ACBAR

About Women for Women International (WfWI)

We invest in women in 17 conflict-affected countries around the world as they rebuild their lives. We invest where inequality is the greatest by helping women who are forgotten— the women survivors of war and conflict. We help them learn the skills they need to rebuild their families and communities, and to transform their lives. The women in our direct delivery programs engage in community cohorts who learn to save, build businesses, understand their rights, improve their health, and participate towards transformation for themselves, their families, and communities. For 30 years, Women for Women International has used an integrated approach to innovate; we are a learning organization that listens to data, our country teams, and women themselves to constantly evolve and improve the way we work. 

Since 2002, we have operated in five provinces of Afghanistan. Participants of our program receive vocational training for jobs like animal husbandry, tailoring and knitting, participating in savings and self-help groups, and learn to invest in their businesses as they receive stipends. Through this curriculum, they prepare to earn an income and invest in savings. They are trained by our team to embrace and defend their rights, support decision-making in their households, and create social change in their communities. WfWI programming includes men’s engagement, where male family members and community leaders are engaged as allies and key supporters.

WfWI also support grassroots and local organizations, led by women community leaders, to gain access to resources and capacity-strengthening that improves their ability to respond to their organization and their community’s self-identified priorities. Globally, WfWI advocates to ensure that women’s participation, voice, and leadership are central to the long-term changes we’re driving. Through listening to women, we build the evidence base to engage decision-makers at every level in a transformative effort to sustain an enabling environment for women in conflict-affected contexts. 

Scope of Work

In December 2020, WfWI held an organization-wide MEP workshop to present findings from MEP-focused research, hold conversations between country offices about their experiences, and develop an action plan for future programming. Based on these learnings, WfWI has prioritized improving our MEP as a significant part of our organization’s strategy. In order to strengthen our MEP, WfWI seeks expert assistance in developing a men’s engagement ToC, assessing our current approach to men’s engagement, providing recommendations for future programming, working closely with the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Afghanistan team to strengthen our monitoring and evaluation framework, and helping realize Afghanistan’s MEP goals as they relate to women’s outcomes.

For the scope of the work, the consultant will carry out the following key tasks:

MEP Strategy and Theory of Change

The consultant will review the content of the CORE MEP module and ToC  in consultation with the Afghanistan CO team; Propose the content and language appropriate for the context of Afghanistan and ensure the training will bring out the changes explained in the ToC; Review the Complimentary sessions and apply the same and ensure the content contributes to the changes in the Women and men.

Review the other accompanied MEP training materials and ensure they are in line with the changes in the curriculum.

Review the Indicators for MEP and the Monitoring Evaluation and Learning tools and ensure they are adaptable.

The revisions should address these types of questions:

• How do we ensure that the investment in MEP increases positive outcomes for women through our MEPs?
• How do we best promote positive changes in the household (decision making, bargaining power, etc.) through our MEPs?
• How to best address attitude changes separate from knowledge and behavior change?
• How do we best engage men in prevention of GBV, especially IPV, through our MEPs?

Guidance

Based on the revised strategy and ToC, the consultant will help revise WfWI’s Men’s Engagement program guidance, while building from recent Men’s Engagement research, WfWI’s program evaluations, WfWI’s country data, and WfWI’s country experiences with MEPs. An internal draft of men’s engagement guidance exists, but the consultant will update the guidance to reflect the revised strategy and ToC for Afghanistan. Additionally, the consultant should assist WfWI on how to best adapt the guidance to Afghanistan country context. This will include changes to be made to program materials (MEP curricula). The revised guidance should address these types of questions:

• What are the best strategies we can use to engage Men in AFG given the contextual realities to ensure men’s engagement and active participation in the program’s activities from beginning to end, as well as successful uptake of lessons throughout, leading to key knowledge/attitude/behavior changes? (Inclusive of men’s only activities, joint gender activities, activities such as community forums, etc)
•  What should be done to retain/motivate men to stay in the MEP program?
• How can WfWI best address mental health in the male community as a non-mental health service provider?

Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E)

Work closely with the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research & Learning (MERL) Afghanistan team and advise on how to best evaluate the long-term and short-term effects of MEP, as well as how to best evaluate and prioritize women’s outcomes and household impact in relation to MEP. Review current MEP tools and put forth suggestions and revisions to efficiently and accurately monitor and evaluate MEP impact. Advise WfWI’s MERL team on how to ensure male participants will provide responses to survey questions that are reflective of their actual beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, minimizing social desirability bias during data collection. The consultant will put forth suggested tools, methodology, and protocols to support this.  Additionally, advise the MERL team on how to monitor, evaluate, and interpret secondary positive outcomes—such as girls’ schooling.

Outputs

The appointed consultant will be responsible for ensuring the following are delivered before the end of the project:

• The consultant will engage the Afghanistan CO team and other stakeholders through interviews and review of other documents for MEP
• Recommendations on how to best adapt or contextualize the guidance for Afghanistan country Office experience and recommendations for changes to be made to program materials (MEP curricula, etc.).
• A proposed set of MEP M&E tools that includes edits to existing tools, additional supplementary tools, and relevant protocols for use of tools. The focus of the proposed tools should be on how to best assess the long-term and short-term effects of MEPs on both male participants and women in their households/communities.
• A comprehensive report documenting learnings from the consultancy, which includes recommendations that WfWI can consider to best serve the needs of women in Afghanistan Country Office.
• An Action Plan for taking forward all the key recommendations.
• Updated Participants handbook, Power point presentations to support the trainings

Skills and Experience

Applicants can include individual consultants, businesses or NGOs, and should have

1. Extensive experience working on men’s engagement programming globally and particularly in Afghanistan, as a crucial component to women’s empowerment and achieving gender equity and equality.
2. Extensive experience developing and implementing programs in fragile and conflict-affected and low resource countries.
3. Experience developing programmatic guidance and materials on men’s engagement focused on gender equality that “meet them where they are” and are suitable for use with audiences with limited education, low technology use, and low rates of literacy and digital literacy backgrounds.
4. Experience in developing quantitative and qualitative data collection tools measuring men’s attitudes, knowledge and behaviors around gender equality topics; ability to bring in participatory research and action research principles and protocols.
5. Evidence of strong accountability mechanisms used with project stakeholders/research participants to actively share results and learning.
6. Evidence of successful collaboration providing consultancy services with similarly placed NGOs.
7. Evidence of producing clear, concise reports in English and high quality, published reports. Additional language skills in WfWI -Afghanistan working languages (Dari and Pashto) a bonus.
8. Excellent communication and strong project management skills.
9. Flexibility when working around busy schedules and ability to meet deadlines.
10. Educational background preferred in international development, gender, anthropology, psychology, behavioral science, or related field. Educational background in Islamic study is a bonus.
11. Understanding of, and commitment to, Safeguarding best practices.
12. Exposure to inclusive projects/programs for people living with disabilities.

Estimated Contract Duration and budget: Consultants are requested to submit their proposed work plan and budget expectations by October 15, 2025, via email  to sahmadi@womenforwomen.org   

sahmadi@womenforwomen.org