Update Asia-Pacific Girls’ Leadership Index – 2022 Consultancy. At Plan International

Plan International Asia-Pacific Regional Hub Terms of Reference (ToR)

Asia-Pacific Girls’ Leadership Indexes

Introduction

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. As an independent development and humanitarian organisation, we work alongside children, young people, our supporters and partners to tackle the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood and enable children to prepare for and respond to crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge. For over 80 years we have been building powerful partnerships for children, and we are active in over 75 countries.

Background

Over half of the world’s 1.1 billion girls under the age of 18 live in the Asia-Pacific region. Asia Pacific (APAC) Regional Hub of Plan International has been working as a catalyst to bring impactful change in the lives of girls in this region for a long period of time. In accordance with that, Asia Regional Transformation Strategy (2018) has emphasized on driving more investments for realising girls’ rights in the region through refreshed accelerators and goals. In order to influence donors, policy makers, regional bodies and their members to increase resource allocation in various areas to realise girls’ rights, we need to identify the areas for further investment. With that purpose, in 2019, Plan APAC Regional Hub developed Girls Leadership Indexes (GLI). The GLI was first developed for Asia and updated in 2021 to include the Pacific.

The Asia Pacific Girls’ Leadership Indexes (GLI) is a part of Plan International’s Asia Girls Report that explores the situation of girls and young women in Asia Pacific region including a broad discussion of the complex and dynamic transition girls undertake through adolescence into adulthood. In 2020, the composite indexes measure the situation of adolescent girls and young women across six domains, i.e. education, health, economic opportunities, protection, political voice and representation, and national laws and policies in 19 countries in Asia that make up the Association of South East Asian Countries (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). In 2021, the indexes updated the value against indicators for the

The GLI is an extremely useful instrument to support and inform policymakers’, donors’ and stakeholders’ investment in leadership development for adolescent girls and young women at regional and national levels. It can also inform the design of contextually relevant and strategic programmes and to monitor change in those programmes over time. This is also linked to the achievement of SDG 5, which focuses on gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, is central to the achievement of many of the other SDGs.

Presently an initiative has been undertaken to update GLI of both Asia and Pacific to provide valuable insight into the circumstances girls and young women have been facing and whether any improvement has been occurred in comparison to previous years. To update the value a consultant/consulting firm will be engaged on behalf of Plan APAC Regional Hub as per this Terms of Reference (TOR).

Objective

The objective of this assignment is to update the existing Girls’ Leadership Indexes for both Asia and Pacific and examine whether there are any changes on the situation of girls’ leadership in countries of focus.

Suggested Methodology

The Index is a tool, which has been built through extracting indicators from the standardized databases. It is designed to look at the broad enabling environment for girls’ leadership across countries in the region. Asia indexes cover 23 distinct indicators in 6 domains and Pacific indexes include 25 indicators in 6 domains and 5 indicators in climate domain (altogether 30 indicators). The Indexes mainly focuses on adolescent girls (10 – 19 years) and youth (10 – 24 years).

The consultant/consulting firm is anticipated to propose a detailed methodology to update the values for indicators in 7 domains of GLI. We propose that values for indicators are drawn from internationally recognised databases available online and where data is not available in the same database, those can be obtained through using the original source of the data. After populating the indicator values (raw data), each value is verified by cross-checking it against the original database and alternatives.

To support the analysis, the consultant/consulting firm is expected to conduct a desk review and then after completing the calculations of both sub-domain and overall index scores, analyse the relationships and trends between the findings of desk review and sub domain and overall index scores. In updating the indexes, the consultant/consulting firm is expected to examine whether any changes happen in the situation for girls’

leadership in all 19 countries in Asia and 14 countries in pacific individually focusing on the indicators. Once the consultant/consulting firm is finally selected, Plan APAC Regional Hub will share the indicators, raw data and working formula which were used in previous years.

Ethics and Child Protection

Plan International is committed to ensuring that the rights of those participating in data collection or analysis are respected and protected, in accordance with Ethical MERL Framework and our Child and Youth Safeguarding Policy. All applicants should include details in their proposal on how they will ensure ethics and child protection in the data collection and analysis process, if any.

