Terms of References for Consultant
Developing Training Manual for Women Community Leaders on Leadership Skills, Climate Change, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Advocacy
Introduction
Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) is recognized as one of the leading Pakistani rights-based civil society organization, in terms of its countrywide presence and outreach. SPO has a broad programmatic portfolio that includes Social and Economic Development including Health, Education and Water and Hygiene, Climate Change Adaptation, Cultural Diversity and Tourism Promotion and Digital Knowledge Transformation in partnership with a diverse spectrum of groups from grassroots communities to various tiers of governance: local, district, provincial and national. SPO has a footprint in 75 districts in all four provinces of Pakistan.
SPO envisions “a democratic, socially just and an ecologically sustainable society working with communities and public interest institutions across Pakistan to promote rights and civic responsibilities for human and institutional development”, with a mission to support and strengthen disadvantaged communities and public interest institutions for sustainable development.
Context
On Global Climate Risk Index, Pakistan is ranked 7th most vulnerable country to climate change. In recent years, Pakistan has witnessed catastrophic climate-change-induced natural disasters and remains one of the least prepared countries to address climate change. The selected geographic areas in the north and south of country often bear the brunt of natural disasters. Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate change is compounded due to government’s haphazard planning and lack of capacities in communities to adapt to climate change, as is the case in selected districts for this programme. According to IMF, Pakistan is ranked 3rd among countries facing acute water shortage, and by 2025 it may run out of water. Additionally, already weak WASH services and infrastructures in selected areas are faltering for not being climate and health resilient and sustainable. Impacts of climate change related to water security are most notable. These include variability of rains and melting of glaciers; increased demand for water for irrigation purposes because of higher evaporation rates when per capita availability of water is decreasing; increased sedimentation of water reservoirs leading decreased storage capacity; snow avalanches and glacier lake outburst floods; and the degradation of surface water quality due to floods and droughts.
This project is an effort to mobilize, resilient and empowered communities to lead climate action for a discernible improvement in the quality of their lives. The project will contribute to the overall goal “Civil society actors and space are strengthened to foster human rights and dignity and empower people to participate in the development and implementation of public policies, development plans and humanitarian response”. This initiative is part of an integrated programme to address climate change issues that will intervene in three thematic areas (Cultural Cohesion, Understanding & Diversity/FBCA, CR WASH, & GBV) and shall leverage the sway of faith actors over communities to jointly mobilize communities on climate change affects and advocate for necessary climate action.
The project identifies that a lack of awareness on climate change and respect for diversity in target communities, specifically among women and girls belonging to religious minorities is a key challenge. Often communities resist climate change adaptability citing their main concern of providing for their families first. The communities in selected districts are deeply religious and diverse faith actors have a great influence over their respective faith communities. The recent experience of working in the selected districts suggest that faith actors have great interest to work with communities for climate action and to improve intra- and inter-group relations. However, they lack necessary/technical skills and capacities to mobilize their constituents to respect communities of diverse faiths and be resilient and adaptable to climate change.
Using theological arguments, faith actors (male and female) can not only change their constituents’ mindset towards acceptance of faith diversity and but also mobilize them for joint faith-based climate action. Since the duty bearers have not fully engaged the communities in implementation of the policies for climate change. Therefore, faith-actors can play their role in advocacy and help communities to hold duty bearers accountable. Since faith actors are respected in the communities, they are well placed to address local conflicts and can play key role in improving intra- inter-group relations.
Furthermore, the role of female faith actors (female seminary teachers and Islamic studies lecturers, professors etc.) especially in climate change-related activism to raise women’s awareness is minimal and needs to be increased by their involvement. There are no formal national or provincial level faith/civil society actors’ networks to raise awareness and advocate with duty bearers on climate change. A lot of community-based work does therefore not necessarily connect at policy level to hold duty bearers responsible. Moreover, there is a need to open space for social action in Pakistan.
Rationale
SPO intends to engage various stakeholders through capacity building initiatives primarily focusing on advocacy and lobbying to engage and educate the associated stakeholders on climate change, disaster risk reduction, and climate resilience. These beneficiaries include Faith actors, Youth, CSO’s, CBO’s, Social activists, Women and other marginalized segments of the societies who are directly or indirectly affected from the climate change and limits these marginalized groups from voicing their concerns and needs in planning for climate resiliency and remain largely untapped resource. As a result, often climate adaptability, resilience and DRR plans disproportionately affected these groups. Another important aspect of the project is to disseminate knowledge and understanding of what is needed to adapt to changing environmental and social conditions for those severely affected by climate change that has increased vulnerability of these target groups and communities.
