Terms of Reference for an individual consultant on gender equality and mainstreaming

1. BACKGROUND AND OVERALL OBJECTIVE

Lebanon has been suffering from a severe financial and economic crisis with long-lasting effects on its economy and its people. With the drastic devaluation of the currency, prices of imported items have risen sharply, and households are now increasingly struggling to cover food needs. The combined effects of the crises have resulted in unprecedented levels of unemployment and pushed both the Lebanese population and the approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees further into poverty. The Lebanese agriculture sector remains one of few sectors where both Syrian refugees and vulnerable Lebanese host communities can legally find employment as well as vulnerable Lebanese host communities but has been particularly hard-hit by the ongoing crises.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) is therefore implementing a project aimed at ‘Promoting Decent Jobs for Lebanese host communities and Syrian refugees’ funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). The project focuses on the agriculture and agri-food sector as a key sector for the livelihoods of both Lebanese and Syrian vulnerable population groups and in particular women of both communities and aim to develop specific agricultural and agri-food value chains with potential for decent job creation that will benefit both groups.

The project makes use of the ILO’s Approach to Inclusive Market Systems (AIMS)^[1] to safeguard jobs and livelihoods of vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian communities threatened by the crises and encourage decent job creation for both groups in sectors with potential.

Acknowledging the vital role of women in Lebanon’s agriculture sector and their crucial contribution, the project aims to empower them further by promoting specific agricultural value chains that offer decent employment opportunities. These efforts not only enhance the economic resilience of women but also contribute to the overall sustainability of Lebanon's agriculture sector, given the diverse and essential contributions of women across various agricultural activities, making their involvement integral to ensuring the sectors’ prosperity amidst ongoing challenges.

Ensuring gender equality and empowering women in the workforce are essential for achieving the ILO's vision of providing decent work for all, particularly during times of crisis response and recovery. Central to the organization's mandate since its inception in 1919, equality between genders, including equitable opportunities and treatment for women in labour markets, lies at the core of the ILO's mission.  Therefore, recognizing gender equality as fundamental to the advancement of human rights, social equity, and sustainable development, the International Labour Organization (ILO) is devoted in its commitment to integrating gender-sensitive approaches across its initiatives. By prioritizing gender equality in all aspects of its work, the ILO seeks to contribute to fostering inclusive and equitable societies where all individuals, regardless of gender, have equal opportunities to thrive.

2. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF WORK

General Information

Currently, Lebanon is grappling with a convergence of unprecedented crises, including the Syrian refugee influx crisis since 2011, the economic vulnerability and the financial collapse of Lebanon’s economy since end of 2019, the continuous political turmoil, adding to that the ongoing war in the country that has erupted in October 2023 and worsened in September 2024 leading to more than 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) aggravating by that the already ongoing series of crises in Lebanon.

The ongoing crises and challenges are affecting all citizens harshly, but they disproportionately impact marginalized groups, including women, who face intersectional oppression. As a result, Lebanese women and girls face discrimination on multiple fronts which is reflected in Lebanon’s 13-place drop in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2023 Global Gender Gap Index, now ranking 132^nd out of 146 countries.

Specifically, Lebanese women play a key role in the agriculture sector, accounting for 43% of the workforce. However, they face significant gender inequalities, particularly in employment conditions, ownership, and access to resources. Most women in this sector are informally employed, with only 7% owning agricultural land and just 5% having access to credit, severely limiting their financial independence and ability to expand their activities. Despite their essential contributions, women earn less than men for the same work and have limited decision-making power. They receive minimal support in the form of training or agricultural education, further hindering their productivity and innovation. Adding to this, agriculture serves as the primary income source for 30-40% of the Lebanese population, yet it is associated with high poverty levels, particularly for women, due to low wages and a lack of social protection.

Amid these various challenges, the ILO Bouzour project takes a proactive approach, targeting the agriculture and agri-food sector as a vital source of livelihood for vulnerable populations, including both Lebanese and Syrian communities, with a focus on women. The project aims to foster specific agricultural and agri-food value chains capable of generating decent employment opportunities that benefit both groups, specifically women.

The project’s approach 

The project makes use of the ILO’s Approach to Inclusive Market Systems (AIMS) to safeguard jobs and livelihoods of vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian communities threatened by the crises and encourage decent job creation for both groups in sectors with potential.

It is a holistic and market-based livelihoods approach that seeks to apply the “Market Systems of Making Markets Work for the Poor” methodologies to the context of forced displacement.

