Background 

Ethiopia has a long-standing history of hosting refugees. The country maintains an open-door policy for refugee inflows and allows humanitarian access and protection to those seeking asylum on its territory. In 2004, a national Refugee Proclamation was enacted based on the international and regional refugee conventions to which Ethiopia is a party (1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, and its 1967 Protocol and the 1969 OAU Convention). Ethiopia’s parliament adopted revisions to its existing national refugee law on 17 January 2019, making it one of the most progressive refugee policies in Africa. The Law provides refugees with the right to work and reside out of camps; access social and financial services; and register life events, including births and marriages.

At of 30 September 2019, Ethiopia is hosting 702,145 registered refugees and asylum seekers in the 26 camps located in five regions (Tigray, Afar, Beneshangul Gumuz, Gambella, Somali) and urban areas and settlements in Ethiopia. The refuges population is composed of 314,546 from South Sudan (44.8%), 181,686 from Somalia (25.9%), 146,690 from Eritrea (20.9%), 51,855 Sudan (7.4%), 1,378 from Yemen (0.2%) and 5,990 from other countries (0.9%). Most refugees are granted refugee status prima facie, and most of the refugees are accommodated in camps, whilst only a smaller percentage of the refugee population is permitted to reside in urban areas for medical and/or protection and humanitarian reasons. In addition, about 18,800 Eritrean refugees reside in Addis Ababa under the Out-of-Camp Policy (OCP). Ethiopia also hosts 321,537 IDP households (Displacement Tracking Matrix Round 18).

The New Refugee Proclamation provides refugees with the right to work and reside out of camps within the bounds of its territories, fosters self-reliance and livelihood opportunities, ensures better access to social and financial services, facilitates registration of vital life events - such as births, deaths and marriages, and introduces the possibility of local integration of refugees who have been residing in the country for more than 20 years.

 Rationale for Integrated Gender and Accountability to Affected Population Analysis (AAP)

Ethiopia hosts more than 700,000 refugees (the second-largest refugee-hosting country in Africa after Uganda). Following the 2016 United Nations summit and as part of an overall roadmap (nine pledges) focusing on improving the rights of and services for refugees along the CRRF, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) is working to expand its industrialization agenda to create jobs for Ethiopians and refugees, referred to as the Jobs Compact.

The GoE and development partners asked the World Bank Group to support the government’s effort on the Jobs Compact via the support of job opportunities creation for Ethiopians and refugees. The Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) is a combination of Environmental and Social Systems Assessment (ESSA) which is part of the World Bank’s process in working with the GoE to prepare a program, which will use the Program for Results (PforR) and a smaller, complementary Investment Project Financing (IPF) component as lending tools for investment. The program development objective of this operation is ‘to provide economic opportunities for Ethiopians and refugees in an environmentally and socially sustainable way.

The EOP will support a subset of the government’s Jobs Compact Program relating to four results areas: refugee-related employment and protection; improving the broader investment climate; improving labour productivity; and further enhancing Ethiopia’s reputation on environmental and social issues (improving sustainability of industrial parks).

The program will target and work with the most vulnerable refugees in particular women and girls due to the realization that conflict, displacement and humanitarian crisis do not affect everyone equally, henceforth, the need to deliberately centralize gender equality and empowerment of refugee women and girls at the heart of an effective, inclusive and a right based response.

UNHCR is supporting the Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA) in developing a Gender and Protection Action Plan and the purpose of the assignment is to generate evidence on the gendered impact of displacement and humanitarian crisis, capture the changing gender roles and power dynamics among the different UNHCR people and communities of concerns including the intersections with other identity factor such as age, marital status, disability, ethnicity, religious affiliation, country of origin, migration and economic status to determine the distinct needs, capacities and vulnerabilities among the refugees and IDP women, men, boys and girls. This assignment will need to assess the current policies by ARRA, the different policies that they have in place, identify gaps, including in technical capacity or in working procedures.

The Protection and Action Plan will play a key role in mitigating protection and gender related risks that may arise within the new economic opportunities and movement out of refugee camps.

UNHCR aims to ensure that the ARRA Gender and Protection Action Plan is transformative and doesn’t reinforce gender inequalities, marginalization and exclusion among the vulnerable refugees, IDPs and Host communities and “do no harm”.

