Consultant for the preparation of the background document for the Ending Child Marriage in South Asia Regional Forum

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Consultant for the preparation of the background document for the Ending Child Marriage in South Asia Regional Forum

RATIONALE

Child marriage affects millions of young women and girls globally. Over 700 million women alive today were married as children. While child marriage affects girls disproportionately, boys are also affected: 156 million men alive today worldwide were married as children. Child marriage is a harmful practice that leads to human rights violations, with profound negative consequences, depriving children of developmental opportunities and restricting children’s choices, changing their course in life, and putting them at significant risk of abuse and violence. Member States have recognized the urgent need to end child marriage in international normative commitments including the Sustainable Development Goals, which call for the elimination of all harmful practices including child marriage by 2030 in Target 5.3.

South Asia is home to initiatives to combat child marriage, ranging from interventions aimed at empowering and educating girls, to providing cash transfers to encourage parents to delay marriage. The Kathmandu Call for Action to End Child Marriage was adopted in 2014 by the members of the South Asia Initiative to End Violence Against Children in a meeting of SAARC member states and partner organizations, signaling significant support from government representatives and multilateral organizations on the issue (SAIEVAC 2014). In 2014, SAIEVAC adopted the first Regional Action Plan to End Child Marriage in South Asia (2015-2018), which was subsequently extended for a period of five years covering the period 2019-2023.

To review the progress made since the Regional Action Plan was agreed, Regional Forum involving various sectors shall be held on 10-11 November 2022 in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Objectives of the Regional Forum:

• Stocktaking of efforts, interventions and investments to date to end child marriage in South Asia, including regional and country-led initiatives and action plans;
• Review of available data and research on child marriage in South Asia, and the evidence base for effective programming, key research findings, gaps and priorities;
• Identification of promising and innovative practices, success stories and lessons learned, as well as remaining gaps, challenges and unintended consequences of programming and policy level interventions;
• Revisiting achievements in implementing the Regional Plan of Action to End Child Marriage in South Asia and identifying priorities for future action up to 2030.

The outcome of the Regional Forum will be a narrative report identifying the key priorities, national and regional progress, good practices and future commitments, and key gaps in knowledge and practice to be addressed and inputs to the Regional Plan of Action to End Child Marriage in South Asia.

ABOUT THE CONSULTANCY

For accurate evaluation and assessment that could serve as a basis for the discussions in the Regional Forum and identification of future actions, a Consultant shall be engaged to develop a background document based on consolidating the following covering the period of 2019-2025:

1. Data and Trends in the region, including changing prevalence, manifestations and patterns of child marriage, changing drivers of the practice, and emerging new forms and manifestations and challenges and issues taking into consideration COVID-19.
2. Progress towards the Regional Action Plan to End Child Marriage including policy and legislative responses, including national legislation, National Action Plans, budgets and investments, M&E Tools, Theories of Change, lessons learned and good practices from SAARC Member States.
3. Relevant UN Resolutions and human rights documents
4. Review and highlight some examples of CSO initiatives and best practices
5. Examples Youth-lead initiatives and best practices
6. Monitoring and evaluation tools on measuring impact of policy and program interventions at the national levels either initiated by governments or CSOs in South Asia.

The Consultant shall work closely with the Regional Advocacy and Civic Engagement

EXPECTED OUTPUT: A background document not more than 30 pages that highlights the information mentioned in the previous section with corresponding Executive Summary and power point presentation.

TIMELINE: 3 October 2022- 26 October 2022

First draft of the document submitted on 19 October 2022