Facilitating a Gender Equality and Inclusion Self-Assessment (GEISA)

Job Description

Terms of Reference

Facilitating a Gender Equality and Inclusion Self-Assessment (GEISA)

Background

Plan believes that gender equality and inclusion are central to achieving our vision for change: a world in which all children, both girls and boys, realize their full potential in societies that respect people’s rights and dignity. Many violations of children’s rights have their roots in gender-based inequality, exclusion and injustice. Achieving gender equality and inclusion are therefore core objectives of Plan’s work as an organization dedicated to child rights. In line with this, Plan International Canada Inc. (Hereafter Plan Canada) has decided to undertake a Gender Equality and Inclusion Self-Assessment (GESA) as part of our wider commitment to promoting gender equality and inclusion in all aspects of our work.

Why is the GEISA Important?

Undertaking a GEISA is part of Plan’s process to understand and build our capacity to address gender inequalities and exclusion. The GEISA enables Plan staff to look at and identify the critical gender and exclusion issues in our program work, across our offices and staff, and in the essential supporting work of advocacy, campaigning, fundraising and communications and come up with action plan to address the identified issues.

Definition of a GEISA

A GEISA is a participatory process that encourages staff to ‘take stock’ of all their work, to see how far it promotes gender equality and inclusion. Reviewing and reflecting on the quality and relevance of our current work with a gender and inclusion lens allows staff to understand what is working well, where the gaps are, and to decide on clear actions to improve the quality of this work in future. A GEISA requires every Plan office to look at both our internal office and our external relations, understanding and exploring the gender equality and inclusion issues in both.

Purpose of Consultancy

The Consultant is being commissioned to support Plan Canada in conducting a GEISA. The purpose of a GEISA is:

• To undertake a learning and review process on gender equality and inclusion across all Plan’s work, both internal and external; and
• To identify the strengths and challenges of Plan’s gender equality and inclusion work in order to determine concrete steps for making improvements.

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Scope of work and methodology

The process of a gender equality and inclusion self-assessment needs to be highly participatory, working closely with Plan staff. The consultants’ role is to guide the GEISA process as a facilitator rather than an external evaluator. The evidence from other organizations and within Plan shows that a participatory self-assessment is the most effective way to learn about gender equality and inclusion in an organization.

The consultant will work closely with Plan Canada’s Sr. Gender Equality Advisor and VP, organizational Effectiveness to undertake the GEISA. This will include the following key steps:

• Initial discussion with Sr. GE advisor and VP, Organizational Effectiveness to understand Plan Canada’s organizational structure, key guiding policies and principles for this assignment.
• Detailed GEISA methodology, including work plan and schedule.
• Agree on methods to be used in the GEISA process.
• Review of key documents from different business units
• Collect required information through participatory processes (Document review, FGDs, key informant interviews).
• Analyze the information
• Validate information with business units
• Write a draft GEISA report, with identified issues and recommended action plan.
• Present the GEISA feedback to Plan Canada Sr. GE advisor and VP, Organizational Effectiveness (and anyone else invited by them)
• Present a final, agreed and clear report on the process, findings and recommendations (concrete and actionable recommendations for promoting gender equality as well as enhancing inclusivity).
• Maintain on-going communication with Plan Canada’s Sr. Gender Advisor and VP, Org. Effectiveness throughout the entire process.

The Consultant will ensure that the GEISA is a critical process for Plan to reflect upon, and work towards, the commitments in Plan’s Policy on Gender Equality (2011), which outlines operational standards in five areas:

1. Offices and Staff
2. Programs
3. Partnerships
4. Advocacy and Campaigns
5. Communications and Marketing

Expected Deliverables

It is expected that the consultant will produce the following deliverables:

• A work-plan for the GEISA process.
• Baseline findings on gender equality across all five areas of Plan’s work.
• A draft and final report on the GEISA.
• Presentation materials for dissemination of GEISA process and findings.
• A summary of recommendations to be used for a Gender and Inclusion Action Plan.

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A set of Plan GESA Guidelines have been developed to guide this work. It is expected that the consultant will utilize these guidelines to inform the expected deliverables. The consultant is expected to build on the guidelines to identify inclusion issues as well.

Time Frame and Budget

The entire GEISA process will be undertaken over a time period from July 2016 to October 2016 (from inception to report delivery). The consultant should specify the overall level of effort (# of days) as well as the timeline for the steps in the process.

Person Specification

Plan Canada aims to contract a consultant with experience of conducting organizational gender audits, gender self-assessments and inclusion assessments, especially for large NGO/ INGOs or other institutions engaged in social development work. The external facilitator should have the following skills:

• Experience in undertaking a gender and /or inclusion self-assessment in Plan or another INGO;
• Understanding of organizational structure, operations and policies for large NGO/ INGOs;
• Appreciation of the challenges and limitations as well as opportunities within organizational business to promote gender equality and inclusion;
• Strong facilitation skills and hands-on experience of working in participatory ways with staff groups, partners and communities;
• Strong gender analytical skills and knowledge/experience of different gender tools;
• Ability to create non-threatening environment for open and frank discussions on difficult issues
• Strong understanding of inclusion issues in organizational set-up and experience of using tools to elicit information pertaining to inclusion;
• The ability to select the best approach/methodology for different groups and audiences;
• Qualitative data collection skills;
• Openness to listen, learn and accurately record the GEISA findings;
• Good report-writing skills are essential;
• An ability to present challenging findings from the GEISA with actionable propositions to move forward;
• Experience with rights-based program approaches; and
• An understanding of the linkages between children’s rights, gender equality and inclusion.

How to Apply:

All interested applicants should submit a copy of their CV and a letter of interest, detailing their experience and approach to conducting the gender equality and inclusion self-assessment processes to gethired@plancanada.ca.

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