Digital Advocacy Capacity Building Consultant for WVL project

Terms of References

Digital advocacy capacity building consultant for WVL project

Background

Oxfam is a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice. We are working across regions in about 70 countries, with thousands of partners, and allies, supporting communities to build better lives for themselves, grow resilience and protect lives and livelihoods also in times of crisis.

Because we want lasting solutions, we fight the inequalities that keep people locked in poverty and injustice, we tackle not the symptoms but the systems, and we campaign for genuine, durable change.

We commit to living our values so that we can be known for our integrity. This means transforming our governance, management, and operational structures, and nurturing a culture of continuous learning and reflection.

Oxfam in Lebanon, in partnership with four Women’s Right Organizations (WROs): SEEDS, Madanyat, ONDES, and Fe-male, is implementing a Canadian Embassy-funded project entitled “Women’s Voice and Leadership-WVL.” The project is implemented from March 2022 to March 2025 in Lebanon. The project will provide also flexible, rapid, and responsive funds, to nascent, informal groups.

The flexibility and responsiveness of these funds will enable these informal groups to allocate resources where they are most needed, as part of their empowerment and to advance their efforts, promote gender equality, and support women's rights in various contexts.

This initiative wishes to support young feminist organizations in greater proportion with its Rapid, Responsive and Flexible funding mechanism allowing them to design immediate responses to pressing issues.

The project aims towards increasing the enjoyment of human rights by women and girls and the advancement of gender equality, through three main working streams: 1) Improved management, programming, and sustainability of local WROs particularly those representing vulnerable and marginalized women and girls, 2) enhanced delivery of quality services and advocacy by Women Rights Organisations (WROs) to advance gender equality and 3) Increased effectiveness of women's right platforms, networks and alliances to affect gender-sensitive policy change and policy implementation.

Oxfam will achieve these intermediate outcomes through increasing the WROs’ and the informal groups’ organizational capacities, by putting learned skills and knowledge into practice to improve their gender-just services and advocacy, and to influence policy changes aimed at advancing gender equality.

Under the WVL project, Oxfam conducted a baseline study that reflects the organizational capacities, and capacity gaps, of the four WROs pre-selected by Oxfam to engage with the project. The informal groups also conducted a self-assessment using a compact version of the CAT4GJO. One of the capacity domains assessed was transformative gender justice programming and advocacy. Based on the priorities that emerged from the capacity assessment, Digital Advocacy was a topic of need and interest that the four WROs and 5 informal groups expressed need for support in. The focus on capacity building in digital advocacy aims to equip the WROs and the informal groups with the tools and resources needed to use digital tools and platforms and advocate for women’s rights and gender justice in an effective and secure manner.

Purpose and objectives

Oxfam is seeking to hire a consultant/consultancy firm to support each of the WROs and informal groups in their digital advocacy, tools, channels, and platforms to influence public policy and social change including strategy development with a focus on the digital landscape. Based on the needs assessment study and analysis, the digital capacity-building program needs to be designed based on each organization's needs to leverage their influence and change at local, national, and regional levels.  

Methodological approach

• Overall, the methodological approach used by the consultant/firm should be guided by Oxfam’s principles and values.
• The most suitable methodological approach will be co-created collaboratively with the four WROs and the informal groups targeted as part of the project.
• The approach should be participatory and interactive, actively engaging with the partners/ WROs and the informal groups.
• The approach should emphasize on the needs of each organization and mandate to exploration of diversified platforms and tools to leverage social change

key tasks

1. In consultation with the WROs and the informal groups, identify the main needs and priorities to leverage each WRO and group’s knowledge and skills in the digital advocacy domain.
2. Map digital platforms, and identify gaps and opportunities, and their impact to understand the landscape, including the audience.
3. Support WROs and informal groups to develop gender-just digital advocacy strategy, roadmap, and action plan. This includes setting specific goals, target audiences, and messages, and identifying calls to action. 
4. Support WROs and informal groups in developing engaging communication for change, and advocacy materials including content for digital advocacy purposes.
5. Support WROs and informal groups in monitoring and evaluating their digital advocacy efforts, using each platform's data analytics tools, and in measuring the impact of the advocacy strategy and plan.

Timeline

The total number of working days allocated for this consultancy is set at 8 weeks.

Activity

Timeline

Submit an inception report

20 September

Consultation with WROs and informal groups including an introductory session on the digital advocacy domain.

30 September

Provide coaching sessions to each WRO and informal group to review their existing tools and platforms.  

2 October till 4 November

Support WROs and informal groups to develop communication material for specific themes.

3 October till 4 November

Strategy development that promotes women’s rights for each WRO and informal group that aligns with their priorities.

3 October till 4 November

Submit a final report

15 November

Expected Outputs

This consultancy will deliver the following:

• A one-day workshop for the four WROs and the 5 informal groups on digital advocacy. This workshop will familiarize the participants with the digital advocacy landscape, including ethical considerations, assess each organization's current tools and knowledge base in digital advocacy, and facilitate discussions to identify opportunities for collaboration and leverage individual strengths.
• Tailored coaching sessions (1-2 per WRO/ informal group, final number to be determined collaboratively) to address specific needs and challenges. These sessions will equip WROs and informal groups with the knowledge and skills necessary to implement effective digital advocacy campaigns.
• A customized digital advocacy strategy for each WRO/ informal group that will include clearly defined goals and target audiences, compelling messaging and calls to action, and a roadmap for implementing the strategy.
• Communication materials and content specifically tailored for digital advocacy purposes.

By the end of this consultancy, each WRO/ informal group will have a comprehensive digital advocacy strategy, enhanced skills, and the resources necessary to launch successful online campaigns that promote gender justice.

Qualifications of the consultants/consultancy firm

• Demonstrated expertise for more than 5 years in the MENA context of women rights, gender justice, civic and digital activism.
• Facilitation and co-creation skills.
• Proven experience in digital advocacy in terms of landscaping, tools, audiences, data analysis, and measuring the impact.
• Skilled in Local Leadership and Community engagement including with grassroots, and local organisations.
• Familiarity with Oxfam’s work or other international NGOs will be an advantage.
• Experience in AI tools is an asset.
• Fluency in spoken and written English and Arabic.

Management of the assignment

The administration of this assignment will be managed by Oxfam. The tasks and deliverables of the consultant will be coordinated with the focal points at the partner WROs’ level and reported to WVL’s project manager for internal review and quality assurance.

Expression of Interest (EOI)

Interested consultants should submit their:

• CVs of consultants and/or role of each consultant recruited under the scope of this assignment for firms;
• A technical proposal that includes a detailed methodology and a work plan for the assignment;
• A financial proposal detailing all costs associated with the assignment;

• Registration and official government documents, if applicable. Noting that 8.5% will be deducted from the total amount if not registered.

Oxfam International in Lebanon reserves the right to reject any and all bids, including the Bidding process, or not to award the contract at any time, without incurring any liability to the affected Bidders.

Please submit the full application documents (as mentioned above) to [email protected] by September 9, 2024 midnight mentioning “Digital Advocacy Capacity Building Consultant for WVL project’’ in the subject line.