1. About the Aga Khan Development NetworkThe Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a network of private, non-denominational development agencies that share a mission to improve the living conditions and opportunities for marginalised communities across 30 countries in Africa and Asia. Through innovative, community-driven solutions that span social, economic, and cultural dimensions, AKDN agencies aim to holistically improve quality of life. AKDN’s education goal is to ensure all girls. boys, women, and men, are equipped with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to help them interact effectively with the world and be contributing members of a pluralistic society. AKDN assumes a holistic and systems approach to education programming ensuring all interventions are globally informed, locally rooted, are embedded in government and community interests and structures, and work to promote social inclusion, equity, and pluralism. AKDN invests in all sectors of the formal education systems, from pre-primary to tertiary, as well as in other formal and informal life-long learning opportunities, including teacher professional development. AKDN education agencies operating in East Africa are the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and its affiliate, the Madrasa Early Childhood Programme (MECP), Aga Kan University (AKU), Aga Khan Academies (AKA), and Aga Khan Education Services (AKES). 2. About the Aga Khan Foundation AKF seeks sustainable solutions to long-term problems of poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and ill-health, with special emphasis on the needs of rural communities in mountainous, coastal, and other resource-poor areas. In East Africa, AKF responds to local and regional priorities by developing and implementing effective programming, measuring, and documenting results and sharing lessons with governments, donors, and development actors to influence policy and practice. AKF operates a multi-sectoral portfolio that includes programming in Education, Economic Inclusion, Civil Society, Health and Early Childhood Development. AKF will be the primary interlocutor for this assignment but engaging all AKDN education agencies in the process will be critical. 3. About Foundations for Learning Foundations for Learning (F4L) is a five-year (2020-2025) project co-funded by Global Affairs Canada and AKF and implemented by AKDN education agencies, that will improve the educational systems at the pre-primary and primary level, in addition to strengthening women’s empowerment, and gender equality in three countries: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. F4L will strengthen the delivery of quality, gender-responsive, and inclusive pre-primary and primary education, and other social development services and reduce gender and social barriers to the utilisation and uptake of education and other sustainable development services. Together, F4L’s interventions will address the gender, social, cultural, and economic barriers that women and girls face in accessing education, making life decisions, and improving their equitable learning outcomes as key steps to exercise their basic human rights. Critical to F4L is building a Gender Responsive Social Behaviour Change Strategy (GRSBC) to inform the approach AKDN agencies assume to enable individuals and communities to identify negative attitudes and behaviours and adapt these to promote inclusion, gender equity, and pluralism within themselves and their behaviours and across society. The GRSBC will inform all interventions, materials, and communications to proactively address negative social norms and behaviours that entrench and perpetuate the exclusion of girls and women from accessing education services and equity of learning. F4L will reach over 1 million educators, learners, their families, and the broader education ecosystem in the following geographies: Kenya: Kilifi and Kwale CountiesTanzania: Lindi Rural, Lindi Urban, and Ruangwa DistrictsUganda: Arua and Yumbe Districts4. Purpose and Objectives of the Assessment F4L has been designed on evidence-based and proven education and learning approaches that promote the effective integration of innovations and engenders long-term transformative change in policy and practice. As a critical component of the success is the design and implementation of a gender transformative SBC strategy informed by the realities and lived experiences of communities, girls, boys, women, and men living in the target geographies. The SBC strategy will be a critical document which will inform all interventions, initiatives, and communications through the lifetime of F4L. AKDN will deliver F4L and all behaviour change initiatives through a strengths-based approach and seek to enable education ecosystem actors, including children, parents, teachers, and schools, as principal drivers of change internally to address barriers of female inclusion in learning and decision making. To achieve this, the situational analysis must provide AKDN with an understanding of the everyday lived experiences of communities, parents, boys, girls, women, and men and other critical education stakeholders within the project geographies. This will require the team to understand: How these critical stakeholders understand the role of gender and the connections between gender, education, and learning.The lived experiences of pre-primary and primary aged (early years to early adolescence) girls and boys (in school, at home, and in the community) their families, teachers, and other critical stakeholdersHow different identity and status variables intersect to further marginalise or ameliorate discrimination, impact on lived experiences, and affect access to education and learning. For example, gender, age, ethnicity, language, citizenship status, socioeconomic status, geography, (dis)ability, marital status, and religion, amongst other variables.The formal and informal power dynamics and socio-cultural norms that act as enablers for some and barriers to others and include or preclude from decision making with respect to education, parenting, and gender politics.How different societal demographics access and consume information and who they seek and take advise from with respect to parenting, education, learning, and gender politicsWhat the linkages are between information and behavioural change particularly with respect to parenting, education, learning, and gender politicsAll tools and methodologies used to collect data must engage multiple and diverse respondents – particularly girls and women – and allow for accurate representation of these diverse perspectives. Issues of gender equity, inclusion, and decision making must be at the forefront of the situational analysis. 5. Key deliverables The deliverables in this rapid assessment will include the following: i. Inception meeting and brief report: The inception report should detail the consultants’ understanding of what is being assessed and why, showing how each objective will be addressed by way of proposed methods, proposed sources of data, tools for data collection, data collection procedures, data analysis, work plan, and budget. ii. Data collection report – Completed after the data collection phase, a short report to demonstrate how data collection was achieved against the original plan and methodology with explanations for changes. iii. Draft Situational Analysis Report: This will be submitted to AKF for review by the AKDN technical team, whose inputs will be incorporated by the consultant. iv. Situational Analysis Workshop – Conducted with the AKDN technical team, the long-term SBC partner, and other stakeholders as advised by the consultant/organisation to review the Situational Analysis and determine areas of particular interest to develop recommendations for the SBC Strategy development v. Final Situational Analysis Report: This will be submitted to AKF having incorporated input from the team. The final will be developed in a manner that is engaging, designed, and effectively communicates the findings to a broad audience of internal and external stakeholders. Thinking on length of documents, specific areas of focus, and design will be needed. vi. Electronic data: All the data collected, including voice recordings, transcripts, photographs, video clips, and dataset in the relevant formats to be determined during inception. 6. Work Plan Activity & Deadline Inception Meeting and Brief Report - 18th June 2021 Data Collection Report - To be completed by applicant Draft Situational Analysis Report - To be completed by applicant Situational Analysis Workshop - To be completed by applicant Final Situational Analysis Report and associated documents including electronic data - 17th September 2021 7. Criteria for selection All submissions will be assessed on the following criteria: Technical proposal 40%Technical experience 30%Value for Money 30%
