Consultancy Opportunity Under the PEMS funded Ethiopia Hotspot Evaluation of a norm and behavior change campaign targeting employers of child domestic workers

 Summary

• The Freedom Fund seeks a research partner to evaluate a norm and behavior change campaign in Ethiopia which aims to positively influence employers’ attitudes and treatments toward child domestic workers in Addis Ababa. The evaluation will be primarily quantitative in nature and is anticipated to involve a baseline and endline assessment. Applicants are invited to propose appropriate evaluation designs.
• Domestic work is one of the most common forms of paid work among girls in Ethiopia (Erulkar et al., 2010). Child domestic work can contribute to a child’s development and is not inherently harmful. However, in reality, many child domestic workers experience subjugation, intimidation and an obligation to provide services to private households. Very often the child worker is considered ‘under the care’ of a relative which takes away any form of employer responsibility. The lack of the relationship’s formality undermines the child’s rights and leaves the relationship open to abuse and exploitation.

• The campaign commissioned by the Freedom Fund aims to influence the behaviors of employers to ultimately reduce the risk of exploitation and abuse of child domestic workers. The campaign will seek to primarily engage employers so they understand their responsibilities towards child domestic workers, the needs and rights of child domestic workers and the circumstances in which children should not be working.
• The Freedom Fund anticipates this consultancy to commence at the start of May, with fieldwork for the baseline assessment taking place in June and July 2021 and an endline assessment in 2023.

Eligibility

• Organizations and consortia with relevant experience are invited to submit proposals for this evaluation. The lead applicant must be a legally registered entity according to the laws of the country in which it operates. The Freedom Fund will preference organizations either locally based in Ethiopia or with substantive experience of working in Ethiopia.

Budget

• A maximum of 60,000 USD is available for the evaluation. Proposed budgets will be reviewed with respect to the suitability of the proposed methodology and activities in meeting the project objectives in a cost-effective manner.

Introduction to the Freedom Fund and its work in Ethiopia

• The Freedom Fund is a global non-profit organisation that identifies and invests in the most effective frontline efforts to eradicate modern slavery in the countries and sectors where it is most prevalent. We work with frontline organisations to help protect vulnerable populations, liberate and reintegrate those enslaved and prosecute those responsible.
• Through our innovative hotspot model, we convene strategically aligned networks of anti-slavery NGOs in high prevalence areas of Ethiopia, Brazil, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand to multiply the capacity, impact and influence of frontline partners. In Ethiopia, our hotspot program was first launched in July 2015 and has invested USD 6.4 million to combat the domestic servitude of Ethiopian women and girls migrating to the Middle East. Our head office is based in London, but the Freedom Fund is also a registered organisation (NGO) in Ethiopia.
• Until 2021, the Ethiopia program aimed at generating improved understanding and practices of safer migration, at providing socio-economic support to those most likely to migrate, at strengthening governance structures and systems for safer migration and supporting migrant workers, while promoting learning and good practices. Since 2015, the hotspot program in Ethiopia has improved the lives of more than 133,000 victims of trafficking and vulnerable women and girls, partnering with eleven local NGOs in Addis Ababa and Amhara working to reduce the risk of, and support those affected by trafficking and exploitation.

• Last year, the Freedom Fund has been awarded USD 7 million from the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State under their Program to End Modern Slavery (PEMS). This funding will allow the Freedom Fund to expand its work from cross-border migration into internal migration, focusing on exploitation and servitude amongst child domestic workers (CDWs), with the aim of measurably reducing the prevalence of domestic servitude amongst girls in Addis Ababa as well as improving the migration outcomes of Ethiopian women and girls in the Middle East.

The freedom fund Ethiopia hotspot has two main programs funded under PEMs:

• a program aimed at reducing the risk of exploitation of CDWs in Addis Ababa; and
• a program aimed at reducing trafficking of Ethiopian girls and women migrating to the Middle East as domestic workers, focusing on Addis Ababa and the Amhara region.

