consultancy -Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care (WE- Care) Program Phase V

1. Introduction

Oxfam is a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice. Across regions, from the local to the global, we work with people to address inequalities, tackle the root causes of poverty, and bring transformative changes as well as lifesaving support during moments of crisis.

The foundation of our work is solely based on our commitment to the universality of human rights. Driven by diversity and basing our asks in evidence and experience, we take a global stand against poverty and injustices. Feminist approaches strongly guide our analysis, actions, and interactions. To learn more about Oxfam, please click here.

Project Background

The Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care (WE-Care) program has been operational since 2013. WE-Care is an Oxfam flagship program that seeks to address the unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) gender gap as a key factor in achieving gender equality and economic development. WE-Care works by tackling heavy and unequal UCDW to create lasting change for women and girls. This is subsequently aimed at creating a just and inclusive society by recognizing, reducing, and redistributing, rewarding UCDW, and by increasing the representation of collectives and organizations being oppressed by the disproportionate burden of UCDW to build their resilience. Through research, organizational support, capacity building, political advocacy and public influencing, WE-Care aims to shift the unpaid care narrative from being a woman’s issue to being a development, economic, and gender equality issue.

Phase 5.1 of the program (2023-2024) spans four countries in East and Southern Africa, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, and two additional components: a regional and global one.

To learn more about WE-Care, please click here.

Purpose

This Terms of Reference serves as a guideline to interested consultant(s) for undertaking the baseline assessment of the Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care (WE-Care) program, implemented by Oxfam and partners in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Zimbabwe and its global and regional components.

Assessment objective: The main objective of the baseline assessment is gathering data and benchmark indicators to establish a clear and comprehensive understanding of the current state/ baseline conditions of the WE-Care phase 5.1 project outputs and outcome indicators as outlined in the project logical framework It will serve as a starting point for assessing the impact and effectiveness of the changes to the indicators over time. The specific baseline values must be provided for all indicators in the Log Frame as a benchmark. Baseline data is intended to inform the establishment of realistic and achievable targets, provide a point of reference against which progress on or towards the achievement of outcomes can be monitored and evaluated, and provide suggestions for the review of indicators if and where necessary.

As a reference, the desired results for the project are as follows:

Transformative Impact: Women and girls in Africa, especially Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe, have greater autonomy over their lives through recognition, redistribution, reduction, reward, and representation of their paid and unpaid care and domestic work. As a result, they live their lives to the fullest and enjoy better social, economic, political, and cultural rights.

See Terms of Reference for full details