Invitation to bid for consultancy works to conduct Birth registration Programs in Ethiopia Invisible Children Promotional campaign to documnt Major Achievments,Good Practices and Barriers to Birth Registration in Guraghe Zone

1. Background

When a baby’s birth is unmarked, uncelebrated and undocumented, they lose their right to belong. Together, Johnson & Johnson and Save the Children help babies thrive by providing a strong start. And a strong start begins with an identity. The program will also work in rural communities, as only 5 percent of rural Ethiopian children are registered. Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. Around the world, it works every day to give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. When crisis strikes, and children are most vulnerable, Save the Children is always among the first to respond and the last to leave. The organization ensures children’s unique needs are met and their voices are heard. It delivers lasting results for millions of children, including those hardest to reach. Save the Children does whatever it takes for children — every day and in times of crisis — transforming their lives and the future we share.  It protects children from abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence in all regions of the world. Our child protection programs focus on the most vulnerable children while aiming for the safety and well-being of all children. Working with governments, international organizations and local community partners, we strive to create lasting change with improvements in policy and services that protect children, whether in a natural disaster, conflict or development setting.

Although a name and nationality is every child’s right, enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international treaties, the births of approximately one-quarter of the global population of children under age 5 have never been recorded. The limited commitment and action by the government usually means that a child is unable to obtain a birth certificate, and, as a result, may be denied health care or education. Later in life, the lack of official identification documents can mean that a child may enter into marriage or the labor market, or be conscripted into the armed forces, before the legal age to do so. In adulthood, birth certificates may be required to obtain social assistance or a job in the formal sector, to buy or prove the right to inherit property, to vote and to obtain a passport. Registering children at birth is the first step in securing their recognition before the law, safeguarding their rights, and ensuring that any violation of these rights does not go unnoticed.

2.       The Rationale and key achievements to-date

As it is also clearly stipulated in the project document, Ethiopian and refugee children are not getting adequate protection against child marriage, child labor, trafficking or detention and prosecution as an adult unless they have proof of age and identity. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Committee of Experts urged Ethiopia to continue engaging with development agencies and donors to mobilize adequate technical and financial resources, as well as undertaking an assessment on the barriers to birth registration and data collection.  The project document reveals key challenges in this regard to include, but not limited to, low levels of awareness among communities, limited awareness and capacity of pubic registration services, inadequate staffing, budget constraints, and the lack of accessibility of birth registration services in rural areas. There is also a weak link between birth registration and other measures to fulfill children’s rights, such as protection, education and health care. Therefore, we will link this project with other existing projects to bring about collective impact for children.

This project, mentioned above, has been expected to add value to the existing child protection systems and practices by creating demand and improving birth registration service delivery systems in refugee and development settings. It supports federal and regional organizations, including the Administration for Refugee & Returnee Affairs (ARRA), and also encourages all children in Ethiopia to undergo registration upon birth and are granted birth certificates. To this end, Save the Children will be able to build upon the existing political will and commitment of the government, as well as the existing legal and policy framework of the country.

3.       Key project activities and accomplishments

More importantly, Save the Children has carried out key activities and accomplishments. Some of these can be mentioned here.  It has organized various capacity building trainings for relevant bodies and enhanced the awareness level on the concepts of birth registration and Legal implications of civil registration and vital statistics in Ethiopia. Zonal level workshop was organized on birth registration practices, coverage and completeness specific to the implementation districts in Gurahe Zone in which a total of sixty-three participants (37 females) or representatives of woreda Vital Events Registration Offices, Office of Women, Children Youth, Health and Education Offices, religious people, community representatives; and Zonal & district administration Offices were in attendance. Save the Children had also organized series of community based campaigns the intervention woredas and enhanced or sensitized wide range of the community segments on the subject matter. These were, particularly, facilitated by the vital event registration offices and the district administration authorities. These have enhanced popular sensitization and leveraged supports to register more and more children that are under the age of year one. Save the Children had also supported both of the intervention woredas in-kind, particularly, materials (eg. file cabinets, desktop computers & printers); and in effect, the zonal vital events registration offices themselves had re-cascaded the same training to its staff, particularly, five officers trained on encoding and managing birth registration data. We had also organized annual review meeting jointly with all the concerned government and community stakeholders and reviewed the project progresses, achievements, lessons, best practices, barriers etc. This was attended by twenty people drawn from the zonal and district levels offices in charge of Vital Events Registration and from a local partner (Guraghe Peoples Self Help Development Organization) that supports the project. It is learnt from this consultation that the project has been on the right track to achieve key outcomes; and there is an increased improvement pertaining to the number of birth registration in the project woredas. Reports from the intervention areas have shown that there is increased number of children that have secured birth registration certificates.  More specifically, it has been learnt that a total of fourteen thousand and nine hundred sixty-seven children have been registered for and secured birth certificates during the year 2020 in this zone in general, out of which one thousand and three hundred forty children are from the two intervention woredas supported by the Save the Children. Our public mobilization, awareness raising and campaigning have enabled us to reach over half a million people with relevant messages in Guraghe Zone both in rural and urban areas. These lessons and practices have been found to be motivational and informative for other areas as well that have started replicating and using these lessons to implement the same in other woredas in the project zone. The project has been under implementation in this zone since 2019.

