Consultancy: Gender Equality, Social Inclusion, and Environmental Analysis for ACT Project

World University Service of Canada (WUSC)

Action for Paid Childcare Sector Transformation Project

Gender Equality, Social Inclusion, and Environmental Analysis Consultant(s) 

Terms of Reference Malawi

 CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

Position Location Lilongwe, Malawi
Duration of Contract 20 Days
Reports To Project Director – with Project Coordinator as liaison and technical assistance from the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Advisor
Expected Start Date May 2025

BACKGROUND

World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a leading Canadian international development organization that focuses on three programmatic areas: economic opportunities, Education, and Empowerment. Our vision is a world where every young person thrives and belongs. Our mission is to catalyze change by improving education and economic opportunities for young people. We support all young people, with a focus on women and people affected by displacement. Our organizational values are rooted in a commitment to collaboration and partnership, learning and adaptability, courageous leadership, youth voice and agency, and inclusion for all.

WUSC currently works in over 25 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, with an annual budget of approximately CAD 50 million. Globally, we partner with a network of higher education institutions, civil society organizations, private sector partners, professionals, students, volunteers, faculty, and community leaders who help us achieve our mission.

ACTION FOR PAID CHILDCARE SECTOR TRANSFORMATION PROJECT DESCRIPTION 

The Action for Paid Childcare Sector Transformation (ACT) project is a four-year collaborative initiative (2024-2028) that uses an innovative systems approach to drive gender-transformative, locally owned, and collaborative action. This initiative has the potential to transform paid childcare from a job of last resort to a vocation of choice in the paid childcare sector to become one of economic prosperity for women in Kenya and Malawi.

ACT responds to the recognition within the global policy agenda that women are overrepresented within the largely informal paid care economy, where they face low pay, poor working conditions, limited social protection, and rights abuses. These are key barriers that contribute to significant poverty among women-paid childcare providers and that limit the potential for their economic empowerment. The barriers also severely limit women-paid childcare providers’ ability to deliver quality childcare services. The urgency to address these barriers is amplified by a global care crisis in which women are disproportionately affected by a lack of quality childcare services (UNICEF, 2020). Women’s employment rates and income levels increase dramatically when childcare is a viable option, highlighting corollary benefits that can be expected to result from ACT’s ultimate outcome.

The paid childcare sector in Malawi remains underdeveloped and largely informal, with limited access to quality, affordable services, particularly in rural areas. Private providers and community-based initiatives predominantly drive the sector, often lacking standardized regulations, adequate funding, and trained caregivers. High costs and limited government investment make formal childcare inaccessible for many families, disproportionately affecting women’s participation in the workforce. While some non-governmental organizations and donorfunded programs have introduced early childhood development (ECD) initiatives, the overall availability, quality, and sustainability of paid childcare services remain a significant challenge for working parents, especially low-income households.

The paid childcare sectors operate largely informally. Legal, policy, and regulatory frameworks need to sufficiently recognize childcare as a sector. This limits the potential for governments and other stakeholders to implement and operationalize regulations and protections that address the needs of women-paid childcare providers, the children in their care, and their families. More investments in data and research on paid childcare amplify this issue. This means there needs to be more evidence on which to initiate or support policy and legislative changes that could help recognize, professionalize, and lead to greater dignity in this sector.

The largely informal nature of the sector, along with systemic gender biases, limit the financial service providers’ (FSPs) willingness to invest in women-led childcare enterprises. The childcare sector also operates in the absence of training and certification standards. High costs and entry criteria also make training largely inaccessible, especially by the most marginalized women childcare providers. Training deficits limit the potential to deliver quality childcare services, reinforcing negative perceptions of childcare work and parents’ willingness to pay living wages or even honor payment agreements. High incidences of SGBV go largely unreported. Women childcare providers are challenged to recognize abuses, let alone access support. Harmful gendered social norms that paint childcare as a women’s domain underline these challenges and hinder meaningful progress in addressing systemic inequalities.

