National Gender Education Consultant / Project Coordinator _ Championing Girls’ and Women’s Education in COVID-19 recovery through Community Radio project in Lao PDR

UNDP Lao PDR

UNDP in Lao PDR works with the Government to build on the impressive progress in economic growth and poverty reduction that has been made over the past two decades. The proportion of poor people has dropped from 46 percent in 1992 to 23 percent of the population in 2015, and annual growth rates are above 7%.

However, these achievements have been accompanied by widening gaps between rich and poor, women and men, ethnic groups, and residents of different regions of the country. Poverty and near-poverty remain widespread in rural areas, standing at nearly three times the rate of that in urban areas. Ensuring that growth is achieved with equity and benefits poor people is central to UNDP’s role in assisting the country in a smooth graduation from Least Developed Country status.

Community Radio

The “Enhancing People Participating through Community Radio (EPPCR) Project” aims to expand the community radio network to more provinces as well as to ensure the sustainability of community radio after the project is completed. Currently, there are ten community radio stations in 5 provinces that can reach about 300,000 people.

Community radio stations, which allow local communities to operate and broadcast their programmes, have helped to harness the relevance of radio to enable people in remote regions to access information in their ethnic languages and engage on issues affecting their lives.

Championing girls’ and women’s education in COVID-19 recovery through community radio in Lao PDR

The project is jointly implemented by UNDP Lao PDR and UNESCO Bangkok, in partnership with the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Education and Sports, and Plan International Laos. It is being carrying out in alignment with and under the umbrella of UNDP’s ongoing project “Enhancing People’s Participation through Community Radio”, which has a particular focus on ethnic women, living in remote villages with limited access to information and who have low literacy. It aims to support community-led advocacy by young women and girls to ‘keep girls in the picture’ in COVID-19 education recovery efforts. Activities will be implemented within the framework of the #LearningNeverStops campaign of the UNESCO Global Education Coalition on COVID-19 education response and its media and information literacy campaign #ThinkCriticallyClickWisely. Through the Coalition’s Gender Equality Flagship and making use of its advocacy tools and resources, young women, aged between 18 and 35, in three rural and ethnically diverse districts, will be newly recruited or selected from existing volunteers within UNDP’s aforementioned project. The three target districts are Nakai District in Khammouane, Houne District in Oudomxay, and Ta-Oi District in Salavan.

The participating young women will be empowered with enhanced media and information literacy and advocacy skills to promote gender equality, and strengthened knowledge on the situation of, and barriers and enablers to girls’ education in Lao PDR. They will be engaged using community radio to locally contextualize and amplify the messages of the campaign geared at safeguarding progress made on girls’ education, ensure girls’ learning continuity during school closures, and promote girls’ safe return to school once these reopen. The ideation, creation and production of the broadcast content will be led by young women community radio volunteers and community radio station staff in the targeted communities. The co-creation of the content will be supported by a network of young local collaborators and co-creators.

The broadcast assets that will be the outputs of the project will contribute to the local pool of relevant, gender-responsive, information-education-communication products that are available to the general public, including to rural persons speaking minority languages. In addition, there will be broadcast content specifically targeting adolescent girl listeners about their education and wellbeing and about speaking up for their right to education, including in the context of COVID-19 recovery. The broadcast assets will also be made available to other local partners in the radio network for wider dissemination.

The project aims to achieve the following outcomes:

1. Young women from three rural districts in Lao PDR have increased knowledge on gender equality in and through education and the media, increased technical skills in content adaptation for community radio and strengthened advocacy skills for championing girls’ education; and
2. Ethno-linguistic minority communities from three rural districts in Lao PDR benefit from increased access to gender-responsive, information and education content that promotes gender equality and girls’ education and empowerment, available in local languages, disseminated via community radio.

Objective: 

1. To provide technical support and facilitate capacity development workshops for young women community radio volunteers and community radio station staff to empower them with enhanced media and information literacy and advocacy skills to promote gender equality, and strengthened knowledge on the situation of, and barriers and enablers to girls’ education in Lao PDR;
2. To mentor the young women community radio volunteers and community radio station staff to locally contextualize and amplify the key messages of the reference materials as well as produce, deliver and monitor the broadcast assets to advocate for ‘keeping girls in the picture’ in COVID-19 education recovery efforts; and
3. To support the project coordination partner at UNDP in the delivery, monitoring and reporting of project activities

The successful applicant will be expected to be responsible for the following:

Task 1: Preparation and coordination for capacity development process

• Review the following resources under the new campaign ‘Keeping Girls in the Picture’, which is part of the #LearningNeverStops campaign, and identify the key content and priority messages for further contextualization for the radio broadcast assets to advocate for girls’ education, ensure girls’ learning continuity during school closures, and promote girls’ safe return to school:
  1. Bring Back Equal: Girls Back to School Guide
  2. Keeping Girls in the Picture: Youth Advocacy Toolkit
  3. Keeping Girls in the Picture: Community Radio Toolkit

• Review the following resources under the #ThinkCriticallyClickWisely campaign to identify key messages to counter disinformation and fight discrimination in the context of COVID-19 recovery and advise how these messages can be made more gender-responsive:

1. The Big Conversation: Handbook to Address Violence against Women in and through the Media
2. The Media and Information Literacy Curriculum for Educators and Learners: Think critically, click wisely!
3. A series of radio spots and media messages produced by UNESCO to counter disinformation and fight discrimination in the context of COVID-19 recovery 