Scope of Work

The general objective of the assignment is to identify key gender dimensions of social, economic and cultural rules (policies, systems, procedures, attitudes and beliefs), and institutional barriers, opportunities and risks that affect, or could affect, the rights and livelihoods of refugees, IDP and host community women and men in terms of social-economic inclusion in Ethiopia. This information will be directly used to inform the development of ARRA Protection and Gender Action Plan with a view to promote women’s rights, ensure the enjoyment of equal rights to and benefits from inclusive development, enhance accountability to affected population and mitigate any protection and gender related risks

The specific purpose of this assignment is to provide an understanding of the specific needs, priorities, capacities, vulnerabilities and risks faced by women, men, boys and girls in refugee, IDP and host communities in Ethiopia through critically analyzing the following which will inform the development of Protection and Gender Action Plan

• Percentage and profile of women, men, boys and girls, persons with disability, elderly and marginalized groups in targeted locations.
• Distinct impact and experiences of conflict, displacement and humanitarian crisis on women, men, boys and girls in the targeted refugee, IDPs and host communities with a focus on capturing the assigned division of labor, roles, responsibilities and privileges among women, men, boys and girls.
• Different needs, capacities, vulnerabilities and aspirations between and among the refugee, IDPs and host communities in relation to overall social-economic inclusion and participation with a specific focus on education, livelihood and protection.
• Critically examine the changing gendered roles, types of access, control over assistance and resources as well as perspectives, capacities and constrains relatively towards each other in accessing critical services, assistance and livelihood opportunities.
• Identify specific gender dimension in relations to access to information and rights.
• Identify trusted and preferred sources of information; information needs of women, girls, men and boys (including elderly and persons with disabilities); and preferred channels to provide feedback to GoE, UNHCR and partners.
• Identify challenges/barriers faced by women, girls, men and boys in accessing information.
• Assess and identify the different prevailing attitudes in the targeted communities that define men and women roles and the gender imbalance in access and control over resources and benefits.
• Explore and map challenges faced by women in raising their voices, influence and in accessing employment opportunities including enterprise development in the personal, social, economic and political sphere.
• Conduct a comprehensive gender-sensitive risk and threat assessment and map the coping strategies adopted individually, at household level and community in meeting their basic and long-term needs.
• Identify local capacities, potentials and opportunities that can help to promote women and girls’ participation and address key gender inequality issues.
• Identify community and household structures in place that influence community cohesion and participation of women, girls, men and boys[1].
• Work closely with ARRA to assess their current gender and protection policies and its optimal impact on PoCs, as well as identify any gaps within the current policies, systems and procedures, including the technical capacity.
• Work closely with ARRA to understand the current gender and protection procedures of the main line ministries including, but not limited to MOLSA, MOYWCA, MOE, MOH to support in devising actions that would enhance the protection of PoCs.
• Provide specific recommendations that will address the above and mitigate any gender differences in access, participation or decision making that may be experienced by women and girls. Including a clear Plan of Action to address the gender imbalance in access to and control over resources and decision making at household, community and national level.

Methodology          

The consultant is expected to design the analysis methodology in consultation with the UNHCR country operation and ARRA to enable collection of data outlined in the scope of work. The methodology shall include:

1. Review of secondary data. This shall be based on UNHCR existing information landscape and external gender studies or analysis conducted in Ethiopia; specifically, in relation to UNHCR’s people of concern.
2. Key informant interviews with relevant stakeholders i.e. UNHCR, ARRA and different line ministries and partners
3. Focus group discussions with POCs and host community member when needed.

Deliverables

Upon the selection, the consultant is expected to submit the inception report outlining the analysis methodology and work plan. Within the agreed timeline, the consultant shall provide UNHCR with;

• Draft analysis report on the process, outputs and outcomes including list of tools used and time schedule.
• List of respondents
• Complete zero draft of the integrated Gender and AAP analysis for comments and feedback from the respective technical people in UNHCR both at the country and regional level (the report should include strategic findings, key conclusions and recommendations for UNHCR, and ARRA submitted to Protection Officer (Community-Based) for review, feedback and finalization within agreed timeline.
• Complete zero draft of Protection and Gender Action Plan
• One day validation workshop, including sharing of the key findings of the analysis and Protection and Gender Action Plan with the country team, ARRA, line ministries and partners and revise the report and Plan of Action considering the workshop.
• Submission of a final Analysis and the Action Plan within agreed timeline to Protection Officer (Community-Based)

Required Qualification, Skills and Competencies

The consultant selected will have the following expertise:

• The minimum academic qualification is post-graduate degree (Masters) in Gender studies;
• Minimum of five years of relevant professional work experience in conducting gender related work including conducting gender analysis studies and other social and anthropological research;
• Experience in conducting similar assignments in multi-cultural vulnerable communities (refugee and IDPs)
• Experience in working in humanitarian and development context.
• Fluency in English is mandatory.