Terms of Reference on Consultancy for a Gender Mainstreaming Strategy for the CSSPST.
Introduction and background
Never Again Rwanda (NAR) is a peace building and social justice organization that arose in response to the 1994 genocide perpetrated against Tutsis. Guided by a vision of a nation where citizens are agents of positive change and work together towards sustainable peace and development, NAR aims to empower Rwandans with opportunities to become active citizens through Peacebuilding and development. NAR has five strategic pillars: Peacebuilding, Governance and Human Rights, Youth Engagement,Strategic partnerships and Research

NAR follows the impressive national model pioneered by the Government of Rwanda (GoR), making globally-recognized strides in gender equality. The government has adopted progressive policies with the aim of "set[ting] the Rwandan society free from all forms of gender-based discrimination and see[ing] both men and women participate fully and enjoy equitably from the development process." In line with the national gender policy in Rwanda and the National Strategy for Transformation, NAR continues to operationalize gender mainstreaming as a priority and strengthen gender-aware approaches, methods, and policy creation tools to place inclusivity at the fore of program design and implementation inorder to improve equitable programming outcomes.
Currently, NAR is implementing a 4-year program funded by Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) that runs from July 2022 to June 2026 entitled” The Civil Society and State Engagement on Public Policies for Socioeconomic Transformation Program (CSSPST)”. To ensure gender is well mainstreaming in all steps of the program implementation, NAR is recruiting the gender expert to develop the gender mainstreaming strategy which will guide its efforts to integrate gender in the said program. The gender strategy should be accompanied by gender mainstreaming action Plan and relevant check lists detaining the process of how, why, when, and where to integrate gender in the program. The strategy should demonstrate how NAR as a leaning of the consortium and how consortium members will use the strategy in their respective learning by doing projects.

Program summary
NAR is implementing a 4-year program funded by Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) that runs from July 2022 to June 2026 titled” The Civil Society and State Engagement on Public Policies for Socioeconomic Transformation Program (CSSPST)”. CSSPST is a program designed to enhance Rwanda’s Civil Society’s ability and capacity to undertake effective policy advocacy on socio-economic transformation and by extension contribute to actual policy changes i.e., improvements in existing policies and strategies for their improved implementation.
Intrinsic in the design of the program is that citizens’ needs, and priorities can hardly be answered when community members are not adequately capacitated to effectively influence local and or national policy agenda and processes, and that what may be required, is focused advocacy efforts on specific topics, as opposed merely to the raising of problems requiring solution through general platforms.
The Civil Society is presumed to play a dual role, to supplement services provided by the government, and to provide a conduit for citizens’ efforts to hold the government to account. The CSSPST design seeks to help civil society overcome weaknesses that are hurdles to effective advocacy. It does this by adopting an 8-step “sequenced advocacy” aimed at enhancing the ability and capacity of Civil Society in Rwanda to effectively undertake policy advocacy on socio-economic transformation and contribute to actual policy change through a sequenced advocacy.
NAR is leading a consortium of 6 local CSOs: AJPRODHO–JIJUKIRWA (Association de la Jeunesse pour la Promotion des Droits de l’Homme et développement); CCOAIB (Conseil de Concertation des Organisations d’Appui aux Initiatives de Base), which is an umbrella organisation for CSOs in the agriculture sector; CLADHO (Collectif des Ligues et Associations de Défense des Droits de l’Homme au Rwanda); YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association of Rwanda); CERULAR (Centre for rule of law Rwanda) and Save Generations Organisation through a 8-steps sequenced approach to advocacy. The organisations’ mandate are reflective of the three NST-1 pillars.
Intended Impact and Key Results of CSSPST
The intended impact of CSSPST is effective policy response to development challenges under the NST1 pillars. To achieve the aforementioned impact and, the program will generate the following results:
• CSOs enhanced understanding of sequenced approaches to policy advocacy demonstrated.
• CSOs implement selected practical policy influencing projects utilising sequenced approaches to policy advocacy.
• Monitoring and evaluation techniques adopted, which support the practical application of learning by stakeholders involved in project implementation.
Program Approaches
The Theory of Change (ToC) for the program is that strengthening CSOs capacity and ability will have a positive effect on policy. This means that making improved connections between citizens and policy-makers in areas critical to the achievement of NST1 targets will result in more responsive policy. The approaches used in strengthen the capacity and ability of CSOs include:
Learning by Doing-“A Sequenced Approach to Advocacy”
Never Again Rwanda will lead the consortium of 6 local CSOs who will select actual policy influencing topics under the 3 pillars underpinning NST-1 and manage the topics through a 8-step sequenced approach to advocacy.
Learning through Coursework
The learning by doing process will be complemented by short classroom style training courses in elements of the advocacy approach will also be delivered, and be
commissioned through an expert Technical Advisor (TA). The TA will also provide facilitating support to backstop efforts by lead and consortium members to implement the projects. Interested parties, such as members of CSO Umbrella groups that are core members of the Rwanda Civil Society Platform (RSCP) may be included in search learning sessions, even if they do not take part in specific learning by doing projects.