The norm and behavior change campaign (NBCC) is exclusively focusing on the CDW program. Under this program, the Freedom Fund and its partners aim to improve CDWs’ working conditions and reduce domestic servitude of Ethiopian girls by:

• influencing the attitudes and behavior of key stakeholders, such as employers, recruiters and transporters;
• improving government ability to monitor CDWs’ conditions;
• building civil society organization capacity to incentivize government responsiveness and improve the legislative framework, including mechanisms for children’s participation in advocacy; and
• improving the quality of services provided to at risk CDW and survivors, especially access to education and vocational training.

The CDW program’s main objective is to substantially and measurably reduce the prevalence of domestic servitude amongst girls in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A number of activities to be carried out by partners will include training of key stakeholders like government bodies, police, prosecutors and recruiters on issues related to CDWs exploitation, reporting of breaches of child welfare or the handling of victims and children in particular and target outreach activities to specifically influence employers and recruiters in particular.  There will also be a larger program evaluation, commissioned and managed separately to the work outlined in this RFP, to quantitively and qualitatively assess progress towards program objectives.

Further details about the CDW program and its activities are provided under Annex 1. Six frontline organisations will be delivering interventions under the CDW program in Addis Ababa.

Scope of the request for proposals

• The Freedom Fund has commissioned a campaign which aims to create a measurable shift in the social norms subscribed to by employers of CDWs which influence their norms and behaviors, to positively change the experiences and trajectories of CDWs in Addis Ababa. The campaign will seek to primarily engage employers so they understand their responsibilities towards CDWs, the needs and rights of these children and positive ways to protect and support these young workers. Ultimately, the campaigns will contribute towards reducing the rate of exploitation and abuse experienced by CDWs.
• The scope of this evaluation is to design and implement an evaluation of the NBCC described above. The evaluation will be primarily quantitative in nature and assess the extent to which the NBCC has shifted norms and behaviors of employers surrounding their attitudes and treatment of CDWs. It is anticipated that the evaluation will involve a baseline and endline assessment, and will include indicators to measure the anticipated outcomes of the NBCC.

• The primary target group for the campaign are employers of CDWs and therefore this group will be the focus of the evaluation. The baseline assessment will establish the norms subscribed to by employers which influence treatment of CDWs and behaviors they demonstrate towards them. Findings from the baseline will form a crucial input into campaign development, with close consultation between the evaluator and the campaign implementing partner on this aspect. The endline assessment will determine whether or not the desired changes in norms and behavior have been affected, and to what extent. The assessment should also indicate which aspects of the campaign have been most effective in affecting the observed changes.
• Based on our high-level timeline, the campaign is planned to launch in October 2021, with the campaign development taking place July – September 2021. For the evaluation, we hope that baseline data collection can be completed by July 2021, with interim finding shared in August and formal reporting due in September 2021. For more details please refer to ‘High level timeline’ on p.6 of this document.

Main Evaluation Question

Baseline:

• What are the typical norms and behaviors exhibited by employers towards CDWs? Are there important differences based on characteristics of individual employers or households?

• Are there notable ‘positive deviants’ norms and behaviors among employers of CDWs that should be supported and amplified as part of the NBCC?

Endline:

• How effective has the campaign been at shifting the social norms underpinning the treatment of CDWs by employers and improving the behavior of employers towards them? What are the specific changes that have been observed in the target group and did this differ among sub-groups?
• What aspects of the campaign were more (or less) effective? Were there messages that were more (or less) influential among the target group? Were there communication channels that were more (or less) successful in reaching the target group?
• Is there an indication that the perception of CDWs has changed more broadly as a sustained result of the campaign?
• What are the lessons learnt for future norm and behavior change campaigns to positively influence the norms and behaviors of employers toward CDWs?

Methodology

• We anticipate this evaluation will require a primarily quantitative approach, and be comprised of a baseline and endline assessment. The Freedom Fund welcomes proposals that consider the use of alternative or innovative techniques for measuring behavioral and social norm change, each application will be considered on its own merits and proposals should detail the relative advantages of the selected method/s.