ACT’s Theory of Change (ToC) indicates that the economic empowerment of women childcare providers in Kenya and Malawi can only be achieved if systemic, gender-transformative change is driven and owned by local ecosystem actors. ACT’s systems approach tackles the most pressing underlying issues by working with key actors in Kenya and Malawi who influence those issues. ACT will enable coordination, knowledge, capacity, and performance improvements to address gender-based inequities. Geographically, ACT will focus on areas with large concentrations of women childcare providers, seeking opportunities to support rural and urban providers, including the most marginalized, and where project partners have existing networks in Malawi following foundational mapping and relationship-building activities over the last year.

The ACT project will be implemented in close collaboration between WUSC and its partners in Kenya, notably the Coalition of Violence Against Women (COVAW) and the Women’s Legal Resources Centre (WOLREC) in Malawi. The two women’s Rights Organizations (WROs) have extensive women’s rights expertise, research, networks,  advocacy, and community mobilization capacities that will ensure that context-relevant feminist and inclusive approaches drive this gender-transformative project and that the rights of women-paid childcare providers in their respective countries will be recognized, respected and upheld. This collaborative effort is a testament to our shared commitment to gender equality and social inclusion.

This project aligns with Canada’s 5Rs approach to care work, which prioritizes gender equality and human rights. It advances Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy’s core action area on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, action area 2 on human dignity through education and training, and action area 3 on inclusive economic growth.

Additionally, the project aligns with Malawi’s national commitments and its obligations as a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Specifically, it supports progress toward SDG 1 (No Poverty), SDG 4 (Quality Education), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), SDG 8 (Decent Work), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

KEY AREAS OF INTERVENTION

The project’s ultimate outcome is Ultimate Outcome 1000: Enhanced economic empowerment of women-paid childcare providers in Kenya and Malawi.

The project will contribute to the ultimate outcome through the following three intermediate outcomes and associated immediate outcomes.

Intermediate Outcome 1100: Improved gender-responsive performance of childcare ecosystem actors in Kenya and Malawi

  • Immediate Outcome 1110: Improved gender-responsive coordination among childcare ecosystem actors
  • Immediate Outcome 1120: Improved capacity of ecosystem actors to develop and deliver training and certification supporting women’s advancement in the paid childcare sector

Intermediate Outcome 1200: Enhanced protection and promotion of the rights and needs of women-paid childcare providers in Kenya and Malawi

  • Immediate Outcome 1210: Improved capacity of ecosystem actors to develop and implement gender transformative policy and regulation regarding the paid childcare sector.
  • Immediate Outcome 1220: Improved capacity of ecosystem actors to champion and uphold the rights of women-paid childcare providers

Intermediate Outcome 1300: Enhanced provision of gender-responsive financial and business services and models by ecosystem actors to women-paid childcare providers in Kenya and Malawi.

  • Immediate Outcome 1310: Improved capacity of ecosystem actors to provide genderresponsive business services and models that meet the needs of women-paid childcare providers
  • Immediate Outcome 1320: Improved capacity of financial service providers to invest in women childcare providers while applying a gender lens

 THE ASSIGNMENT

WUSC aims to hire a local consultant to work collaboration with the Lead Consultant in conducting a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) and Environmental Analysis using secondary and primary data to inform program design and implementation in Malawi. Specific geographic focal areas include Lilongwe and Blantyre (sources of supply and demand) in Malawi. The GESI and Environmental Analysis aims to provide essential insights into gender-based and inclusive considerations needed to ensure that women, in particular, will benefit from the project interventions. The study should, therefore, seek to examine the root causes of cultural, gendered social norms and gender inequalities that are harmful to women’s access to higher quality, affordable, equitable, and inclusive childcare services, professional training opportunities, leadership and decision-making opportunities, and the constraints they face while integrating an environmental sustainability and market systems lens.

