RFP#LRPS-2022-9176599: Development of a divisional level costed action plan to implement the national Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) Strategy, 2021
TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR INSTITUTIONAL CONTRACT
Title of the assignment
Development a divisional level costed action plan to implement the national Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) Strategy, 2021
Purpose
The MHM strategy is formulated to address the gaps in current MHM practices ensuring the access to safe and dignified menstruation for every girl and women in schools, health care facilities, public places, households. The action plan implementation will provide an opportunity to closely integrate MHM in other women empowerment initiatives taken by associated Ministries/Directorates to overcome issues in a way to address misperceptions and improve access to products and practices of MHM, which will contribute to adolescents’ health promotion.
The MHM costed action plan will support the concerned Ministries/ Directorates to leverage resources to increase accessibility to sanitary pads and other necessary materials for adolescents including disposal of used menstrual products, construction, and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of inclusive toilets in institutions, public places, communities.
Location
Field visits will be required to conduct large group consultation workshop and Focus Group Discussion (FGD) in all divisional cities. Participants from different category like Govt., non-Govt., private agency, INGO/NGO, Academia, Adolescent girls, Teachers will be invited in the consultation meeting.
Key Informants Interview (KII) could be conducted mostly through online platform.
Estimated Duration
August 2022 – March 2023.
Reporting to Technical Supervisor of this assignment
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Specialist, WASH Section, UNICEF Bangladesh
1. Background
Bangladesh has made commendable progress in reducing the deaths of children under 5, maternal mortality and improved coverage of water and sanitation areas despite limited resources. However, improvement in hygiene still lags behind and has immense scope for work in this front. It is more specifically true for Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) as evident by pertinent data: only 53 per cent adolescent schoolgirls heard about menstruation before menarche; 30 per cent of girls reported missing school during menstruation for 2.5 mean number of days (National Hygiene follow-up Survey, 2018). The costed action plan will make the associated dept./agencies responsible for providing inclusive toilets in the schools with MHM facilities, availability of sanitary pad in need (example, honest shop/shototar Dokan), discussing relevant chapter of the textbook in the classroom.
Menstruation is a natural bodily process of girls and women. Yet this normal physiological phenomenon is stigmatized in various ways around the world. Bangladesh is no exception to this problem. Here, the issues of menstruation are shrouded by taboos and knowledge gaps, myths, misinformation, and harmful norms. Some of the impediment for proper menstrual hygiene management are lack of proper sanitation facilities; accessibility to good quality hygienic menstrual products for adolescent girls and women at home, at institutions, and at workplaces; inadequate number or lack of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities with disposal mechanisms for used MHM products; and taboos and myths surrounding menstruation. As a result, millions of women and girls continue to be denied their rights to WASH, health, education, dignity, and gender equity. If the situation does not change, it may not be possible for development programmes to achieve their goals. Educating girls before their menarche and importantly girls on menstruation, builds their confidence, contributes to social solidarity, and encourages healthy habits.
Main problem here is that adolescents; unmarried and married, have low levels of knowledge and limited access to information, products and services on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). The poor knowledge and understanding of menstruation may lead to unsafe hygienic practice that in turn increases the risk of reproductive and genito-urinary tract infections, cervical cancer, school drop-out, poor academic performance and overall poor quality of life and in severe cases infertility. The practice of good menstrual hygiene management (MHM) reduces the incidence of reproductive tract infection (RTI) and other relevant health hazards.
UNICEF has supported Govt in developing national Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) strategy, 2021. The strategy launched/ disseminated at the national level on April 2022. The overall goal of the National MHM Strategy is to address the gaps in current MHM practices in a comprehensive way to improve MHM practices. This ensures that each girl and woman everywhere in Bangladesh can access safe and dignified menstruation to realize their rights to health, education, economic and other opportunities.
As narrated in the strategy, some of the challenges and barriers to proper MHM are:
- Access to knowledge, information, and a suitable culture to address social stigma
- Access to affordable and safe hygienic menstrual products
- Access to adequate WASH facilities
- Access to safe disposal of used menstrual products
UNICEF has also conducted an assessment in 2021 regarding Local Market Study on Menstrual Hygiene Management products. The overall objective of the study was to assess the availability and prices of different MHM products at local market. The specific objectives were to assess availability, accessibility, variations in the prices, affordability, suitability, and desirability of the MHM products among married and unmarried adolescent girls in schools and communities.
The national strategy involves the implementation of a set of identified actions. There is also need to work in a coordinated way to implement the actions and to change the situation to fulfill the objectives of the strategy as follows:
- Facilitate activation of programmatic and systematic approaches that are important to realize essential elements of MHM.
- Create an enabling environment in collaboration with relevant stakeholders and agreement with other policies to facilitate the implementation of the strategy.
- Enhance engagement of the private sector as a strategic partner to lead and implement a range of MHM products with different pricing to cater to different types of consumers.
- Provide a coordination mechanism among different relevant stakeholders and sectors to enhance exchange of information and facilitate building consensus.
- Support the establishment of functional MHM corners in education institutions, healthcare centres, workplaces, prisons, industries, commercial/ public places, and public toilet, etc.
