Consultancy Opportunity: Conducting a Situation Analysis on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Kenya, ILO
Background
The UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNPRPD) is dedicated to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). It brings together different UN entities, governments, persons with disabilities and civil society for the purpose of joint programming and partnerships, it works through three strategic approaches: catalytic program funding, knowledge management and context relevant capacity building to support inclusive systems and policies. The PRPD recognizes a rights-based approach to disability, as detailed in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and its associated guidance. This means that sustainable change will require empowerment and meaningful participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations (rights holders) and acceptance and capacity of duty bearers to fulfill their obligations and to be accountable.
UNPRPD MPTF’s Strategic Operational Framework (SOF) 2020-2025 marks a shift from reactive to more proactive, results-oriented programming to drive implementation of the CRPD and disability inclusive SDGs with the meaningful participation of OPDs. This is achieved by encouraging and supporting countries to develop and reform policies, plans, budgets, programs, and services to comply with the CRPD and SDGs by applying both disability-specific and disability-mainstreamed interventions through a multi-stakeholder approach. A critical new element of the SOF is a focus on the essential preconditions to disability inclusion. These are the foundational aspects that are indispensable in addressing the requirements of persons with disabilities across all sectors, such as accessibility, access to disability support services, protection from discrimination, and more. Many countries still struggle to transform the CRPD into concrete policies, systems, programs and services that uphold the rights of persons with disabilities. It is urgent that governments and their implementation partners deliver on their SDG commitments through CRPD-compliant interventions.
To support countries in the best possible way, it is necessary to understand what the main bottlenecks and priorities are in each country in relation to the fulfilment of the CRPD. It is also important to understand who the key stakeholders are, what capacities they may need to improve, and what ongoing development processes need to become more disability inclusive. It is against this background that the UN in Kenya through the ILO, UNICEF and UNFPA in coordination with the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office is commissioning a Situation Analysis on Disability Inclusion to guide the UN in identifying priorities where the PRPD program funding can provide the biggest impact in accelerating CRPD implementation and enhance disability inclusion in broader development processes.
Scope
This Situation Analysis is designed to provide enough information to get a sense of priorities, issues and which areas require further analysis, investment and effort. This information should inform future analysis and programming. The analysis will be conducted through a multi-stakeholder process and will focus on the essential pre-conditions for disability inclusion. It will build on a human rights-based understanding of change processes, where empowerment and collective action of rights holders (persons with disabilities and their families) is a key pre-condition along with sufficient capacity and authority (human, systemic and financial) of duty bearers to fulfil their obligations as outlined in national legislation and international conventions. The purpose of the Situational Analysis is to conduct a comprehensive review of the national context. The partners will engage in active dialogue on the contextual factors affecting CRPD and SDG implementation and the preconditions to disability inclusion in order to ensure that programs are based on the national needs and respond to national challenges. The Situational Analysis will lead to the development of a full program proposal.
Objectives:
Findings from the analysis will be used to identify key priorities where PRPD program funding can provide the biggest impact in accelerating CRPD implementation and enhance disability inclusion in broader development processes
The analysis primarily is designed to:
- Inform the design of future PRPD programs
- Serve as a baseline for these programs
- Inform on gaps in terms of disability inclusion in on-going national processes and programs and recommend further, in depth analysis where needed
- Build a base of mutual understanding and working relationships between UN entities, government, OPDs and other civil society organizations, as well as the private sector and academia, as a basis for future co-design of joint programs
- Strengthen the capacity of above stakeholders to include and address the rights of persons with disabilities as outlined in the CRPD more effectively
- Serve as an advocacy tool for OPDs and other civil society partners, national and international.
- To provide information useful for policy planning and implementation, including sectoral policies, poverty reduction policies and SDG national plans, among others.
- To provide a disability rights perspective to COVID-19 recovery planning and beyond.