This 4-year gender transformative initiative includes the enhanced protection and promotion of women’s and girls’ rights and needs related to paid care work among its intended results. It works toward three of the “5-Rs of Care Work”: These are:

  • Recognizing the value of unpaid and poorly paid care work
  • Ensuring unpaid and paid care workers are represented and have a voice
  • Responding to the rights and needs of all care workers

 TARGET PROJECT PARTICIPANTS 

The study proposes to consult project participants, ecosystem actors including partners, and stakeholders representing the public sector, including government officials, private sector microenterprises, home-based and center-based childcare owners, financial and business service providers, women’s rights organizations such as WOLREC, INGOs, organizations addressing environment and climate change issues, employers and decision-makers, community members (women, men, female and male youth, gender-diverse individuals) including parents, women-paid childcare providers in Lilongwe and Blantyre.

PURPOSE OF THE GESI & ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 

The GESI and Environmental Analysis aims to undertake a more extensive analysis utilizing both primary and secondary data from the targeted locations to confirm and inform the design and delivery of the ACT project. It also aims to ensure that local women’s rights organizations (WROs) co-lead in designing objectives and activities to ensure that feminist principles are applied. The findings from this analysis will enable WUSC and its local partners to effectively design and implement the initiative to equitably address the gender equality and human rights issues womenpaid childcare providers face in a transformative, inclusive, and contextualized way. They will also develop mitigation strategies for gender-specific risks and aid in formulating a gender equality strategy for submission with the annual work plan. The findings will ensure proper and targeted capacity strengthening for staff and partners on safeguarding, gender analysis, gender-based violence (GBV), gender mainstreaming, and monitoring of gender equality results throughout the project cycle.

The study’s results will also inform a GESI-integrated market systems analysis and the project’s environmental sustainability approach, focusing on the intersection between the care economy and environment/climate change. The successful consultant will work closely with the project’s Environment Advisor and Market Systems Advisor to ensure that these perspectives are integrated into data collection tools and analysis as appropriate.

THE GOALS OF THE GENDER EQUALITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION, & ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS 

The gender equality and social inclusion analysis aims to accomplish the following goals;

  • To understand how gender equality and inclusion dynamics and environmental considerations affect or could affect the delivery of the ACT project in Malawi.
  • To understand how the ACT project impacts or would impact gender equality and inclusion dynamics and environmental considerations in Malawi
  • To understand how the various groups will benefit from the ACT project in Malawi

OBJECTIVES OF THE GENDER EQUALITY, SOCIAL INCLUSION, AND ENVIRONMENTAL  ANALYSIS 

The gender equality, social inclusion, and environmental analysis will provide critical insights to inform the delivery of the ACT interventions, contributing to the achievement of the following objectives:

