LRPS-2018-9143275: Research/Design/Training Services for WEEL Project to Enhance Gender Outcomes of the DSWD MCCT-IP GIDA and Regular CCT Programs (RFP EXTENSION)

Women’s Economic Empowerment and Leadership (WEEL): Enhancing Gender Outcomes in MCCT-IP in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas and IPs in RCCT

I.  Rationale

There is increasing recognition of the potential of social protection to address persistent gender inequalities and promote the empowerment of women.[1] Yet there are limited social protection strategies in South East Asia that are informed by a gender lens. Those that simply target women and girls risk reinforcing traditional gender roles and responsibilities and may overlook important lifecycle and relational vulnerabilities that restrict opportunities for women and girls’ broader economic and social empowerment. Instead it is important that social protection programs include gendered vulnerability and gap analyses.[2] Implementation includes gender dimensions in capacity building and awareness raising materials, while monitoring and evaluation collects sex-disaggregated data and gender-sensitive indicators. Key to this is ensuring that stakeholders should make social protection gender-sensitive and gender-responsive.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) leads the social protection reform agenda through its large scale social protection programs.  It implements the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) that seeks to improve the human capital of poor families by investing in their children’s health and education.   Part of the Pantawid Pamilya is the Modified Conditional Cash Transfer (MCCT), a bridging strategy to reach out and bring to the program indigenous peoples located in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA), Homeless Street Families (HSF), and Families in Need of Special Protection (FNSP).  The MCCT program covers a total of 237,869 households, 180, 394 of which are IPs (76%).  About 84% of the cash grantees are women.

Gender and Development (GAD) is being mainstreamed in the program’s business processes, activities, and interventions for the partner-beneficiaries.   Pantawid Pamilya adopts GAD as an approach and practice perspective, and thus recognizes the need to continually come up with strategies and safeguards that will make MCCT implementation gender responsive and culturally sensitive. One of the features unique to MCCT implementation is its support services interventions (SSI) that intend to address felt and expressed community needs related to health, sanitation, education, livelihood activities, capacity building, and promotion of indigenous peoples’ rights, among others.  With gender mainstreaming, it would be noteworthy to “engender” these processes by surfacing the gender issues and gaps that possibly confront MCCT households, particularly women, who are the Program’s majority cash grantees. Pantawid Program recognizes the important role and contribution of women not just within the family but also in community and nation-building.  However, while it may be desirable to engage women, recognize and strengthen their roles in the household economy and community-building, it remains a question how relational structures including gender and power could possibly be affected and transformed, and how desirable and acceptable transformations could be.

UNICEF is working with DSWD to effectively implement its MCCT program.  A recently completed demand and supply side assessment of the MCCT program showed that IP women indeed play a significant role in the household economy, and even contribute to sustain the monitored children’s compliance to education.   The assessment captured cases of IP mothers who strategize to combat compliance barriers to their children’s education. They think of ways to earn cash (e.g., gathering and selling root crops in town) so that their children, particularly those attending high school in town centers could sustain the 85% required school attendance.[3]  These roles, as they are performed, may possibly signal deeper issues and gaps related to gender and power relations, which may be linked with the observed and expressed practical and strategic gender needs within the context of ethnicity.  When these gender issues and gaps are surfaced and eventually addressed, it is noteworthy to ask questions such as: what will happen to community structures and to gender and power relations within and outside of the household? How should Pantawid Program implementers, local partner stakeholders i.e., LGUs, CSOs, etc. respond?

II.  Objectives

This project hopes to primarily strengthen MCCT and RCCT IP women beneficiaries’ participation in community development and access to political and economic opportunities.  Specifically, the project aims to:

1. identify gender issues and gaps arising from the practical and strategic gender needs of MCCT and RCCT IP women and girl-children beneficiaries;
2. recommend and formulate intervention packages that would respond to the identified gender issues and gaps experienced by MCCT and RCCT IP households, particularly women and girl-children, with emphasis on economic and leadership opportunities; 
3. recommend possible mechanisms and strategies in working with MCCT-IP communities in delivering and sustaining the recommended intervention packages;
4. advocate for commitment and support from different stakeholders in implementing the intervention packages;
5. ensure that partner stakeholders are gender-sensitive and shall apply GAD as an approach, uphold women and children’s rights, and practice perspective in implementing the intervention packages;
6. develop a manual of gender safeguard indicators and mechanisms and how these could possibly be delivered within the context of gender and power relations existing in indigenous cultural communities; and
7. build MCCT staff capacity in using the manual of gender safeguard indicators and mechanisms in working with indigenous cultural communities.

