Uganda: Gender Assessment of Refugee interventions in West Nile , Northern Uganda

Project Title: Gender Assessment of Refugee Interventions in West Nile, Northern Uganda

Location and reporting level: Adjumani, Arua, Yumbe

1.Project Background Information

Since December 2013 the eruption of conflict in South Sudan resulted in over one million South Sudanese fleeing into neighbouring countries with a renewed spike in refugees arriving from July 2016 following an escalation of conflict in across South Sudan. As of August 2017, there are almost 1,000,000 South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, mostly being settled in Palabek, Kiryandongo, Adjumani, Arua, and Yumbe, with an average of around 600 new refugees arriving every day. The refugees are hosted at reception and transit sites until they are allocated plots in the settlements. The latest statistics indicate that about 86% of the refugees are women and children; about 2% are people with special needs- the elderly, people with disabilities, unaccompanied minors, etc. (IRC/UNHCR, 2016).

Many of the refugees have experienced at least one or more forms of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) including rape, sexual slavery, and physical assault, while rape continues to be used as a weapon of war in the conflict. Most of the SGBV cases reported to date in Bidibidi occurred in South Sudan, either before women and girls fled their homes or in transit to Uganda. According to IRC assessments and an IRC/UNHCR Safety Audit conducted in September 2016 in Bidibidi, the settlement in Yumbe, SGBV is an ongoing threat with intimate partner violence and sexual exploitation becoming more acute as the refugee population increases. The inadequate food*,* lack of cooking energy options, and other basic needs are risk factors that force women and girls to engage in negative coping strategies as they struggle to survive, further exacerbating risks of sexual exploitation and abuse. The recently concluded IRC/UNHCR Safety Audit revealed alarming security risks within the settlement, stemming mainly from failure of humanitarian actors to meet minimum standards of SGBV prevention and response across sectors; lighting is limited, there is overcrowding in tents, latrines lack locks and privacy, women and girls lack enough safe spaces to obtain social support or seek help in a socially appropriate and confidential manner.

Different humanitarian actors have rushed to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to the South Sudanese refugees since the crisis began. Although interventions are ongoing, the need for a Multi­ Sectoral Gender (MSG) Assessment cannot be understated and is a requirement by the IASC SGBV guidelines on humanitarian action. Indeed a MSG Assessment is critical in order to further inform programming, establish program priorities, and contextualize services for the population. The IRC's proposed MSG Assessment will include analysis of health, psychosocial, and safety needs of women and girls; security risks that exist; general levels of availability of different essential services (for example health, WASH, livelihoods, etc.); as well as access to and utilization of these services. It will also include an assessment of the protection situation in Arua, Yumbe, and Adjumani, identification of the specific risk factors affecting displaced women and girls, and identification of women and girls at greatest risk. The MSG Assessment will seek to determine the nature and scale of a crisis and the gender differentiated needs of a given population, as well as the scope and scale of an effective intervention, given existing resources. It is necessary to conduct an MSG Assessment to understand the problems, service gaps and unmet needs of the refugee population in the settlements hosting South Sudanese refugees in Arua, Yumbe, and Adjumani. Carrying out an MSG Assessment is an essential first step towards ensuring that interventions respond to the needs of refugees equally, including highly vulnerable groups like women and girls as well as Persons with Specific Needs (PSNs). The IASC Transformative Agenda recognized the critical role of needs assessment as a basis for overall and cluster strategy development. It is generally understood that the results of needs assessments should inform the overall strategic planning and prioritization process of prevention and response activities in humanitarian situations. Needs assessments represent one step in the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) - which runs from assessment and analysis of needs to strategic response planning, resource mobilization, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of operations- and supports the response analysis conducted for strategic response planning•

2.Proposed Project

2.1 Objectives (Outcomes)

This assessment will contribute to beneficiaries’ improved well-being as it will support both UN agencies and implementing partners to design and implement programming that is responsive to beneficiaries' needs and priorities. By listening to women and girls and other community members, all humanitarian agencies will have knowledge about how to reduce risks to women and girls (or, alternatively, increase women and girls' safety and security) to create more protective environments. This will lead to greater community cohesion, stronger and healthier families and population atlarge, increased productivity, and decreased poverty.

2.2.Immediate Objectives (Outputs)

The Multi-Sectoral Gender Assessment is expected to:

a) Document the gender differentiated needs of refugees in the settlements;

b) Assess, and map out services available to meet the identified needs;

c) Assess the general and gender-related gaps in service provision;

d) Propose solutions to identified needs;

e) Formulate and provide quantitative and qualitative indicators of gender issues among SSD refugees; and

f) Document the nature and forms of SGBV experienced by the refugees.

