Terms of Reference

End line Survey Consultancy

Consultancy Title: End line Study for Her Future, Her Choice (HFHC) – Assessing SRHR behaviours and knowledge in Zambia

Chibombo, Chisamba, Namwala and Itezhi tezhi Zambia

Background

Her Future, Her Choice: Strengthening Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (HFHC) is a four-year project that seeks to address the barriers hindering access to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) for adolescent girls and young women (10-24 years) in selected districts of Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. The program is funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and implemented by Oxfam and the implementing partners Women in Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), Southern Africa Aids Information and Dissemination (SAfAIDS) and Planned Parenthood Association of Zambia (PPAZ}.

In Zambia, the selected districts were chosen based on high rates of child, early and forced marriage (CEFM), teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortions, and harmful cultural practices.

The project seeks to improve SRHR by working in three areas of intervention:

• Engaging adolescent girls and young women, men and boys, community leaders and norm-setters to understand and transform discriminatory social norms;
• Strengthening the health system to deliver comprehensive SRH services, including family planning, contraception, safe abortion and comprehensive post-abortive care and secondary prevention services for GBV; and
• Promoting change in SRHR policy and practice through building the capacity of local women’s rights organizations and youth-led organizations to influence SRHR policy and practice.

This consultancy will gather data on all areas of intervention above.

Consultancy summary

The consultant will lead a quantitative and qualitative end line survey of Her Future, Her Choice (HFHC) in Zambia. The consultant will conduct a brief desk review of existing research; conduct fieldwork in four districts (Namwala and Itezhi tezhi, Southern Province and Chibombo and Chisamba, Central Province); analyze data; and write a final report on research findings.

Objectives and research questions

1. Assess SRHR at an individual and household level
2. Do women and men have different access to the knowledge and household resources that would enable them to use Family Planning (FP) effectively?
3. Do women and men have different levels of decision-making autonomy and freedom of movement that would enable them to use FP effectively?
4. Do women and men have the communication skills to discuss their fertility and FP preferences with their partners?
5. Measure end line of attitudes, norms, and behavior regarding SRHR, to answer questions including:
6. What are the norms in the community regarding SRHR (in particular, for girls and young women)?
7. Can community members (in particular, girls and young women) access SRH services and fulfill their SRHR?
8. What is the attitude of community members regarding SRHR? Is it accepted, tolerated, ignored, or rejected? Is the attitude different for young women and girls compared to men and boys?
9. How are deviances from the norms treated?
10. Is there a difference in perception between men, women, boys, and girls? Between religious and political leaders? Between older and younger generations?
11. Assess capacity of public and non-public entities to provide SRH services, to answer questions including:
12. What entities provide SRH services?
13. What services related to SRHR are available to women and girls?
14. Are women, girls, people of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, and survivors of GBV aware of these services? Are they accessible to survivors of GBV? Are these services sufficient? Are they sustainable? How can these services be strengthened?
15. What are the barriers women and girls face in accessing the provided services?
16. Has work taken place to identify and address barriers to access? Quality of care?
17. What reasons do women and girls give for not using available services?
18. What deficiencies in SRH services do health care workers/social service workers identify? What do clients identify?
19. Assess capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) – in particular, women’s rights organizations and youth-led organizations – to advocate for SRHR, to answer questions including:
20. What is the landscape of CSOs working in the area of SRHR?
21. What challenges do CSOs face in advocating on SRHR?
22. What skills/capacity improvements do CSOs require to better advocate for SRHR?
23. Provide recommendations about the program design and implementation, to answer questions including:
24. What risks did the project face?
25. How were these prevented or mitigated?
26. What were opportunities available to the project? How were these maximized?
27. What were the feasible communication strategies for behavior change given the context in Southern and Central provinces?
28. What is the current situation of the project’s Logical Framework Indicators?
29. Where the indicators realistic across all intervention areas?
30. Was the current Work Breakdown Structure sufficient to guarantee efficient and effective implementation of the project?
31. Who are the other key actors that could have been engaged in the implementation area?

Requested services

Working closely with Oxfam and the project’s partner organizations, the consultant is expected to:

1. Draft and submit a three-paged inception report detailing the survey process, deliverables, and timelines, including key insights of the survey by the Consultant.
2. Conduct a brief Literature Review of findings from existing research on SRH services and public attitudes towards SRHR in Zambia, particularly Southern and Central provinces, if possible, to identify trends for SRHR indicators.
3. Recruit and train survey enumerators, interpreters, and documenters, including training on the ethical and safety considerations when conducting SRHR research, and training on using SurveyCTO for data collection. Also, ensure that the enumerators work in pairs and that female enumerators undertake data collection from women and girls.
4. Supervise the survey, including proper uploading of completed forms through SurveyCTO.
5. Submit survey data and notes to Oxfam at the conclusion of the quantitative fieldwork.
6. Conduct and document Twenty-four (24) In-depth interviews (IDIs), Seventeen (17) Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) 17 and Seven (7) Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with 5 to 8 participants.
7. Conduct interviews of project participants with the total sample survey of 596 comprising of adolescent girls and boys, Young women and men with age groups ranging between 10 and 49 years.
8. Translate the field notes for KIIs and FGDs into English.
9. Do an analysis of the research findings (survey, KIIs and FGDs).
10. Produce a draft report of qualitative findings and share with the project’s partner organizations and Oxfam.
11. Revise report based on comments by Oxfam.
12. Write and submit a final report

Experience and skills

Candidates will be assessed based on the following criteria:

Proven experience performing, facilitating, and supervising quantitative and qualitative data collection in complex environments.

Strong writing skills and proven experience delivering high quality reports. Please submit an example of your work in health or SRH-related field.

Capacity to deploy and supervise enumerators in 2 provinces at one time.

Technical knowledge of SRHR, public health, HIV and gender justice.

Experience with electronic data collection tools (e.g. SurveyCTO) [preferred].

Travel within Zambia (Namwala, Itezhi tezhi, Chibombo and Chisamba District) will be required for this consultancy.

Application process

Proposals should be no longer than five (5) pages and include both technical details (methodology and process) and financial information (number of days, daily rates, and number of hours projected for each deliverable). Include contact information for two NGOs or organizations as references. Please submit an example of prior work along with the proposal.

Please submit your application to hrzambia@oxfam.org.uk, In your application, please ensure that you address your suitability towards the outlined selection criteria. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Oxfam will review all proposals closely against this outline. It will determine a shortlist of potential candidates and finalize a contract by 15th March 2024. The consultancy is expected to start on 1st April 2024.

Oxfam is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people, and adults, and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. We will do everything possible to ensure that only those that are suitable to work

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Proposals should be submitted to the address below in electronic form ONLY and must be clearly indicated “ End line Study for Her Future, Her Choice (HFHC) – Assessing SRHR behavior’s and knowledge in Zambia” by 17:00 hours CAT time on 8th  March, 2025. All correspondence for the consultancy should be addressed to the Logistics Unit through the email: ZambiaLogistics@oxfam.org.uk