Formative Research Consultant, Bangladesh Agency, Gender and Climate Change

Agency for All Background:

Agency for All is a global consortium project funded by USAID. The goal of Agency for All is to sustainably improve health and agency for individuals and communities. This includes advancing health and cross-sector development outcomes in areas such as: family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH); maternal, newborn, and child health; nutrition; infectious disease; and HIV/AIDS.

Agency for All aims to harness the power of diversity and local knowledge and expertise to develop culturally relevant constructs of agency, strengthen evidence on approaches to foster empowerment, prioritize local voices, and increase the agency of partners across our consortium ecosystem to generate and utilize evidence.

As a partner in the Agency for All consortium, Save the Children will be managing this consultancy. Save the Children Federation, Inc. (SC) is a global leader in humanitarian and development programming worldwide, working with governments, civil society, and private sector partners for over 100 years. SC uses evidence-based and theory-informed SBC approaches across health, nutrition, education, protection, and humanitarian sectors. We take a rights-based approach, reflected in our SBC programming, that addresses discriminatory social norms and gender inequalities across all levels of society (e.g., within government, community, family, etc.) and other social, structural, and environmental inequities that affect development outcomes for children and their communities.

Overview of Study/Activity Background:

Agency for All, with the support of USAID’s Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GenDev), is undertaking a sequential set of synergistic activities contributing to key questions around agency, empowerment, climate change, and health that build towards programmatic design and testing (i.e., a scoping review to examine whether and how agency has been considered within social and behavior change intervention design in gender-responsive climate change programming and a geospatial analysis is being carried out to guide the strategic selection of formative research sites within Bangladesh). Informed by the scoping review and geospatial analysis, formative research will be conducted to design an SBC intervention that supports gender-responsive climate change adaptation for health.

Specific Aims:

To understand local individual, social, and structural factors influencing individual and collective agency (e.g., gender, social and cultural norms, access to resources, social networks and community support, and psychological factors such as fear, anxiety, and hopelessness) in select focal area(s) in Bangladesh (to be determined) to design an SBC intervention that supports gender-responsive climate action for health.​

• Narrow and describe the target population.
• Identify the factors that influence individual and collective agency.
• Develop engaging and feasible activities.

The formativeresearch aims to understand local individual, social, and structural factors influencing agency within gender-responsive climate change adaptation about health programming in specific focal areas and climatic zones, with implications for cross-sectoral implementation. We will consider transformative elements such as attitudes, behaviors, and power crucial to implementing strategic gender-transformative interventions. This research is driven by the potential for positive change in the communities under study. Within this research, we plan to interrogate the following areas to inform subsequent intervention design:

• agency, (e.g.,how do people in focal communities conceptualize agency in terms of climate change adaptation; personal values and beliefs about environmental stewardship; psychological factors such as optimism, resilience, and emotional responses to climate issues; how agency around household planning manifests in focal communities; existing networks that provide access to shared knowledge, resources, and motivation related to climate change adaptation)
• gender (e.g., gender-based violence during climate-related disasters; the effects of social expectations and structural limitations on resilience and adaptability in the face of climate impacts)
• power (e.g., who has decision-making power about what; how might gender-transformative climate change programming shift existing norms to support agency)
• participation and access (e.g., what are gender- and age-based barriers and facilitators for participation in community activities, what are current availabilities and gaps in resources and services available locally, and does access vary by gender or age)
• resilience (e.g., how, by whom, and by what processes are community resources managed, is there strong social cohesion and support, what strategies have local people and communities used to mitigate, adapt, and recover from shocks and stresses)
• social and behavior change opportunities (e.g., where and from whom do different types of people seek information and advice on climate change and why do they use these information sources, when do community members have free time to access services or participate in activities, and does this vary by gender, age or season, what are preferred local communication channels and trusted messengers).

Approach: Participatory key informant interviews, participatory focus group discussions

Timing: December 1, 2024 – May 31, 2025

Key Tasks: The consultant will provide services in two phases:

Phase 1: Preparatory Phase (December 2024 – January 2025)

1. Consult with the Agency for All team to review the informed consent forms, tools, and protocol for clarity and understanding.
2. Translate the formative research consent forms, tools, and protocol developed by the Agency for All team and ensure the fidelity of translated documents.
3. Support the Agency for All team in submitting the consent forms, tools, and protocol for ethical review in Bangladesh.

Phase 2: Data Collection, Analysis, and Report (January – May 2025)

1. Pretesting the tools in accordance with Agency for All guidelines and refining tools as per the feedback.
2. Carry out data collection as per the formative research protocol and share with Agency for All team periodically to ensure timely improvements if required.
3. Transcribe and analyze data per the data analysis plan supplied by the Agency for All team.
4. Draft an outline for the report (template provided by Agency for All) and share it with the Agency for All team for feedback.
5. Draft the report and slide deck of formative research findings and finalize with inputs from Agency for All.

Deliverable and Payment Schedule:

Deliverable 1: Orientation, translated data collection tools, Bangladesh IRC approval, pretesting data collection tools

Estimated deadline: January

Days allocated: 10

Payment schedule: 20%

Deliverable 2: Complete data collection and submission of transcribed data

Estimated deadline: January-March

Days allocated: 20

Payment schedule: 40%

Deliverable 3: Analyzed data as per Agency for All guidance

Estimated deadline: April

Days allocated: 10

Payment schedule: 20%

Deliverable 4: Final report and PPT of summary findings

Estimated deadline: May

Days allocated: 10

Payment schedule: 20%

Experience and skill set required of a consultant

• Master’s degree in public health
• Prior experience in leading formative research using qualitative tools
• Experience in conducting qualitative and participatory research
• Strong analytical and interpretation skills
• Ability to produce quality work within the deadline
• Ability to travel in Bangladesh as needed, to lead fieldwork
• Fluent in English and Bangla (speaking, reading, writing)
• Ability to translate from English to Bangla and Bangla to English

How to apply

Please submit a letter of interest and proposal by November 15, 2024 to Rachel Dean at rdean@savechildren.org, that includes the following components:

1. CV of the proposed consultant
2. Letters of recommendation and/or reference list; links to portfolio or prior similar work
3. Daily/hourly rate