Job

Job Description

CONSULTANCY TO CONDUCT RESEARCH AND GATHER EVIDENCE ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS ISSUES IN SOMALIA.

A. PROJECT TITLE

The Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (RWVL) Project.

B. PROJECT DESCRIPTION/CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND

The Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (RWVL) Project is a 5.5-year initiative funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and implemented by Plan International Canada and Plan International Somalia in partnership with Save Somali Women and Children (SSWC) and NAFIS Network. The project seeks to advance gender equality and increase the enjoyment of human rights by women and girls in all their diversity across Somalia and Somaliland.

The RWVL Project supports Women’s Rights Organizations (WROs), Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs), youth-led organizations, organizations of persons with disabilities, and grassroots movements to strengthen institutional capacities, enhance advocacy efforts, and influence policy and decision-making processes.

Despite progress in advancing gender equality, women and girls in Somalia continue to face significant barriers to exercising their rights. These barriers include gender-based violence, discriminatory social norms, unequal participation in governance and leadership, limited access to justice, economic marginalization, and inadequate legal protections.

Although numerous initiatives have been implemented to address these challenges, there remains a significant gap in comprehensive and up-to-date evidence on women’s rights issues. Reliable evidence is critical for informing advocacy initiatives, influencing policy reforms, strengthening accountability mechanisms, and supporting evidence-based programming.

To address this gap, SSWC intends to engage a qualified consultant to conduct comprehensive research and gather evidence on key women’s rights issues affecting women and girls in Somalia. The research will generate evidence-based findings and recommendations to support advocacy, policy engagement, and programming interventions across both Somalia.

C. PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT.

The purpose of this consultancy is to generate robust evidence and analysis on women’s rights issues in Somalia, identify barriers and opportunities, and develop actionable recommendations to inform advocacy, policy reform, and programming.

D. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The specific objectives of the assignment are to:

• Assess the current status of women’s rights and gender equality in Somalia .
• Identify key challenges and barriers affecting women and girls in exercising their rights.
• Examine legal, policy, institutional, social, and cultural factors influencing women’s rights.
• Assess the effectiveness of existing policies, laws, and mechanisms intended to protect and promote women’s rights.
• Generate evidence to support advocacy, policy dialogue, and programming interventions.
• Develop practical and evidence-based recommendations for key stakeholders.
  E. SCOPE OF WORK.

The consultant shall undertake the following tasks:

• Conduct a comprehensive desk review of relevant laws, policies, strategies, research reports, assessments, and literature relating to women’s rights in Somalia.

Develop an inception report outlining:
Research methodology.
Sampling strategy.
Data collection tools.
Detailed work plan.
Ethical considerations.

• Design and pre-test data collection tools.
• Conduct qualitative and quantitative data collection through:
  o   Key Informant Interviews (KIIs).

o   Focus Group Discussions (FGDs).

o   Stakeholder consultations.

o   Surveys where applicable.

• Engage with:
  o    Government institutions.

o   Women’s Rights Organizations.

o   Women Human Rights Defenders.

o   Community leaders.

o   Religious leaders.

o   Youth groups.

o   Organizations of Persons with Disabilities.

o   Development partners.

• Analyze collected data and identify:
  o   Emerging trends.

o   Priority women’s rights concerns.

o   Policy gaps.

o   Advocacy opportunities.

o   Good practices.

• Facilitate validation workshops with stakeholders.
• Develop practical recommendations for policy reform, advocacy, and programming.
• Prepare and submit draft and final research reports.
• Submit all supporting documentation, datasets, tools, transcripts, and reports to SSWC.

F. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The consultant shall employ a rigorous mixed-methods approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The final methodology will be refined and approved during inception and must be gender-responsive, disability-inclusive, participatory, rights-based, conflict-sensitive and appropriate to the Somali context.

At minimum, the inception report and methodology shall specify:

• Sampling and sample size: a clear sampling frame and sampling strategy for each participant group, including the rationale for purposive, stratified, random or other approaches as appropriate; proposed numbers of KIIs, FGDs, stakeholder consultations and survey respondents; expected total sample size; and justification of sample adequacy and limitations.

• Target locations: proposed research locations across the RWVL implementation areas in Somalia, with selection criteria reflecting geographic diversity, accessibility, security, urban/rural context and relevance to priority women’s rights issues. Final sites will be agreed with SSWC during inception.

• Participant inclusion: deliberate inclusion of women and girls in all their diversity, including women and girls with disabilities, young women, displaced and marginalized women and girls, minority groups and other groups facing intersecting barriers, where safe and contextually appropriate. The methodology shall describe measures to reduce participation barriers and avoid tokenistic representation.

• Data collection tools: development, translation where required, pre-testing and finalization of structured and semi-structured tools for KIIs, FGDs, stakeholder consultations and surveys, as applicable. Tools must be tailored to participant groups and designed to generate disaggregated and comparable evidence.

• Ethics and safeguarding: compliance with applicable ethical research standards and SSWC/Plan International safeguarding requirements. The consultant shall identify whether formal ethical clearance or approval is required and secure it before primary data collection where applicable. Research involving girls under 18 shall use age-appropriate child safeguarding and assent/parental or guardian consent procedures, as appropriate.

• Informed consent and confidentiality: documented, voluntary and accessible informed-consent procedures,clear explanation of purpose, risks, benefits, confidentiality, data use and the right to refuse or withdraw, anonymization of personal data; secure data storage and transfer; restricted access; and a clear data-retention and disposal plan.

• Do-no-harm and referral: procedures for managing sensitive disclosures, distress, protection concerns and gender-based violence-related information, including safe referral pathways and interviewer protocols. No participant should be pressured to disclose personal experiences of violence.