• In consultation with the project coordination partner at UNDP and Plan International Laos, plan, prepare and provide feedback on relevant concept notes, agendas and training materials for the following workshops (tentative titles) as a collaborative learning activity. Training materials should include, but not limited to, presentations and handouts/worksheets summarizing overview of knowledge about the key issues and messages.
  1. Workshop on social and gender norms analysis focusing on girls’ education
  2. Workshop on skills transfer in content adaptation for community radio using the translated campaign resources
  3. Workshop on creation and adaptation of radio broadcast content (organized back-to-back with the skills transfer workshop)
  4. Final closing workshop on results and peer learning exchange

Task 2: Workshop facilitation/co-facilitation

• Facilitate or co-facilitate the following workshops for approximately 30 participants, who are targeted young women community radio volunteers and community radio station staff:

1. Workshop on social and gender norms analysis – the participants will learn to identify positive and negative social and gender norms affecting girls’ education
2. Workshop on skills transfer in content adaptation for community radio using the translated campaign resources – the participants will be oriented to the key content, priority messages and capacity building activities of the key resources (see the Reference Document Section)
3. Workshop (held back to back with Skills Transfer workshop outlined above) on creation/adaptation of radio broadcast content in Lao language by young women community radio volunteers, guided by translated tools and skills acquired through training – the participants will plan and produce a suite of broadcast materials (e.g. public service announcements, radio programmes, etc.) to be aired on a community radio
4. Final closing workshop on results and peer learning exchange for volunteers – the volunteers will share their learning experience among peers and the results of the project will be shared with partners and the government

Task 3: Mentorship support during content creation, production and dissemination

• Ensure that young women community radio volunteers take a lead role in prioritizing the key messages for the broadcast assets and in assets’ production, delivery and monitoring;
• Ensure that male members of the community radio production teams and male community leaders are engaged to contribute to the broadcast content and the dissemination process so that the voices of men and boys as allies and co-advocates for girls’ education and gender equality will also be amplified;
• Provide technical guidance and support to young women community radio volunteers and community radio station staff to create broadcast content that is composed of a deliberate mix of public advocacy and information messages targeting parents, families and communities at large as to the importance and value of girls’ learning; the relevance of gender equality in and through education and the media, and the barriers to its achievement; and the ways in which girls, families and communities can together overcome those barriers to better support girls and women to access education, quality information and continue their learning;
• Provide technical support to the creation or adaptation of specific broadcast content that targets adolescent girls on key topics that span several of the dimensions of gendered COVID-19-related school closures and reopening, such as learning; health, nutrition & WASH; protection; media and information literacy; disinformation and ‘fake news’; and stereotypes and discrimination in and through the media;
• Provide technical guidance to ensure successful adaptation and translation of the created broadcast assets from Lao language into ethnic languages of the target communities; and
• Provide technical guidance to ensure that the broadcast content will be delivered in a way that engages, excites, is tailored and has relevance to the various target audiences.

Task 4: Documentation of experience

• Document the experience of one or two young women broadcast volunteers in the roll out of the project, both as a monitoring and a communications and advocacy product (e.g. narrative report, video scripts, discussion guide, etc.). The documentation should reflect the perception among the project beneficiaries on the extent in which the project impacted the following: (i) knowledge on gender equality in and through education and the media, technical skills in content adaptation for community radio, and advocacy skills for championing girls’ education, as well as including recommendations for support that will help promote gender equality, girls’ education, and empowerment which were sourced at the workshops.

• Excellent command in both English and Lao languages, including quality written and verbal communication skills

• Minimum of university degree in the field of education, social sciences, development studies or related areas 
• A minimum of 3 years of experience in designing and facilitating online training workshops, particularly on topics related to gender
• Demonstrated experience working in project management, in particular in the areas of gender equality, girls’ education and empowerment, health;
• Demonstrated experience in using activity-based, participatory methodology in training settings;
• Previous experience working with the UN/multilateral/bilateral institutions on the delivery of locally trainings and consultations would be an advantage.

More detail information on the Deliverables and the Payment Schedules, please find on the TOR

Requirements for submission of proposals:

All interested and qualified International or National Independent Consultant should apply on-line using the following links:

UNDP Lao PDR Country Office website at https://www.la.undp.org/content/lao_pdr/en/home/jobs.html  or

In order to make your submission, please read the relevant documents available on the link below

1. TOR (Annex I)
2. IC General Terms and Conditions _ Annex II;
3. OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP CONFIRMING INTEREST AND AVAILABILITY _ Annex III
4. P11 Form

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

1. Technical Proposal

            (i)  Explaining why you are the most suitable for the work;

            (ii)  Providing a brief methodology on how you will approach and conduct the work including the work

                  schedule for the delivery of outputs/deliverable;

1. P11 Form  Education and work experience, including past experience in similar projects and contact references of at least 3 references for whom you have rendered preferably the similar services;
2. Financial proposal:  Detailed financial proposal: Lump sum offer with clear cost breakdown against each deliverable. Please use this template OFFEROR’S LETTER TO UNDP CONFIRMING INTEREST AND AVAILABILITY _ Annex III

Instructions for on-line submissions:

1. Step 1:  Please prepare all required documents electronically;
2. Step 2: Combine all documents in ONE SINGLE FILE (preferably in PDF however Word format can be also accepted) and upload to the UNDP Jobs using the links above;
3. Step 3: After that you will receive an auto reply from the UNDP jobs if your offer is received successfully.

Note:  Any request for clarification must be sent in writing before the submission deadline to the following emails:                               

[email protected] with copy to [email protected]

Incomplete proposals or proposals received after the deadline (19 August 2021) will be rejected.