AIMS is based on the assumption that, in order for people to build sustainable interventions, two conditions should be fulfilled:

• The existence of opportunities, either for self-employment if a certain good or service is demanded in the market, or for salaried employment if employers are looking for employees to recruit.
• The availability of necessary skills and competencies for people to access these market opportunities.

In aligning with the ILO's commitment to gender equality and women's empowerment as mentioned in the ILO Gender Equality and Mainstreaming policy that states: “As an organization dedicated to fundamental human rights and social justice, the ILO must take a leading role in international efforts to promote and realize gender equality”, the project ensures that its interventions under AIMS equally benefit both women and men within these targeted vulnerable communities. By promoting equal access to employment opportunities and addressing the specific skills and competency needs of women, the project contributes to breaking down gender barriers in the labour market. Through this integrated approach, the project not only fosters economic resilience but also advances gender equality and social inclusion within these communities.

The project’s gender strategic vision

The ILO Bouzour project serves as a comprehensive response to critical challenges faced by Lebanon, including food security, climate change, high unemployment rates, and sustainable development. Central to this project is its dedication to promoting gender equality and addressing the inequalities faced by Lebanese women, girls, and other marginalized groups.

Operating within the agriculture sector, the project aims to uplift the livelihoods of vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian populations, with a particular focus on women by addressing food security, climate change, and sustainable development while prioritizing decent work conditions.

However, the absence of a regulatory framework for agriculture workers leaves them without protection or means of redress, highlighting the necessity for improved working conditions. The ILO promotes the integration of decent work across interventions, while specifically enhancing working conditions for Syrian women farm workers.

The ILO Bouzour project has developed a gender mainstream strategy outlining the process of integrating gender considerations throughout the project cycle. It was divided into two primary components:

• The strategic approach detailing the project's gender mainstreaming objectives, in other words, what the project aims to achieve in terms of gender mainstreaming
• The specific guidelines and interventions outlining how the project intends to implement the strategy to attain these objectives, in other words, how the project plans to operationalize the strategy in order to achieve these objectives 

Gender mainstreaming strategy objectives

The ILO Bouzour gender mainstreaming strategy is developed to integrate gender equality principles into the project's Theory of Change (ToC). The project seeks to incorporate gender considerations systematically across every stage of the project cycle: from design to implementation where specific guidelines and interventions are meticulously outlined, monitoring, and learning. The strategy aims to achieve the following strategic objectives:

1) Integrate gender considerations into all phases of the project to ensure that interventions are sensitive to the different needs, constraints, and opportunities of women and men.

2) Improve women workers‘ access to decent work employment where work conditions are respected and applied. This can be done by assisting the agriculture sector, particularly farmers, through collaboration with key private sector entities and cooperatives. This support aims to enhance farming practices and conditions to promote women's economic empowerment and advance gender equality.

3) Enhance the capacity of diverse stakeholders, including farmers, cooperatives and the private sector, in understanding and addressing gender issues. This effort aims to foster more inclusive employment practices, better working conditions and expand export opportunities with a gender-inclusive approach.

4) Engage with multiple stakeholders involved in gender-related issues, such as UN Women, UNDP, WFP, and others, to collaborate, and collectively advocate and address gender challenges.

For that, the overarching goal of this consultancy is to support the integration and mainstreaming of gender at project level.

Below are key related activities related to this consultancy:

Step 1: Revision of the gender mainstreaming strategy and the Theory of Change (ToC)

• Revise the existing gender mainstreaming strategy for the Bouzour project to ensure the integration of gender considerations into the design and execution of all interventions. The updated strategy should align with the project's needs and objectives, outlining clear actions and goals to embed gender considerations across all project components.
• Review and update the Theory of Change (ToC) for each project component, ensuring that it is gender responsive. Each ToC should include specific outcomes and assumptions that promote gender equality.

Step 2: Development of specific action plans for the project components, partners engagement and for establishing a strong monitoring system

• Review each component of the project and develop specific action plan detailing concrete interventions and activities for effectively mainstreaming gender throughout the project interventions.
• Develop an action plan to engage partners, fostering collaboration and building support for gender mainstreaming initiatives.
• Support and advise the Monitoring and Results Measurement (MRM) consultant in establishing systems for collecting gender-disaggregated data and monitoring progress toward gender equality goals. This includes supporting the set-up of mechanisms to monitor gender-specific indicators and evaluate the impact of gender mainstreaming efforts.
• Development of an intervention plan in coordination with project team and project partners to support women business groups formation and development.