  • Validate and refine the gender inequalities, gaps, and barriers related to paid care work identified during the proposal phase and recent studies by program partners that impact women’s and men’s behavior regarding gender roles/relations/power dynamics, equitable access to and control over resources such as education, training, economic opportunities, leadership, and decision-making opportunities, GBV/SRHR, social, cultural and gendered norms, focusing on recommendations and best practices for addressing these issues.
  • The intervention demonstrates an understanding of power dynamics in paid care work at the personal, organizational, or local level, how best to close the identified gender gaps, and how to consider the intersectional dimensions of inequality, discrimination, and exclusion.
  • Recommendations and best practices for addressing human rights issues related to paid childcare work. Identify the existing human rights policies, international, regional and national legal context, and frameworks from treaty bodies; types of human rights violations concerning paid care work and the root causes of violations; power relations and influence of key actors in the early childcare workspace in terms of labor rights, women’s rights, children’s rights and the rights of those cared for; primary responsibilities for violations at different levels; strengths and weaknesses of the affected individuals/groups/communities to address violations; and willingness and capacity of responsibility holders and duty bearers to address the problem.
  • Validate and further refine gender-based constraints in paid care work and recommend key elements for ensuring that women and men, persons living with disabilities, and ethnic minorities will benefit from the project’s activities and intended outcomes.
  • Validate the rights and well-being of those cared for (children’s rights) and how the quality of paid care services can be improved, in particular for children with disabilities.
  • Identify opportunities for women’s economic empowerment and address barriers to women’s participation in leadership and decision-making roles, processes, and opportunities for paid care work building on proposal research and local partner knowledge.
  • Analyze who has access to and control over resources, access to services, and decisionmaking and identify barriers to women’s access to those resources and services related to education and livelihood opportunities in the childcare space.
  • Validate gender equality risks, vulnerabilities, unintended consequences of the intervention, and mitigation strategies, including but not limited to sexual and Genderbased Violence and sexual exploitation and abuse, safeguarding issues in paid care work (see tool 7 in the FIAP toolkit for examples here).
  • Identify and map out key actors within the paid childcare ecosystem in Kenya and analyze their incentives and capacities to help address constraints and leverage opportunities related to women’s economic empowerment.
  • The project aims to incorporate an environmental risk assessment within the GESI analysis to explore the potential environmental implications of the project (both positive and negative), considering the everyday environmental relations (subsistence work done alongside care work), the intersection between the care economy and environment/climate change and the differential impact of climate change on women and their care burden. Relevant issues to explore include a) the water supply in Kenya, b) the impact of cleaning products utilized in childcare facilities, c) the potential for integration of environment and climate sensitization into the ECD curriculum, and d) available incentives and challenges to promote positive environmental awareness and practices.

GENDER EQUALITY AND SOCIAL INCLUSION ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK

The proposed GESI analysis framework is based on the WUSC GESI Analysis Guidance. These domains come from the USAID guidance on gender analysis and align with the FIAP (and GAC guidance on Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+), CARE’s gender analysis tool (which has previously been used by WUSC), and pulls from other GESI analysis best practices. For WUSC, in alignment with our Gender, Age, and Diversity Policy, we aim to take an intersectional approach that includes gender, age, and diversity, recognizing that there are many intersecting identity factors, such as race, ethnicity, and mental and disabilities.

  • Laws, policies, regulations, and institutional practices
  • Access to and control over resources and assets
  • Gender roles, responsibilities, and time use
  • Cultural norms, social norms, and beliefs
  • Patterns of power and decision-making
  • Services, institutions, and programs

The local consultant, in collaboration with the lead consultant, will ensure that the gender analysis framework facilitates the gathering of evidence on the context (opportunities/constraints) for women and men’s access to quality, equitable, and inclusive education and training opportunities in paid care work. Constraints, for instance, can be those emanating from their own lives, their families (general entourage/relations who have some influence over women’s lives), or more structural barriers within the workforce that affect the opportunities of these women.

To facilitate this research process, a range of questions have been developed to guide the type of information the study should capture. These questions are only indicative; further refinement will be explored collaboratively with the consultant during the inception meeting. In collaboration with the WUSC team during the inception reporting phase. Findings should be aligned with the FIAP objectives (rights, decision-making, and access to and control over resources) and core action areas (gender equality and empowerment of women and girls, human dignity, and inclusive economic growth). The most critical point is that the study’s results provide relevant data that can inform the delivery of the ACT project in Malawi, helping to meet the objectives mentioned above. The environmental analysis will be guided by the WUSC Project Environment Analysis and Action Plans – Guidance Note.

METHODOLOGY 

The proposed methodology should incorporate secondary and primary data sources for comprehensive analysis. Secondary data will be drawn from global, regional, national, and local sources, while primary data will be gathered directly from project participants. The study will also prioritize inclusivity by engaging individuals from diverse backgrounds, including persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups. Data should be disaggregated by gender, age, and other diversity factors where possible.