Scope of Work

The assignment will preferably include, but not limited to:

• Undertake a thorough review of Asia Pacific Girls’ Leadership indexes of previous years and get an understanding of the indicators in seven domains.
• Hold a desk review of global and regional databases and reports and develop a process of data mining. Based on discussion with Plan APAC Regional Hub finalise the sources of information for secondary analysis.
• From the identified databases and reports extract information as per indicators in seven domains for 19 countries in South and Southeast Asia and 14 countries in Pacific to update the values.
• With the updated values in indicators, an excel based and user friendly file needs to be produced for internal use. Plan APAC staff members will use this file to obtain information for 2022 Asia Pacific Girls’ Report, country programming, communication with various stakeholder and policy advocacy.
• A comparative analysis needs to be done between the datasets of current year (2022) and previous year to assess whether any changes have taken place in these 19 countries in Asia and 14 countries in Pacific over past 12 months in terms of girls’ leadership situation (as per indicators in the indexes).
• Produce a high quality technical report of Asia Pacific Girls’ Leadership Indexes 2022 (in MS Word). The report will include the background, methodology and findings of GLI. The outline of the report needs to be approved by Plan APAC Regional Hub in advance.
• Prepare and submit a PowerPoint presentation on the methodology and key findings of Asia Pacific Girls’ Leadership Indexes 2022.

Key Deliverables and Timeframe

Total duration of the assignment is 60 calendar days after signing of the agreement. The methodology and work plan should be reviewed and approved by Plan APAC Regional Hub. The consultant will directly report to the Regional Evidence and Research Lead and work in close collaboration with the Asia Pacific Girls Leadership Research Working Group. The specific deliverables for this assignment are given in the following table.

Deliverable / Format / Length / Detail and Timeframe

• Inception Report / MS Word / Not more than 15 pages / Inception report will include: a detailed methodology to update the values of indicators in GLI; a tentative list of available data sources and reports to be used to update the values; a detailed workplan with number of workdays for each deliverable; and an outline of the technical report / By 15 March 2022.
• Preliminary analysis of the updated Asia Girls Leadership Indexes / MS Word / As per need / After updating the values in GLI, preliminary analysis should be shared with Plan APAC Regional Hub. Any change in the overall and domain rankings should be included in the analysis / By 22nd April 2022.
• Draft Technical Report / MS Word / Not exceeding 30 pages (excluding annex) /The report will contain the description of methodology in a user friendly way, findings and analysis of GLI. The findings will present situation of individual countries in Asia and Pacific and regional status by sub-domain and indicators with a linkage to SDG / By 6th May 2022.
• Final Technical Report / MS Word / Not exceeding 30 pages (excluding annex) / Based on the feedback the report should be finalised and submitted / By 23rd May 2022.
• PowerPoint presentation / PowerPoint / TBD / It will include the background, methodology, key findings of GLI and relevant recommendations / By 6th May 2022.
• Updated index for Asia and Pacific for internal use and instruction on how to update the indexes in future / Excel / N/A / Updated GLI should include methodology, indicator selection for each sub domain, weighting, and index score calculation. This should be done in user friendly manner so that Plan APAC staff members can use this internally for various purposes. An instruction should be given on how to update the indexes in future / By 12th May 2022.

Expected Qualifications

The expected qualifications are in the following.

• Minimum 10 years of professional research experience preferably in the field of gender, youth development, women empowerment, girls’ and women’s rights or other related issues.
• Strong understanding of the gender transformative approach and the challenges faced by girls and women in Asia-Pacific and involvement with researches for conducting policy advocacy.
• Well experienced in developing and updating indexes.
• Have a strong knowledge of relevant global and national recognised databases.
• Advance knowledge and skill in statistics and skilled in quantitative analysis. Should have a good report writing skill.
• Experienced to conduct multi-country researches and evaluations will be an advantage.
• Excellent interpersonal skills and ability to quickly incorporate feedback from different individuals.
• Published research is also a requirement.

Evaluation Criteria

The evaluation criteria are in the following.

Criteria / Weight

Academic qualification / 20%

Technical knowledge, skills and experience / 40%

Methodology / 20%

Financial proposal / 20%

Total 100 %