The proposed methodology should address the below:

• Access to respondents: how a representative sample of employers of CDWs will be obtained, consideration should be given to how this group can be accessed and engaged with in a manner which encourages honest responses. The evaluation is not expected to exhaustively cover all locations within Addis Ababa where the campaign will be executed, but rather a representative selection of employers.
• Development of indicators: underpinning the evaluative work will be a set of indicators designed to capture change of social norms and behaviors and recall of key messages. These indicators should be developed through an iterative process, led by the evaluation partners and involving collaboration with both the Freedom Fund and the NBCC implementing partner.
• Quantitative data collection methods: includes design of the evaluation instruments in line with the objectives stated above and the agreed indicators. Demonstrating the appropriate level of sensitivity and nuance. Please indicate if you plan to draw two independent samples at baseline and endline, or if you plan to implement a ‘tracer’ study and how contact with the respondents would be maintained. Work planning should allow for sufficient time for input from the Freedom Fund and the NBCC implementer before finalisation. We welcome proposals that include data collection techniques suitable for culturally sensitive topics, such as self-completion surveys.
• Sampling stratey and sample size for quantitative estimates: the proposal should include a description of the study population and how respondents will be selected to obtain a representative sample – household listing, time-location sampling, as well as other creative approaches (such as leveraging school and parent networks) would all be considered. Please outline your proposed sample size and the assumptions used for sample size calculation.
• Data quality: proposals should detail the procedures that will be in place to ensure a high level of data quality.
• Process to share evaluation findings: we would like the initial baseline findings to be shared with the campaign partner as soon as feasible, so we welcome proposal where interim findings can be shared iteratively to inform campaign development.  Further, in addition to formal written reports, we would also like the evaluation team to suggest creative formats to share the evaluation findings and include this as part of their deliverables.
• The research approach should adhere closely to ethical principles and safety concerns of research participants and researchers themselves. Including safety protocols to limit the spread of covid-19. If there are any other elements considered to be crucial to a successful study, please include these in your proposal. Please be clear about how the roles and responsibilities would be distributed.
• A household survey which involves listing thousands of households with CDWs is taking place within Addis Ababa at a similar time to this piece of research. This household survey will be taking place in specific geographies only and these will be known to the evaluation team once selected. Respondents to this RFP are invited to think through how the two surveys could avoid contaminating the respective samples, and how methods other than household sampling could be used.
• The selected team will be contracted by, and report to, the Freedom Fund’s Research and Evaluation Manager, based in London. The Freedom Fund anticipates working closely with the research team through all stages.

Eligibility & Budget

• A maximum of 60,000 USD is available for the design and implementation NBCC evaluation as described in this RFP. Proposed budgets will be reviewed with respect to the suitability of the proposed methodology and activities in meeting the research objectives in a cost-effective manner.As part of the proposal, please prepare a brief budget with the following breakdown:
• Personnel cost (including project staff, short-term contractors and data collectors)
• Travel costs (including all forms of transport, accommodation and subsistence as applicable)
• Other direct costs (including training of data collectors, purchase of tablets or PPE for data collectors, gifts/incentives for respondents (if applicable), software for data analysis)
• Overheads
• Tax, if applicable
• Any other costs associated with conducting the work

Note, proposed budgets should be in USD and include all costs expected to conduct the work.

Project deliverables and high level timelines

• Below is a high-level timeline, the various stages of the will need to be synced with the campaign design and implementation to remain within the timeframe. This high-level timeline is subject to change if there are major disruptions (such as due to a surge in covid-19 cases, civil unrest etc.) that cause the Freedom Fund to halt program activities in order to protect the safety of our program staff, participants and partners.

High-level timeline

Preferred competencies of the research team includes

• Prior experience in conducting baseline and endline studies
• Prior experience in conducting research which involves exploring culturally sensitive issues
• Expertise in proposed research methods
• Strength in management of fieldwork, analysis, and write-up
• Fluency in both Amharic and English, and capacity to write for an expert and for a non-technical audience
• A willingness to work closely with the Freedom Fund