Development of national MHM strategy, 2021 is a milestone in Bangladesh to address the MHM issue to facilitate dignified life for the girls and women. Now, we need to develop a divisional level costed action plan in consultation with all the stakeholders and buy in by the govt. associated Ministries/Departments (MoPME/DPE, MoE/DSHE, MoH&FP, MoWCA, LGD, MoLGRD&C/DPHE) to implement the strategies.
2. Objectives, Purpose and Expected Results
The objective of this assignment is to develop a government endorsed divisional level costed action plan through intensive consultation with stakeholders in all the divisions to implement the national Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) Strategy, 2021. In addition, it aims at developing a training module with necessary SBCC materials need to be prepared for training of the adolescent girls in school and community on menstrual health and hygiene.
Expected results:
- Govt. endorsed division level costed action plan for implementation of national MHM strategy, 2021 considering the geographical / cultural variations of different divisions, identifying relevant government offices, focal persons, budgets, commitments and monitoring indicators to measure progress.
- Development of a comprehensive MHM package to educate the adolescent girls in school and community on menstrual health and hygiene.
3. Description of Assignment
The major tasks, key deliverables and tentative timelines are narrated in the following table:
Tasks
Deliverables
Timeline
Review of secondary resource materials available in the sector (especially, national MHM strategy 2021, Local Market Study on MHM products, UNICEF 2021)
Inception report including work-plan and necessary tools/methodology for synthesizing info from large consultation workshop/FGD/KII.
Within three weeks of taking up the assignment
Design and conduction of divisional level consultation workshop, liaison with Policy Support Branch, LGD; DPHE & UNICEF field offices. The participants of the meeting will be comprised of GO, NGO, LGIs, Civil Society representatives, Adolescent groups, School teacher, School Management Committee (SMC), Health Care Facilities, Private companies/entrepreneurs manufacturing MHM products, etc.
Pre-event: Participants’ list, methodology for organizing and conducting meeting.
Post event: Consultation documentation and facilitation materials
All divisional consultation meeting to be finished by 30 October 2022
Conduct FGD/KII with relevant stakeholders (including adolescent girls/entrepreneurs/ DPE/DSHE) to collect in depth information regarding scope of MHM activities to feed into the costed action plan.
Pre-event: List of KIs, FG, Questionnaire. List of KIs to be prepared in consultation with PSB, DPHE and UNICEF.
Post event: Consultation documentation and facilitation materials
All FGD/KII to be finished by 30 October 2022
Identify key players/department who can implement the suggested activities came through the consultation workshop, FGD/KII.
Narrate roles/responsibilities of the concerned agencies to implement costed plan and leveraging resources.
Roles/responsibilities of the concerned dept./agencies
By 30 November 2022
Formulate costed action plan i.e. a national costed action plan comprised of all the division costed action plan. Details financial analysis for preparing budget of the costed action plan.
Costed action plan
Draft for review: By 30 December 2022
Final: By 15 March 2023
Conduct sharing session of the draft costed action plan with the stakeholders (one national and two sub-national) and collect feedback for finalization of the document.
Consultation documentation and facilitation materials
By 30 January 2023
Presentation of the costed action plan in the LGD, MoLGRD&C to get endorsement
Final costed action plan with govt endorsement
By 15 February 2023
Training modules and SBCC materials on Menstrual Health and Hygiene for the adolescent girls in school and community.
Conduct field test and finalize the materials.
Training module and SBCC materials on MHH for the adolescent girls
Draft for review: 15 November 2022
Final: 15 January 2023
4. Deliverables
- Costed action plan for implementation of MHM strategy, 2021 by 15 March 2023 identifying responsible offices and focal points for each division and at a national level.
- Training modules and SBCC materials on MHM/MHH for the adolescent girls in school and community by 15 January 2023
5. Reporting requirements
- Progress reports by 1st week of every month with power point presentation as request by UNICEF
- Minutes of meetings/workshops within 5 days after the meetings
- Training/presentation material before 1 week of the date of the training/presentation
- Methodology for conduction of consultation meeting/FGD/KII with questionnaire before one week of scheduled event
6. Payment Schedule
- 30% of total fee upon submission of the inception report and workplan
- 20% on completion of FGD, KII, Consultation workshop
- 25% of total fee on submission of draft reports (a) costed action plan (b) monitoring plan to see the impact of tax exemption (c) training module and SBCC materials for educating adolescent girls on MHM
- 25% of total fee on submission and approval of final reports/deliverables by UNICEF
7. Qualification requirement of the company/institution/organization
- The institution/organization should have active experience on WASH (particularly on MHM/MHH) in providing the services for at least 5 years
- The institution/organization should be registered and licensed to provide the selected Services
- The institution/organization should have implemented or ongoing 3 (three) contracts of similar nature and complexity
Qualification requirement of the team
This is open for the bidders to come back in the technical proposal with the team & related experience & qualifications.
- Number of experts per category (e.g. team leader, supervisor...etc.)
- Profile (education, experience, etc.)