Learning through Monitoring
Outcome Mapping is the core approach to monitoring and learning for the Program. The process involves helping partners to engage in constant reflection and learning through monitoring the process of project implementation in which they are engaged.
This involves maintaining a formatted report which requires partners to reflect on: the engagement context; the policy context and technology of the problem they are working on; establishment of objectives and activities (strategy); review and alteration/modification of these depending upon changing circumstances and constant learning about what is changing and what is or is not working; and maintaining a focus on achieving the common goal.
Description of Assignment
A Gender Mainstreaming Strategy that ensures CSSPST will promote gender equality objectives, provide gender equality action plans, provide equal opportunities for personnel, develop stakeholders gender equality competence, provide user-friendly gender mainstreaming methods and tool and a gender mainstreaming support structure.
Scope of work
The consultant shall carry out the following tasks:
• A literature review of NAR gender strategy documents, and national strategic documents on Gender amongst others,
• Organize consultation meetings with NAR team and or program consortium members
• Develop an inception report and methodology for the strategy and action plan outlining priority areas
• Collect information from selected NAR staff and members of management as well as consortium members
• Present the Inception report for comments and feedback
• Finalize the Inception report
• Develop first draft strategy and action plan.
• Present strategy and plan to NAR program and management team for inputs
• Incorporate comments from exercise and finalize the document
• Present document at validation session.
• Finalize the document by incorporating comments from the validation exercise
• Submit a well-crafted Gender mainstreaming strategy and Plan for the CSSPST
Quality Assurance
Minimum quality standards will be required to proceed to the disbursement. Quality of the outputs will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria:
• A detailed work plan of how the gender mainstreaming strategy will be introduced and it specifies planned activities, milestones, assigned responsibilities and a timeline.
• Sets gender equality objectives for the program
• Provides a gender equality action plan
• Provides how equal opportunities can be promoted within the program’s personnel
• How gender equality competence of stakeholders can be developed
• Provides a gender mainstreaming support structure
• How gender mainstreaming can be communicated with stakeholders and externally.
In event that the service delivered is unsatisfactory or fails to conform to the conditions set out above, the NAR reserves the right, as appropriate to interrupt it, to request that it be corrected or modified, or to refuse to accept the service.

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Deliverables
A Gender Mainstreaming strategy based on an analysis with a clear set of recommendations and a working plan that sets out a detailed plan on how the strategy can be introduced and that specifies planned activities, milestones, assigned responsibilities, allocated resources and a timeline. In addition, possibly organize a consultation bringing together various stakeholders of the program to review and validate the recommendations and agree on the set of activities for mainstreaming gender into the program.
Inception report: The inception report describing the design and methodology to be used in handling the assignment, detailed action plan, tools to be used to collect data, proposed gender mainstreaming strategy structure, and other relevant information.
Draft gender mainstreaming Strategy: A well elaborate draft gender mainstreaming strategy describing well the all steps, processes and operational procedure for gender mainstreaming across the program at NAR level as a lead of consortium and at partner level ( at every consortium member). The strategy should indicate how gender will be fully integrated in all steps of programming: Planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, learning and reporting. The strategy should also show how gender will be mainstreamed in other relevant program steps including policy analysis, research, advocacy and advocacy impact documentations.
The gender mainstreaming strategy should be accompanied by user friendly gender mainstreaming tools and check lists to be used by program team at NAR and partner level throughout all steps of program design and implementation.
Final gender mainstreaming strategy: The draft gender mainstreaming strategy and check lists will be presented to NAR technical team and management for review and inputs. The consultant will be required to integrate NAR’s inputs to produce the final document and relevant tools. The final strategy, action plan and gender mainstreaming tools will be presented to NAR and consortium members for validation.

Proposed activity Description Responsible individual
Inception Preliminary meetings and correspondence, Inception report outlining preliminary finding, documentation review and methodology for carrying out the task. NAR team + expert team
Draft Gender Mainstreaming Strategy Data collection including holding interviews and FGDs with relevant team members and consortium, writing the strategy, develop action plan and gender mainstreaming tools/checklists Expert team
Revision of Draft strategy, Action Plan and Tools Suggested/ recommended edits
NAR team + relevant stakeholders
Comments incorporation
Up-take of changed on draft strategy
Expert team


Validation meeting
Hold a validation meeting to validate the strategy, action plan and tools. The meeting will attract NAR team, consortium members, donors and other relevant partners


NAR team
Submission of the Final strategy The consultant will be required to review the documents based on last inputs suggested by validation meeting Expert team
Composition
The assignment will be carried out by one consultant with the following qualifications:
• Advanced University Degree (minimum Master’s Degree in gender studies, development studies, political science or other related fields).
• Atleast five years of experience in programme management of gender equality, gender mainstreaming or women empowerment policies/projects/programmes; knowledge of gender equality at the institutional level.
• At least five years of experience in planning, design, preparation and delivery of gender equality strategies, preferably.
• Experience with NGOs/CSOs particularly those related to gender equality and women’s empowerment, both in programme and operations is preferred.
Supervision and working relationships
The consultant will report directly to NAR gender mainstreaming Expert. However, the consultant will interact will relevant technical team and management members to ensure the work is well done and relevant inputs are provided.
Never Again Rwanda’s responsibilities
• Avail relevant documents and give feedback to the consultant.
• Provide a staff who will be a point of contact throughout the assignment
• Ensure quality assurance and coordination
• Facilitate in logistics arrangement for validation meeting
• Pay the consultant the agreed consultancy fees

Contract and payments
Never Again Rwanda will sign a consultancy contract with the consultant. The consultancy fees will be paid in 2 instalments: The first instalments of 40% of the total amount will be paid upon the approval of inception report and the remaining amount (60%) will be paid upon submission and approval of all final deliverables.
Timeline:
The expected starting period is 9th January 2023
The expected end of assignment 9th February 2023
The assignment is expected to take place in 30 working days.5 days will be dedicated to revising and reviewing the final report. We advise that the team/expert remain in close consultation with the NAR offices and provide regular feedback (preferably weekly) on the progress made.
Languages:
All outputs should be in English
Administration
Comments and questions on the Terms of Reference can be addressed to Leah Tesfamariam by email at leah.tesfamariam@neveragainrwanda.org.
Personal resumes, technical proposal and the financial proposal should be submitted by email to info@neveragainrwanda.org by December 9th ,2022 at 5pm.