Step 3: Provision of gender mainstreaming capacity building workshops

• Develop tailored training materials for both internal use and for project partners and the cooperatives/farmers they are working with, addressing their specific needs separately.
• Conduct capacity building workshops for team members and partner organizations with the cooperatives/farmers they are working with to raise awareness about gender issues and equip them with the necessary skills to effectively implement gender mainstreaming in their work.

Step 4:  Continuous development and monitoring of the gender perspective in interventions

• Develop tailored tools to assist project team and implementing partners in monitoring and addressing gender-related issues throughout their respective interventions.
• Based on the developed action plan, develop a document stating the intervention plan of project partners detailing the gender angle of their specific interventions to ensure that gender considerations are fully integrated into the design, implementation, and evaluation of their projects. In addition to provide support for the project team to achieve this plan and its objectives.
• Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of gender mainstreaming efforts by implementing partners through the project team, providing feedback and recommendations for necessary adjustments and improvements.
• Select success stories from implementing partners and develop at least 4 case stories that highlight the experiences and achievements of women. This involves collaborating closely with partners to identify impactful stories, offering guidance on effective storytelling techniques, and ensuring that the narratives capture the unique challenges and successes of women in various contexts.

3. DELIVERABLES

Please refer to the attached ToR to review the deliverables

4. TIMELINE

The work is tentatively expected to start on January 2025 and continue until 30 June 2025.

• All the produced documents will have to be submitted in English. The consultant will also have to submit to the ILO the following materials:
  1. Electronic copies of all data sets
  2. All quantitative and qualitative data (completed questionnaires, recorded interviews, focus groups, etc.)
  3. Any other documents that will be used or collected in the course of the consultancy

5. PAYMENT SCHEDULE

1. First payment covering 20% of the full payment, tentatively due by 15 February 2025 upon satisfactory delivery and project approval on the following deliverable:

• Deliverable 1

• Revised version of the project gender mainstreaming strategy
• Revised version of the project ToCs
• Workplan with timeline for the assignment

1. Second payment covering 20% of the full payment, tentatively due by 15 March 2025 upon satisfactory delivery and project approval on the following deliverables:

• Deliverable 2

• Action plan for every project component 
• Action plan for partners’ engagement
• Report on the development of mechanisms to monitor gender-specific indicators and evaluate the impact of gender mainstreaming efforts
• Intervention plan to support women business groups formation and development

1. Third payment covering 20% of the full payment, tentatively due by 15 April 2025 upon satisfactory delivery and project approval on the following deliverables:

• Deliverable 3

• Develop training materials 
• Conduct one internal capacity building workshop
• Conduct four capacity building workshops for project partners and cooperatives/farmers

1. Fourth and last payment covering 40% of the full payment, tentatively due by 30 June 2025 upon satisfactory delivery and project approval on the following deliverables:

• Deliverable 4

• Tailored monitoring tools for project partners
• Document stating the intervention plan of project partners detailing the gender angle of their specific interventions
• Case stories for each project partner

  All payments are in fresh USD via international bank transfer. A USD account should be available in the name of the consultant for payment transfers.

6. FOCAL POINT (s) AT ILO

The service provider will coordinate with the Project Technical Officer, and with the backstopping of the relevant technical departments involved in the ILO Beirut Office and ILO Headquarters

7. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONs AND APPLICATION

This call is open to individual consultants only. Registered companies, registered institutions, organizations, and sole proprietorships with a legal identity are not eligible to apply.

To apply for this assignment the consultant should possess the following qualifications:

• Advanced degree in gender studies, social sciences, sociology, anthropology, human rights, international development, or other related fields relevant to the assignment.
• At least 4 years of experience in research on topics such as gender equality and mainstreaming, and in development projects.
• Demonstrated experience working on gender-related projects, on gender policy development or in gender equality, gender mainstreaming, or gender-sensitive programming.
• Proven track record in similar projects related to gender equality and mainstreaming. Understanding of gender mainstreaming tools, methodologies for gender audits, and implementation of gender equality action plans.
• Experience working in the development and/or humanitarian sectors with international organizations such as UN, NGOs.
• Previous experience or familiarity in delivering gender-related workshops is essential.
• Ability to use software or tools to conduct gender analysis, data collection, and reporting is desirable.
• Excellent research and data analysis skills, including proficiency in both qualitative and quantitative research methods.
• Excellent communication and report writing skills