The local consultant will conduct key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) with diverse stakeholders, including women, men, female and male youth, and genderdiverse individuals. Additionally, consultations will include partners and ecosystem actors from various sectors, such as:

  • Public sector representatives, including government officials
  • Private sector micro-enterprises
  • Childcare center owners
  • Women’s rights organizations
  • INGOs and organizations addressing environmental and climate change issues
  • Employers and decision-makers
  • Community members, including parents and caregivers
  • Women working in paid childcare
  • Training providers and financial institutions

WUSC staff will provide input and feedback on the preliminary findings, recommendations, and conclusions to ensure relevance and alignment with project objectives.

 SPECIFIC TASKS

  • Develop a detailed inception report and work plan in close consultation with designated WUSC staff, clarifying and refining the study’s approach, methodology, and timing.
  • Refine the gender equality and social inclusion analysis guidelines and data collection tools as needed.
  • Participate in an inception meeting with WUSC staff.
  • Collect quantitative and qualitative data, including reviews of secondary information, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews.
  • Prepare the final report as documented in the deliverables above, including actionable recommendations focusing on their relevance for interventions. The final report should also include a detailed bibliography of secondary research and a complete list of participants consulted.
  • Revise the final report and recommendations following feedback from WUSC staff.

LEVEL OF EFFORT 

The level of effort required for the local consultant in this consultancy is estimated at 20 days.   

WUSC RESPONSIBILITIES

  • To provide relevant documentation and respond to the Consultant’s questions throughout the mandate.
  • To mobilize the necessary team to support the Consultant and designate a person responsible for this assignment.
  • To provide the Consultant with feedback and comments on the documents produced according to the approved writing plan.

 TIMELINES AND DELIVERABLES OF THE CONSULTANCY 

The contract period is for 20 days between April and June 2024. The estimated contributions expected in working days will be determined in consultation with the selected candidate(s). The candidate(s) will have to put in place all the necessary actions to launch the GESI and Environmental analysis within the following schedule:

Task Days Timeline
Inception Meeting 0.5
Submission of a detailed work plan, draft inception report, and revised data collection tools (as necessary) 2
Submission of the final version of the inception report, which incorporates WUSC comments and final tools for data collection 1.5
Data collection through desk review, key informant interviews & focus group discussions 10
Submission of the draft report, including methodology, findings, and recommendations. The report should also include{

●      A detailed bibliography of secondary research

●      A complete list of participants consulted

 3
Submission of the final report, including methodology, findings, recommendations, and conclusion, including WUSC comments 3
Total 20

 CANDIDATE QUALIFICATIONS

  • The candidate should have at least 5-7 years of professional experience and a demonstrated track record of conducting gender analysis for women’s economic empowerment projects.
  • The candidate should hold a graduate degree in social sciences, gender studies, development studies, international development, or a related field.
  • Strong research and report-writing skills are essential for this consultancy.
  • Knowledge and understanding of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy and Feminist International Assistance Gender Equality Toolkit for Projects
  • Technical knowledge and experience related to paid and unpaid care work would be assets.
  • Experience in applying systems and market systems analysis approaches to women’s economic empowerment programming would be an asset.

 APPLICATIONS

Interested parties are encouraged to submit an application package, including a technical and financial offer, by email to: malawi@wusc.ca. Only electronic proposals will be accepted. The application submission deadline is 30 April 2025.

WUSC’s activities seek to balance inequities and create sustainable development around the globe. The work ethic of our staff, volunteers, consultants, representatives, and partners shall correspond to the organization’s values and mission. WUSC promotes responsibility, respect, honesty, and professional excellence, and we will not tolerate harassment, coercion, sexual exploitation, or abuse in any form.

LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY

Any document shared with the service provider as part of this TOR is considered part of WUSC property that cannot be distributed or used by any other agency. All materials produced under this ToR are the property of WUSC and cannot be distributed or used by any agency.

The TORs may also be downloaded through: MW-GESI & Environmental Analysis Draft ToR – April 2025