The project aims at building the capacity to these marginalized groups to engage with institutions for long term sustainable result and carrying out coherent policy development and implementation campaigns in order cultivate a good working relationship with the institution responsible for developing the policy, and where possible with those actually drafting legislation and engage with duty bearers and government line departments for social change and reforms related to climate change through district, provincial and national networks.
These trainings will mobilize the communities and make them understand the social accountability tools to execute the climate action advocacy campaigns at their UC level. The trainers will also advocate and lobby if their needs are not adhered to in emergency situation.
Note: Due to Covid-19, SPO will strictly observe WHO guidelines and will make sure that all trainings are conducted through digital platforms and large gatherings are avoided. Therefore, the anticipated deliverable of the training manuals to entail exercises, list and link of relevant videos for enhancement of knowledge through different mediums.
Format and methodology:
The manual will contain two thematic components:
a) Training manual on ‘Women Leadership Training on Climate Change and Its Impact’.
b) Training manual on ‘Leadership & Advocacy Skills for Social Accountability’.
c) Training manual on ‘Community Leadership Training on Climate Change Advocacy, Food Security and Climate Mitigation Strategies’
Training manual will further be divided into sub themes to partake trainings of master trainers. It will be essential to include each component in the manual with elaborative methodology as a toolkit to roll out trainings with smaller groups.
Primary target group:
Training Manual on ‘ Women Leadership Training on Climate Change and Its Impact’
Objectives:
Topics to be covered: Understanding Climate change, Impacts of Climate Change, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Advocacy, Lobbying Skills, Complaint Mechanisms, Identifying Key Government Departments and Leadership Skills.
Mapping of Resources: The manual must include mapping of all relevant government and private departments to facilitate the trainees in identifying point of contact person for their advocacy campaigns and action plans.
Methodology & Format of Training:
Training Manual on ‘Leadership & Advocacy Skills for Social Accountability’
Objectives:
Topics to be Covered: Leadership Skills, Advocacy Tools, Campaigns and Awareness Raising Influencing Strategies, Mapping and Effective Usage of Social Accountability tools e.g. Sindh Transparency and RTI Act-2016 and Transparency Laws passed in KP Government, Govt led Helplines or Complaint redress mechanisms, Impacts of Climate Change on district Peshawar & Umerkot.
Mapping of Resources: The manual must include mapping of all relevant government and private departments to facilitate the trainees in identifying point of contact person for their advocacy campaigns and action plans.
Methodology & Format of Training:
Training Manual on ‘Community Leadership Training on Climate Change Advocacy, Food Security and Climate Mitigation Strategies’
Objective:
Topics to be covered: Climate Change, Climate Change Mitigation Strategies through Faith-Based approach, climate change and its Impacts on Women and other marginalized group members i.e PWDs, Transgender etc, Climate-Resilience and its effects on livelihood, Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Management, Safe WASH Services, Impacts of Climate Change and DRR in district Peshawar & Umer Kot for WASH Services improvement.
Mapping of Resources: The manual must include mapping of all relevant government departments in Sindh & KP, private initiatives/sector partners such as DDMA, PDMA, Water and Sanitation Services Providers, Agriculture extension, livestock department, Forest Department, Water Management bodies, Health Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Commission on a Status of Women (KPCSW), Academia, to facilitate the trainees in identifying the resources for their coordination and facilitation to complete their action plans.
Methodology & Format of Training:
Scope of Deliverables
Consultant Requirements
The potential consultant/consulting firm should make a proposal which should among others include:
Time Frame
Consultancy days: June 27th to 30th July 2020
How to apply
Interested consultants to submit their technical and financial proposals demonstrating their ability to deliver this assignment based on their qualifications and professional experience. Detailed proposals should be emailed to careers@spopk.orgwith “Developing Training Manual for Women Community Leaders on Leadership Skills, Climate Change & Gender-Based Violence”.
Deadline for submission of proposals
Apply by Sunday, 14th June 2020