Child Rights Situational Analysis (CRSA) – Consultant

Background of the project 

9.2 million children in Afghanistan are in need of humanitarian assistance[1]. Following the transition to a new political system in Afghanistan in 2021, there have been significant changes in the protection situation and risk landscape particularly with regards to Child Protection and Family Support systems. The protection, safety and well-being of children and the support of families are everyone’s responsibility. This Child Rights Situation Analysis aims to provide an up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of the realization of children’s rights in Afghanistan, including key areas of deprivation and causes of shortfalls and inequities. This evidence base aims to guide the building of child-centered program and sustainable community-based Child Protection and Family Support System in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders including the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Ministries of Education, Health, Justice, Interior and Religious Affairs, UNICEF and national and international child-focused NGOs. The CSRA will follow a rights-based approach with a conceptual framework based on a wide range of international conventions, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It will cover the following sets of children rights with an intersectional and cross-cutting lens of UN-CRC’s basic principles (i.e. Survival & Development, Participation, Best Interest and Non-discrimination):

• Survival Rights,
• Protection Rights,
• Participation Rights, and
• Development Rights.

PURPOSE AND OBJECTIVES

General Objectives

The CRSA’s general objective is to explore the child rights situation in Afghanistan using the Gende Equality Diversity and Inclusion lens by understanding the context, system, and significant violations and barriers to achieving child rights and well-being and root causes that hinder the enjoyment of the rights. The CRSA will also have an overview of the policy, legislative and systems for fulfilling children’s rights and accordingly recommendations for filling the gaps identified therein. The CRSA overall structure is to follow the below listed flow across the data collection, analysis, presenting the findings and recommendations:

• Gaps and Immediate and/or direct actions for the Child Rights Actors in the country through rights-based and focused programming.
• Gaps and actions to strengthen the constituencies of support for the children’s rights in the country.
• Gaps and actions to strengthen the child protection system in the country; and
• Gaps and actions for the policy and legislative reforms for fulfilling children’s rights in Afghanistan.

Specific Objectives

• Investigate the state of children in Afghanistan with respect to four children’s rights (survival, education and development, protection, and participation);
• Analyze the policy frameworks and equity issues associated with the four rights areas to identify gaps and opportunities for policy advocacy.
• Provide specific recommendations on key gaps/findings for the duty bearers for improving the state of children in Afghanistan, bringing together the three dimensions that need to be addressed to improve child wellbeing and in accordance with Sustainable Development Goals.
• Identify the correlation of child protection risks and disaster related risks for children because of climate change and disasters.
• Identify the gaps in local disaster management planning to reduce the risk of child protection and manage child protection services due to climate-induced disaster in Afghanistan.

Scope of work

1. To complete CRSA, the consultant will be expected to undertake the following specific tasks in his scope of work:

• Desk Review: The consultant will review available documents, studies, publications, reports etc. on children and identify key gaps in the information base.
• Detailed Timeline: As a key first deliverable, the consultant will be expected to submit a detailed timeline. The timeline should be structured considering the overall duration of the CRSA and should include complete details on any workshops or meetings and expected attendance and participation.
• Conceptual and Analytical Framework: The consultant will prepare a conceptual and analytical framework for the Situation Analysis.
• Issue Identification Workshops: Prior to carrying out primary data collection, key analysis, the consultant will be expected to facilitate workshops at the national/sub-national level to identify key issues facing children. The workshops will aim to identify key deprivations, patterns of inequities and main causes.
• Inception Report: The consultant will prepare a detailed Inception Report based on both the output of the desk review and the issue identification workshop which will detail the following:
• Methodology (tools and process);
• Availability of data sources, clustered by thematic focus areas;
• Information gap analysis and actions to complete gaps as required by CRSA;
• Outline of CRSA report;
• Primary Data Collection: On identifying the information gaps, the consultant will develop primary data collection tools and will have them reviewed and approved by the IRC. The consultant is to propose data collection methods in the technical proposal which may need to be revised after desk review. The data collection methods should be specified separately for the quantitative and qualitative data. The consultant will be required to share the sample size and sampling techniques that will be applied for the CRSA.
• Data Analysis and Preliminary Findings: Before drafting the CRSA report, the consultant will be required to analyze the data and share preliminary findings with the IRC. The IRC will provide feedback on the preliminary findings and confirming their satisfaction or otherwise the need to collect more data or analysis to improve the findings.
• Cross-validating the Preliminary Findings: The consultant will be required to cross-validate the findings through a multi-stakeholder workshop. The consultant will be required to share preliminary findings, seek inputs and revise as per stakeholders’ inputs where relevant and appropriate.
• CRSA Report: The consultant will draft a high quality CRSA report as per the agreed report outline and will share with the IRC for the review and feedback. The consultant will incorporate the feedback and will make a revised submission. The IRC will again conduct a final review of the report and share final feedback for the consultant to incorporate and finalize the report.

Deliverables:

1. The consultant will be responsible of submitting the final report with all the relevant data collected and the analysis done to produce the report. This will include the primary data as well as secondary data review.

2. The other deliverables will include:

• Inception meeting
• Well encompassing inception report (detailing all methodology aspects, actions, and timeframe)
• Presentation on Preliminary Findings
• Draft report (child protection, and with Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and GEDI mainstreamed)
• Validation meeting/workshop with different stakeholders to validate the report findings
• Well encompassing final report (child protection, and with DRR and GEDI mainstreamed)
• Hard/soft copies (as applicable) of all data

3. Assessment target group, sample size and protocol:

• Boys, girls (children and adolescents) from IDPs, IDP returnees, refugees, refugee returnees and shock- affected non-displaced Host communities host communities, especially from the climate-induced disaster-prone areas
• Child Safeguarding and Disclosure protocols
• Risk assessment will be conducted prior to the child participatory activity and will be validated during the training with the enumerators.
• The enumerators will receive child safeguarding and child participation training by IRC ahead of the child engagement assessments.
• A protocol to be set up for potential disclosures during FGDs or KIIs on child safeguarding issues including the ethical and confidentiality protocol and procedures.
• Protocols for referrals should be in-place prior to child participatory activities.

Minimum Qualifications:

Requirements:

• Post-graduate degree in research studies, social work, anthropology, gender studies, development Studies and/or related field
• The contract requires a combination of national and international expertise in child protection, gender and disaster risk reduction and management.
• Good understanding of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the national and international monitoring and reporting mechanisms.
• Clear understanding on child rights system strengthening and associated national framework.
• Thorough understanding of PAF (protection analytical framework) and Risk analysis process in protection.
• Previous experience conducting similar studies preferably in Afghanistan (should be able to share sample reports).
• Expertise in Qualitative and quantitative data/information collection, analysis, and reporting.
• Experience in working with government, donors, children, parents/caregiver, civil society and being able to interact with a variety of stakeholders at different levels.
• Knowledge of both humanitarian and development contexts in Afghanistan.

Note: The Lead Consultant will be required to share the CVs of key experts that may be required to conduct the high quality CRSA and share their CVs annexed with technical proposals along with Letters of Commitment ensuring their availability for the study. The lead consultant will not be allowed to make changes in the team (for the experts whose CVs are submitted with the proposal) without prior consultation and approval of the IRC. Such replacements, however, will only be allowed in situations absolutely unavoidable.