Consultant : Development of a Meaningful Youth Engagement Country Scorecard in the Asia-Pacific Region

Hosted by the IPPF ESEAOR office in Malaysia, the Asia and Pacific Hub, one of tis dedicated to driving commitments, fostering collaboration, and advocating for family planning at different levels, from region to community. With a strong presence in country support, data analysis, and evidence-based decision-making, the hub works towards tailoring actions to achieve FP2030’s strategic goals in the region.

Background

According to the global consensus statement, Meaningful adolescent and youth engagement is an inclusive, intentional, mutually-respectful partnership between adolescents, youth, and adults whereby power is shared, respective contributions are valued, and young people’s ideas, perspectives, skills, and strengths are integrated into the design and delivery of programs, strategies, policies, funding mechanisms, and organisations that affect their lives and their communities, countries, and world. According to UNESCAP[1], Over 60% of the world’s youth live in Asia-Pacific. This translates into more than 750 million young women and men aged 15 to 24 years[SB1] . This means a broader portion of the population (including academics, NGOs, public sector contacts) must be mobilized to create a safety net that has the potential to push formal or informal involvement to a place that establishes sustainable, collective and long-term action.

[1] Youth in Asia-Pacific 2012 | ESCAP (unescap.org)

[SB1]Add source

FP2030’s initiatives include specific commitments and strategies to address the sexual and reproductive health needs of adolescents and youth. These commitments recognize the importance of empowering young people to make informed decisions about their reproductive health and access high-quality family planning services. To ensure investment, advocacy and policy support, data and partnership around AYSRHR, it is crucial to have a deep understanding of MAYE in a country context. Through collaborating with national focal points for adoption of high impact practices, youth-inclusive policy development processes, advocacy and accountability, including budget tracking for commitments, issues like unmet need of family planning among youth and adolescents can be significantly addressed and improved.

In connection to that, FP2030 Asia and the Pacific hub will develop a Meaningful Adolescent and Youth Engagement (MAYE) Scorecard on Family Planning access and use as an innovative and comprehensive tool designed to assess the extent to which country programs, strategies, funding mechanism, guidelines, and plans enable and support meaningful engagement of adolescents and youth in family planning (FP) initiatives. Additionally, the scorecard aims to highlight areas of strength and improvement, fostering a conducive environment for increased youth contraceptive use including the critical importance of providing access to family planning services and information for unmarried adolescents and youth to ensure their reproductive health and well-being. Through concrete findings the assessment report will guide to champion AY as equal partners in SRH decision-making, hold countries and organizations accountable to AYSRH needs, and ultimately contribute to the delay of AY first births and significantly reduce unwanted pregnancies and the unmet need for family planning among AY and improving their contraceptive access.

The assessment will highlight the potential consequences of inadequate meaningful youth engagement across different levels e.g. decision making; policy; programme; service provision: peer led initiatives, CSE etc. The document also intends to recognize the existing gaps in commitments related to Adolescent and Youth (AY) engagement within FP2030 commitment-making countries. Through this assessment countries will be able to create a tailored approach to integrate AY priorities into national commitments and action plans. Even if countries have AY commitments there could be lack of MAYE which will be addressed through the report as well.

Objective

The consultant is tasked with developing a meaningful Youth Engagement Country Scorecard to assess a deep understanding of youth engagement in the FP2030 commitment making countries.

The Scorecard will have three key objectives: [SB1]

• To evaluate delivery of AY programs’ M&E, strategies, funding mechanism, of commitment-making countries under FP2030 regarding Meaningful Adolescents and Youth Engagement (MAYE).
• To identify gaps and strengths in existing policies related to MYE in family planning access and use.
• To identify AY priorities and guide future commitments based on gaps and areas of weakness identified by the Scorecard through comparing MAYE environments across countries
• To contribute to the global youth engagement agenda by incorporating adolescent and youth priorities into country commitments and action plans. The action plan should clearly state how does MYE in FP reduce unmet needs among young people through bringing in high impact practices examples which has led to improved uptake of contraceptives.

[SB1] Consider revising based on comments in the concept note

Scope of Work

Output from the assignment is a scorecard consisting of meaningful youth engagement color coded measurement indicators consisting of evaluation design and delivery of programs, strategies, policies, funding mechanisms, and organizations. The scorecard will also include Recommendations and Action plan with annexes as required, and a short Executive Summary after the scorecard. At a minimum, the report will include the following components:

• Conduct a comprehensive review of the Adolescent and youth focused commitments of FP2030 Asia and pacific region commitment making countries. The review will be based on the commitment documents available on the FP2030 website.
• Introduction, rationale and background information necessary for building a Meaningful youth engagement scorecard for Asia and the Pacific region, including an analytical summary of past and current efforts in this regard;
• Develop a color-coded scorecard consisting of meaningful youth engagement color coded measurement indicators consisting evaluation design and delivery of programs, strategies, policies, funding mechanisms, and organizations.
• Develop a framework to compare MAYE environments across countries.
• Validating the scorecard through exercising the process with 3 AP hub commitment making country profiles.
• Highlight good practices, recent experiences and lessons learned, as well as the common social, economic and political challenges regarding meaningful youth engagement.
• Align FP2030’s AY strategy Five Pillars of Action in the recommendation and action plan tailored to 3 AP hub countries.
• Work closely with FP2030 and regional stakeholders to validate the scorecard and incorporate feedback.

Deliverables

The consultant will be expected to deliver the following:

a. A draft Youth Engagement Scorecard, including indicators design and delivery of programs, strategies, policies, funding mechanisms, and organizations.

b. A final version of the scorecard, refined based on feedback from FP2030 and regional stakeholders.

c. A comprehensive report on Adolescent and Youth priorities and guide future commitments based on gaps and areas of weakness identified by the Scorecard[SB1] .

d. Capacity building of youth focal points and other country focal points by sharing the recommendations.

[SB1]Do you want to include capacity building and sharing recommendations with youth focal points and country focal points here as we discussed earlier

Timeline

The consultancy is expected to be completed between March 2024- April 2024, with regular progress updates provided to FP2030.

Qualifications

The ideal consultant should possess:

• Masters degree in social/ political sciences, international development, law or any related field
• Minimum of 3 years relevant work experience in assessments, program implementation, monitoring evaluation and learning and development of youth strategies.
• Experience working with youth/youth issues in sectors such as SRHR, Family Planning, youth empowerment, youth policy advocacy across multiple countries, ideally at the international level
• Knowledge of youth related good practices and trends in youth engagement
• Extensive experience in developing monitoring and evaluation tools, preferably in the field of sexual and reproductive health.
• In-depth knowledge of youth engagement strategies, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.
• Strong research and analytical skills, with a proven track record in data-driven decision-making.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate with diverse stakeholders.

Budget

Interested consultants are invited to submit a detailed budget proposal outlining their fees, expenses, and any other relevant costs associated with the completion of the consultancy. We do not anticipate country visits and much of the consultancy will be conducted through desk review and virtually.