^th to March 15^th, 2023  *Timeline is subject to change based on the issue of deployment letters  

Indicative budget: 40 000 EUR 

Application process

Candidate are invited to share their application documents (5-10 pages) to [email protected] before the 31^st of January 2023 with email title “RGA Consultant” including:

Technical proposition including :

- Understanding of the ToR

- Technical approach and detailed methodology

- Constitution of the team, including roles and responsibilities and CVs

- Proposed schedule with details on estimated  days of work per activities

- Reference from similar previous works 

Financial proposition including:

- Total budget with details about the allocation of the costs

Requirements 

- University degree or/and Master’s degree in social sciences, development, program evaluation, data science, economic policy, econometrics and operations research, or a related field

- Minimum 4-5 years of solid experience working in MEAL for NGOs in the humanitarian or development sectors

- Demonstrated ability to conduct rigorous quantitative and qualitative analysis using appropriate analytical methods; design and implement quantitative and qualitative rapid appraisals, etc.

- Extensive experience in database management, quantitative software applications and qualitative methods

- Proven experience in conducting similar gender analysis with practical and impactful gender equality and women’s empowerment approaches to development and humanitarian action

- Strong written and oral English skills

- Written and oral Ukrainian and/or Russian skills is an advantage

- Politically and culturally sensitive with qualities of patience, tact and diplomacy