Methodology
Desk review/literature review – including formal and non-formal data and sources of information. Data and information collected during the UN Common Country Analysis or other sectoral plans, CRPD state reports and SDG reporting by countries and non-governmental actors, and CRPD committee concluding observations should be considered, noting age of reporting and using other methods to follow up on issues, consider progress etc. Other country reports for CEDAW, Child Rights Convention, etc. could also provide useful information. Internet searches and non-formal data should also be considered, with clear reference to sources. This should include program evidence and analysis, grey literature, and studies.
Focus group discussions, including with: organizations of persons with disabilities representing age and gender and diverse groups of persons with disabilities (or self-help groups or individuals if formal groups are not representing all diverse groups), government stakeholders at central and local levels, public service providers, other relevant civil society and NGOs, UN agencies and other relevant donors or development banks in the country, as well as academia and research centres. 8 individuals is a maximum in a focus group. Meetings with larger groups need to be organized with smaller group discussions and group facilitation.
Key informant interviews (with above stakeholders as relevant).
Short email questionnaires could be considered to solicit views of a larger group of respondents to triangulate the findings from interviews or as a response to the COVID-19 restrictions that may limit the opportunities to hold meetings.
Stakeholder mapping and coordination mechanisms.
COVID-19 restrictions should be taken into account
Analysis
The following is an overview of the components of the analysis. The analysis should focus primarily on the preconditions for inclusion and cross cutting issues – as these are of most relevance to PRPD as a multi-stakeholder partnership.
Preconditions for inclusion
- Equality & Non-discrimination
- Inclusive Service Delivery
- Accessibility
- CRPD-compliant budgeting
- Accountability & Governance
Cross cutting issues
- Participation: Enabling full and effective participation of persons with disabilities
- Inequalities: Ensuring the inclusion of marginalized and underrepresented groups of persons with disabilities
- Gender: Addressing gender inequality and advancing the rights of women and girls with disabilities.
Each of the above components have been elaborated to provide explanations and guiding questions which will be availed to the consultant/s. A summary of the most important aspects of the analytical framework are highlighted below;
Area of inquiry/precondition | Key focus of analysis
Stakeholder and coordination analysis – with focus on capacity of rights holders and duty bearers
Effectiveness of coordination mechanisms and processes for coordination on disability rights in government, UN, and key development partners. Areas of improvement.
Effectiveness of legal framework for civil society engagement and consultation. Obstacles and gaps.
Effectiveness of OPDs engagement and involvement with different stakeholders and gaps observed in OPDs capacity in terms of cooperation/networking, coverage/legitimacy, representatives of underrepresented groups, management/accountability, agency/advocacy/communication. Key areas of improvement.
Efforts taken and gaps observed in capacity and effectiveness of duty bearers and development partners in terms of engagement of ODPs in ongoing DDR and emergency management, sectorial, and SDG development processes.
Efforts taken and gaps observed in capacity and level of progress of civil society, private sector and academic institutions to mainstream disability in their programs and to engage with OPDs to improve on this
Equality and non-discrimination
Existence of disability and non-discrimination legislation. Key gaps observed.
Degree of legal harmonization with CRPD – identification of standout issues.
Efforts taken to ensure implementation of the CRPD and the national legislation in practice. Key obstacles observed.
Visibility of persons with disabilities in national SDG processes and programs, national human rights monitoring processes and humanitarian or emergency coordination and programming. Identification of gaps in these processes.
Efforts taken to identify an include marginalized groups within the disability community (women, ethnic groups, certain disabilities). What groups are still excluded or left behind?
Accessibility
Existence of accessibility legislative framework, standards, regulations and enforcement mechanisms. Progress in implementation and compliance, especially within government, UN agencies and key development partners. Do they practice what they preach in terms of e.g. access to information, sign language interpretation and physical accessibility? Key areas of improvement.
Inclusive service delivery
Existence of legal framework for access to disability support services and for access to mainstream services. Existence of legal framework for deinstitutionalization and access to justice for all (legal capacity). Key gaps and priorities according to OPDs.