 Key challenges observed during the project intervention include high turnover of district government officials, limited commitment by some local officials, no adequate budget at the local level, lack of valid & reliable data that informs decisions, limited access or mobility due to the COVID-19.

Now, Save the Children is planning to document achievements, successes, lessons and barriers pertaining to the effective implementation of this project. To this end, we a highly experienced firm that has solid experience and reputation on this area that can carry out and establish relevant documentation; and that can also come up with relevant and concrete recommendations for further actions. The entire processes will be carried out, in partnership with relevant stakeholders, primarily, the zonal & woreda government offices, children, community groups, local partner, local networks (eg. Child parliament) and others.

4.       The purpose of this Documentation

1.       To document key achievements/results (quantitative and qualitative), lessons and challenges from the project intervention since its implementation or the life span and so far – by developing relevant tools and using combination of methods; and

2.       Case stories and spotlights are expected

3.       To be able to share and disseminate findings among key stakeholders as learnings, and for further actions, re-planning and decision making processes to accelerate birth registration in Guraghe Zone and beyond.

5.       Methodology and data sources

The consultant should come up with detail methodological framework to undertake the documentation. More importantly, both quantitative and qualitative of data collection will be used. The quantitative data will be collected through review of secondary sources (reports from Save the Children, Zonal and Woreda government reports, health centers in the target weredas). The qualitative data shall be collected through semi-structured interview (KII) and focus group discussions with children, parents, community leaders, Civil Society Organizations, and relevant government officials both at the zone and the intervention woredas- Endegaye and Gumer. Further, individual case stories shall be documented and included in the report. Succinct data analysis is expected to clearly showcase best practices, lessons and innovative approaches that can be replicated further. While these would be used for evaluation of the proposals submitted, we will carefully evaluate the technical design methodology, methods and procedures of data collection& analysis; and the experience, technical expertise & the capability of the firm and its team.

6.       Expected Deliverables

The winning firm is expected to do and deliver the following;

1)      The inception report including development of the data collection tools and checklists.

2)      The first draft report to Save the Children, Partner (GPSDO and Zonal and Woreda level stakeholders, collect constructive feedbacks, and incorporate the comments in the final report.

3)      Key achievements, successes, lessons, spotlights, best practices and challenges are clearly pinpointed in the final document as agreed up on with Save the Children relevant team

4)      The final documentation report – both soft copy (in CD) & the hard copy

7.       Timeline for the Assessment Process

The assessment will be conducted in November and December 2021; to be submitted end of December. This is included in the technical proposal submitted to Save the Children as a clear work plan. Upon signing of the contract, the consultant will be given the necessary information and the working documents for reference.

NB. Financial proposal will be opened/considered for those bidders that scored the technical proposal above 40 (out of 60).

8.       Budget and Schedule of Payments

The consultant is expected to submit a budget proposal detailing the total cost based on unit costs and disaggregated by line items in a separate sealed envelope. The total cost needs to be inclusive of VAT. The payment modality to the consultant/firm is up on the completion and is as per the following installments;

·         1^st payment- 20% upon the approval of inception report and the work plan;

·         2^nd payment- 50 % upon the submission and the approval of the first draft report;

·         3^rd payment- 30% upon completion and approval of the final report and all other deliverables.

9.       Roles and Responsibilities

9.1   Roles and Responsibilities of Save the Children

·         Provides briefing about the project and all relevant background documents and data to the winning consultant which will serve as background information.

·         Approves data collection tools and checklists;

·         Provides feedback on inception report and data collection tools;

·         Supervises the process of data collection and analysis to ensure quality;

·         Review the draft report in light with the ToR signed agreement and inception report.

·         Arrange/ facilitate meetings with beneficiaries and stakeholders.

·         Effect payments based on the agreed deliverables and mode of payment

9.2   Role of the consultant

·         Prepare and submit an inception report (as per SCI guidance) including the data collection tools.

·         Deploy pertinent qualified and experienced team members for the assignment; with prior notice of Save the Children;

·         Responsible for the collection, entry, and analysis of the data and all costs associated to this.

·         Prepare and submit the draft assessment report to Save the Children according to the agreed time schedule;

·         Present assessment findings and recommendations at a validation workshop to be organized by Save the Children and partners;

·         Produce final report based on the inputs of the validation workshop;

·         Submits Two pages of the assessment synthesis as per SC’s template;

10.       Eligibility Criteria

·         The consulting firm should have at least three team members having multi-disciplines especially Masters in law, social work, sociology, psychology, human rights, and related fields.

·         Proven experience in conducting social research using mixed method on child rights and protection issues. Solid experience in conducting interviews with multiple groups of respondents including most vulnerable children, youth, adults on potentially sensitive issues.

·         A solid record of documenting results and good practices on child focused programs.

·         Demonstrated familiarity with child protection and child rights programming.

·         Strict procedures for quality control and sounding experience of field works.

·         Solid internal guidelines for handling of confidential information; and respecting child safeguarding policy and procedures

·         Solid internal guidelines on research ethics and a code of conduct for interviewing vulnerable respondents and children

·         Sounding familiarity with human rights standards and principles, including UNCRC and ACRWC.