• Data analysis and triangulation: a clear analytical framework, quantitative and qualitative analysis plan, disaggregation at minimum by sex, age, disability and location where feasible and safe, triangulation across sources, and transparent treatment of contradictory evidence and research limitations.

• Validation: participatory validation of emerging findings with relevant stakeholders, including women’s rights actors and representatives of groups whose perspectives are reflected in the study.

G. GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE AND TARGET PARTICIPANTS.

The research shall cover selected RWVL implementation locations across Somalia. The consultant shall propose a feasible geographic spread in the technical proposal and confirm the final sites with SSWC during inception, taking into account program relevance, representation, security, accessibility, logistics and the need to capture diverse urban, rural and displacement-affected contexts.

For each proposed location, the inception report shall identify target participant groups, expected sample numbers by method and participant category, and the rationale for site and participant selection. Any changes to agreed sites or sample targets during fieldwork shall be documented and approved by SSWC.

Participants may include:

o   Relevant government ministries and institutions in Somalia.

o   Women’s Rights Organizations (WROs).

o   Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs).

o   Youth-led organizations.

o   Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs).

o   Community leaders.

o   Religious leaders.

o   Academia and research institutions.

o   Media representatives.

o   Development partners.

o   Women and girls from diverse backgrounds.

H. EXPECTED OUTCOMES.

The assignment is expected to achieve the following outcomes:

• Increased understanding of women’s rights issues in Somalia.
• Availability of reliable evidence for advocacy and policy engagement.
• Improved understanding of policy and legal gaps.
• Strengthened evidence base for RWVL interventions.
• Actionable recommendations for stakeholders.

I. DELIVERABLES AND PAYMENT SCHEDULE

Deliverable	Payment
Approved Inception Report	20%
Completion of Data Collection and Fieldwork Report	20%
Submission of Draft Research Report	20%
Validation Workshop and Presentation of Findings	10%
Approved Final Research Report and Supporting Documents, including cleaned/anonymized datasets, final tools, transcripts/notes as agreed, evidence tables, and advocacy/communication products. Final narrative and advocacy products shall be submitted in editable source formats and print-ready PDF where appropriate, advocacy products shall also be supplied in social media-friendly formats.	30%
TOTAL	100%

J. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENT

The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the RWVL Project officer and the Head of Programs. All reports and deliverables shall be submitted to SSWC for review and approval. The consultant shall maintain close coordination with the project officer throughout the assignment.

K. QUALITY ASSURANCE AND ACCESSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

All deliverables shall meet high standards of methodological rigor, accuracy, clarity and usability. The consultant shall establish and document quality-control procedures covering enumerator/researcher training, tool testing, field supervision, daily data checks, secure data handling, transcription/translation checks, data cleaning, analysis, triangulation, citation and version control.

• All findings and recommendations must be traceable to credible evidence and clearly distinguish primary findings, secondary evidence, interpretation and recommendations.

• Draft and final outputs must be gender-responsive, disability-inclusive and conflict-sensitive, and must avoid stigmatizing, discriminatory or harmful language, images or framing.

• Reports and advocacy products must be visually accessible and suitable for policymakers, civil society actors and community-level audiences. This includes clear structure, plain language where appropriate, readable typography, accessible tables/figures, meaningful headings, captions/alternative text for informative visuals where feasible, and colour/contrast choices that do not rely on colour alone to convey meaning.

• SSWC shall review deliverables and may request reasonable revisions. The consultant shall maintain a comment-response matrix showing how substantive feedback has been addressed before final approval.

• All statistics, quotations, case examples and claims shall be verified and appropriately sourced. Personally identifying or sensitive information shall not appear in public-facing outputs without explicit, documented permission and a clear safeguarding justification.

L. DONOR VISIBILITY AND BRANDING

All external-facing outputs shall comply with applicable visibility, acknowledgement and branding requirements of SSWC, the Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership (RWVL) Project, Plan International and Global Affairs Canada. The consultant shall apply the branding guidance and approved logos/templates provided by SSWC, including required donor acknowledgements and disclaimers, and shall obtain SSWC approval before public dissemination or production of print materials. Branding and visibility must never compromise participant safety, confidentiality, informed consent or safeguarding considerations.

M. DURATION OF THE WORK

The consultancy assignment shall be completed within 6 months from the date of contract signing.

N. DUTY STATION

The consultant will be based in Mogadishu, Somalia, with travel to selected locations.

Criteria	Percentage (%)
Technical Evaluation	70%
Relevant Academic	15%
Experience in women’s rights and gender research	25%
Proposed methodology and approach	20%
Experience working in Somalia	10%
Financial Evaluation	30%

Kindly note that only consultants achieving the minimum technical score will proceed to financial evaluation. The technical assessment will consider the specificity and feasibility of the proposed sampling, inclusion, ethics/safeguarding, data quality and quality-assurance arrangements.

P. QUALIFICATIONS

Eligible consultants should possess:

• Master’s degree in Gender Studies, Human Rights, Development Studies, Social Sciences, Law or related field.
• Minimum five years of proven experience conducting gender and human rights research.
• Demonstrated experience in qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.
• Experience undertaking similar assignments in Somalia.
• Excellent analytical, report writing and presentation skills.
• Strong communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Knowledge of women’s rights frameworks and gender equality programming.

Q. SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Eligible consultants should submit technical and financial proposals no later than 1600hrs on 25th September2026 to hr@sswc-som.org copying ahmednasir@sswc-som.org.

Interested consultants should submit:

• Technical proposal.
• Financial proposal.
• Updated CV.
• Cover letter.
• Three recent professional references.
• Samples of similar assignments undertaken.
• Copies of academic and professional certificates.

Kindly note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.