Existence of an accessible and CPRD compliant assessment and disability determination system,
Progress on availability, accessibility and quality of essential services including: Disability specific support services, Social protection/assistance/social support, Health, Education, Employment, Justice, DRR and emergency management. Key gaps and priorities according to OPDs.
Outcomes for persons with disabilities (compared to persons without disabilities) drawing from and supplementing existing data on: Poverty, Social protection, Employment, Health, Education, Violence and abuse. If possible, disaggregated on gender and type of disability.
CRPD-compliant budgeting and financial management
National ministerial/sectorial and International cooperation budgetary contribution to furthering the rights of persons with disabilities – both disability specific budget allocations and budget allocations within mainstream budgets. Share of total budgets going to disability. For development partners, the OECD/DAC disability marker can be helpful.
Existence of explicit disability related objectives, indicators and monitoring data in national development and humanitarian programs funded by the UN. Identification of gaps.
Accountability and governance
Existence of independent human rights monitoring institutions and legal framework (which actively includes disability)
Existence of disability within standard data collection processes of surveys, census, administrative data, UN SDG data bases etc. (collection, use and availability of data)
CRPD reporting, oversight mechanism, quality of report and process, frequency, follow up of implementation of recommendations.
Level of engagement on disability in SDG Voluntary reviews.
Participation of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations in monitoring and accountability measures.
Cross-cutting issues
Level of participation of OPDs in important processes, including SDG processes, CRPD monitoring and DDR and emergency management e.g. in planning, implementation and monitoring. Obstacles to meaningful participation.
Level of inclusion of marginalized groups in dialogue and programmes, especially persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities as well as multiple disabilities and deafness.
Level of gender equality in voice, influence and inclusion in planning and implementation of interventions.
Thematic issues
Level of disability inclusion in development and humanitarian planning processes and programmes.
Level of disability inclusion in environmental and climate change planning processes and programmes.
Level of disability inclusion in Covid-19 responses.
Supervision
The consultant/s will work under the supervision of the UNPRPD participating agencies (ILO, UNICEF, UNFPA) with oversight and guidance provided by the Technical Committee which will endorse outputs and deliverables.
Timeline
Q4 2022 and Q1 2023.
Expected Deliverables
The consultancy will be expected to deliver the following:
Key Deliverables | Key Activities
1. Inception Report
- Outlining the understanding of ToRs, Interview Guides, Stakeholder mapping, Annotated Outline of the Report in alignment with the UNPRPD Situation Analysis Guidance document
2. Desk Review/Literature review
- Desk/Literature review to identify status of disability inclusion and implementation of CRPD and identify good practices at global, regional and country level
3. Qualitative research
- Conduct KII, FGDs and organize and hold consultative forums with relevant stakeholders to include OPDs and provide an analysis as per UNPRPD guidance document
4. Report
- Submit final report in alignment with the UNPRPD Situation Analysis Guidance Document
Required qualifications, desired competencies, technical background and experience
The consultant/s will be required to have the following experience and skills:
- Relevant advanced academic degree (Social sciences, development studies, economics or related fields );
- Demonstrated international/local experience in working on Disability Inclusion
- Demonstrated experience in conducting similar assessments and studies;
- Specific experience in undertaking complex social and economic research and providing authoritative analysis and guidance for policy makers.
- Experience working with governments, Development Partners and the UN
- Ability to facilitate consultative/validation workshop towards consensus building
- Excellent writing and communication skills in English.
Applicants are required to submit a technical and financial proposal with a clear work plan/timelines
The financial proposal should be all-inclusive and include a breakdown (professional fees, travel related expenses, communications, utilities, consumables, insurance, etc.)
Application
Interested and qualified candidates should submit their applications including the following: Capability Statement/Detailed Curriculum Vitae; Technical and financial proposal for implementing the assignment
Applications should be sent to nboprocurement@ilo.org to reach us not later than 4th December 2022