To achieve the above objectives, the following components will be implemented:

Component 1 – Gender mapping in selected project sites with MCCT-IP GIDA and RCCT-IP beneficiaries.  It is the research component of this Project which seeks to capture in detail gender issues and gaps in selected MCCT-IP GIDA and RCCT-IP sites tagged as "gender red sites[4]".   Specifically, the gender mapping/research seeks to answer the following questions:

• What are the gender issues that impact women from IP-GIDA and RCCT-IP as they comply with Pantawid Program conditions?  How do these issues differ in the context of ethnicity and cultural diversity?
• How do these gender issues constrain IP women’s participation in community-building and their access to and participation in economic opportunities?
• How does the Pantawid Program respond to these gender issues?
• What interventions could be formulated to respond to these identified gender issues and gaps?
• What are the possible effects of these interventions on community structures, gender and power relations within indigenous community settings? What are the strategies and mechanisms to manage such effects and possible risks?
• Who could possibly implement and deliver these interventions? How should they work with the IP communities in tackling women’s and girl-children’s concerns and gender issues? 

The process should also look at the role of men and boys, possible disadvantages that they experience, and how their IP identity may influence gendered power relations.

This component should also include a desk review of available information and studies on gender issues and lessons learnt in non-IP communities in the regular CCT program, to draw out useful analysis, that probably needs to be re-examined when it comes to IP communities.

The GAD mapping activities shall consider the Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) especially in research sites involving IP communities in GIDA. The research methodology must articulate ethical considerations and safeguards in the conduct of the study. Moreover, this component shall also include the scanning of resources and existing services within DSWD and its partner agencies, civil society partners, LGUs, and the private sector that are related to strengthening IP women’s participation in community development and access to political and economic opportunities.

Component 2 – Based on the results of the gender mapping exercise, this component seeks to recommend and design interventions that will address gender issues amongst MCCT-IP GIDA and RCCT-IP households with the primary intention of strengthening women’s access to economic opportunities and community leadership. Access of girl-children to similar opportunities such as peer leadership should also be explored. The package of interventions to be designed shall also consider their effects and possible risks on community structures, gender and power relations among the IPs.  To ensure greater collaboration in implementing the package of interventions, a multi-stakeholder forum shall be organized to gather partner-stakeholders, including girl-children, for the following purposes:

1. validate the GAD mapping results;
2. present the recommended WEEL package of interventions;
3. ensure the active participation of the concerned IP communities through the FPIC process especially in analyzing the possible implications of WEEL package of interventions in gender and power relations; and
4. generate support and commitment for the WEEL package of intervention.

The process in implementing this component shall be packaged as a Manual of Gender Safeguard Indicators and Mechanisms towards Gender-Responsive and Culturally-Sensitive Pantawid Pamilya Program Implementation. This Manual will guide implementers in working with IP community structures while observing implications on gender and power relations in indigenous community settings. This will also guide future replication involving other sites with different IP groups and communities. 

Component 3 – Within the Pantawid Pamilya project management cycle context, this component will involve the training of MCCT, IP, and GAD staff in using and implementing gender safeguard indicators and mechanisms as spelled out in the Manual.  This component will ensure that selected WEEL implementers are trained on IP and gender sensitive and responsive implementation. 

III. Scope of Services

The research institution is expected to undertake the following activities:

Component 1:

1. Formulate the research design and instrumentation for the GAD mapping using available existing tools as reference; and must include ethical considerations and safeguards on the conduct of the research
2. Desk review of available information and studies on gender issues and lessons learnt in non-IP communities in the regular CCT program, to draw out useful analysis, that probably needs to be re-examined when it comes to IP communities
3. Undertake the GAD mapping in selected project sites and submit report on the consolidated GAD mapping result, based on the research questions above;

Component 2:

1. Review existing programs and initiatives of NGAs, LGUs, CSO and private sector that provide for women’s basic needs and services as well as support women’s economic empowerment and leadership that could be tapped for MCCT-IP areas;
2. Recommend and design intervention packages addressing the gender needs and gaps towards women’s economic empowerment and leadership and package these into a design document;
3. In consultation with IP communities, including adolescent boy and girl-children, analyse the implications and risks of the package of interventions for women on gender relations and power structures in IP households and communities;
4. Present the recommended intervention packages for WEEL during the multi-stakeholder forum; 
5. Act as resource person/presenter of WEEL interventions during the multi-stakeholder forum;
6. Train selected partner-stakeholders for gender sensitivity and GAD perspective to ensure gender-responsive-implementation of the recommended package of interventions (at least an initial 30 pax on one agreed prioritized intervention package as a demonstration on this specific activity). 

Component 3:

1. Facilitate the formulation of gender safeguard indicators, mechanisms and strategies in working with MCCT-IP GIDA and RCCT-IP and package them into a manual;
2. Train MCCT, IP and RGAD focals in delivering, monitoring and evaluating the gender safeguard indicators, mechanisms, and strategies as stipulated in the manual; and

Program Management:

1. Participate during inception and coordination meetings with WEEL Project Coordination Team composed of GAD and MCCT Focals at the Pantawid NPMO to discuss and level-off on the project objectives, expected tasks, outputs/outcomes, and terms of reference.