2.3. Expected deliverables

• A detailed work-plan
• Assessment design and draft instrument to be discussed with the agreed composed team of UN Women and IRC
• Weekly progress update against work-plan to be submitted to the agreed focal point person from IRC and UN Women
• Documentation of regular meetings
• Complete data sets and data documentation (I.e. quantitative database, qualitative data documentation, transcripts of FGDs, recordings etc.) and final instruments, questionnaire and interview guide
• Comprehensive analysis and report (Outline to be discussed) including recommendation and specific action based on assessment findings
• Sharing findings with stakeholders, and finalizing

2.4. Time period of the consultancy; Mid August to October 31^st, 2017

2.5.Descriptionof the assessment approach/strategy

The Assessment will target refugees, service providers and refugee leadership structures in the three districts of Arua, Adjumani and Yumbe, where the influx of refugees in 2016/17 have been settled. Two zones in each of the three districts will be selected for the Assessment from a randomly selected settlement in the case of Arua and Adjumani and from Bidibidi, the only settlement in Yumbe. The Assessment will be descriptive and present the different kinds of vulnerabilities existing among the refugees, types of problems/needs experienced, existing service,s and service gaps (Water and Sanitation, Security, General Protection, Child Protection, Sexual Violence, Health/Reproductive Health, Psychosocial Health, food and non-food items, etc.), and highlight the groups most in need of specific services. The consultant will work closely with IRC and UN Women in the planning and management of the MSG Assessment. To ensure effective coordination throughout its duration, the consultant together with IRC will maintain regular contact with UN Women, OPM, UNHCR, UNFPA, Working Groups, and other relevant stakeholders.

2.6Assessment methodology and scope:

The MSG Assessment will utilize five main tools including:

a) Service Mapping: This will help to determine which services are available, who provides them, which services are lacking, which services are critically needed, by which categories of people and in which areas the services are critically needed. This will be determined through use of a checklist.

b) Safety Audit: A safety audit will determine the general security and protection needs of different

categories of people, men, women, boys and girls. It will also include an analysis of the key risk factors for GBV. We will identify key security risks that we can see through observation in the settlement. An observation checklist will be developed for this purpose.

c) Survey: This will target mainly refugees to determine their experiences with regard to GBV, their

experience with regard to access and utilization of different services, their perceptions of service gaps and existing needs of different socio-demographic groups, and their perceptions of the security situation at the settlements. A multistage sampling strategy will be used to identify respondents. A random cluster method will be used to identify 2 zones in each district from which 50 respondents from each zone (10 men, 10 women, 10 girls, 10 boys, 10 PSNs) will be selected for the Assessment. These will be randomly selected having developed a sampling frame for each category in consultation with community leaders. In total therefore, 300 individuals will be interviewed individually. A questionnaire will be used for this purpose.

d) Key Informant Interviews: These will mainly be conducted with key settlement leaders (OPM, UNHCR, UNFPA, partners/service providers, and elders, to get an idea of the needs situation, existing GBV situation, existing services, and gaps. local women's organizations/CBOs that are or are not involved in the response will also be included in the interviews. It is also anticipated that the refugee leaders and elders in particular will articulate problems from their perspective, and solutions, including what they think they could do to improve protection for women and girls­ not just what implementing partners could do (8 people per district). A key informant interview guide will be used for this purpose.

e) Focus group discussions: In each zone 5 FGDs will be held (one each for men, women, boys, and girls

and PSNs- female headed households, unaccompanied minors, elderly and persons with disabilities). These discussions will help document the magnitude of needs that exist, highlight forms of GBV experienced, highlight the intensity of protection needs, and the magnitude of other gaps in service provision to refugees. An FGD guide will be used for this purpose.

3.0More specific tasks and responsibility of the consultant:

• Conduct desk review of the existing literature publications, methodology design and contribution, training, surveys, coordinating and supervision of data collection, data interpreters, reports etc. of selected topics to be included in the overall report and analysis/assessment
• Training of enumerators
• Pre-testing and refining tools
• Coordinate, guide and supervise the data collection exercise
• Conduct data analysis and interpretation
• Write up the assessment report and dissemination brief

• Facilitate data collection team in the planning, preparation, organizing, conducting the assessment and reporting in a timely manner

• Ensure synergies among the various parts of the analysis to form an integrated, holistic and analytical report

• Liaise with the various stakeholders or and institutions/organization/departments to facilitate access to information required for the analysis

• Ensure quality and timely delivery of assignment by the team

• Lead/organize the team during presentations phases of the assessment report or feedback and lead the amendments

3.1 Required Qualification/Skills/Experience of the consultant.

• Relevant University degrees preferably Masters level in applicable sciences with specific expertise in conducting researches/gender assessments
• Technical experts in different areas of gender in humanitarian, protection including International and Uganda’s gender, disaster/emergency and GBV legal framework, refugee law and human rights
• Strong background in team management and experience having conducted and coordinated a similar assessment
• Proven expertise or experience of at least 8 years and at least 5 years of technical expertise/working experience in humanitarian and development programming with a focus on gender and protection (ideally work and assessment experience with South Sudan refugees or any of the refugee population)
• Expertise in conducting research, assessments and relevant assessment approaches
• Cross-sectoral working experience is essential specially in protection, livelihood, environment, education, health, child protection and social welfare sectors
• Proven experience in research methodologies and triangulated studies (quantitative, qualitative, primary and secondary data collection)
• Demonstrated relevant experience with refugees and asylum seekers and or similarly vulnerable groups
• Up to date sectoral services, policies, applicable laws and context in Uganda and West Nile and any applicable documents incidental to gender and humanitarian not limiting the global level
• Experience working with evaluations and feasibility studies
• Experience in relevant data analysis and report writing
• Language: Proficiency in spoken and written English
• Computer skills: Proficiency in current office software applications and statistics programs such as SPSS
• Strongly observes the ethical conduct of an assessment and or research including but not limited no plagiarism, quote sources, respect of respondents and confidentiality.

All applicants should submit their proposals by 4^th September 2017 to UA-kampalaProcurement@rescue.org