Thailand: Asia-Pacific Girls’ Leadership Index - 2024

Plan International is an independent development and humanitarian organization that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. As an independent development and humanitarian organisation, we work alongside children, young people, our supporters and partners to tackle the root causes of the challenges facing girls and all vulnerable children. We support children’s rights from birth until they reach adulthood and enable children to prepare for and respond to crises and adversity. We drive changes in practice and policy at local, national and global levels using our reach, experience and knowledge. For over 80 years we have been building powerful partnerships for children, and we are active in over 75 countries.

Background: 

Our strategy for 2023 to 2027 is to work towards and support “All Girls Standing Strong Creating Global Change.” [1]To achieve this, Plan continues to deepen its work through focusing on girls’ rights, youth-led work and influence. Asia Pacific (APAC) Hub of Plan International has been working as a catalyst to bring impactful change in the lives of girls in this region for a long period of time.

In aby to our global strategy, the Global Advocacy Strategy (GLAS)[2] also outlines a number of key approaches that will guide our advocacy initiatives, reflecting major contextual shifts – COVID-19 pandemic, shrinking civic space, escalating humanitarian and climate crises. ​ To tailor the GLAS for APAC's unique context and amplify regional impact, Plan APAC will leverage existing influencing priorities and relevant regional evidence. Building on this foundation, the Girls Leadership Indexes (GLI) - first developed for Asia in 2019 and expanded to the Pacific in 2021 - provide a powerful tool for advocacy efforts.

The GLI is part of Plan International’s Asia Girls Report that explores the situation of girls and young women in Asia Pacific region including a broad discussion of the complex and dynamic transition girls undertake through adolescence into adulthood. The GLI a ground-breaking tool that quantifies opportunities available to girls in six key domains: education, health, economic empowerment, protection, political participation, legal frameworks spanning all 19 countries in Asia ASEAN and SAARC. In addition to six domains, in 2021, the LGI included climate as a domain for the countries in Pacific. The GLI not only sheds light on regional progress but also pinpoints areas where disparities and inequalities persist. This data-driven approach empowers advocacy efforts and drives targeted interventions, ultimately paving the way for a brighter future for girls in the APAC region.

The latest GLI was completed in 2022, with an aim to gain deeper insights into the key trends and factors that enable or constrain girls’ and young women’s abilities to develop leadership capabilities. The 2022 GLI rankings reflect the situation of girls’ leadership in each country relative to the other countries based on the latest available data. Climate Action was added as a seventh domain to the Asia GLI, reflecting APAC’s increased prioritization of climate as a programming focus and to align with the domains in the Pacific GLI.

Objective: 

The objective of this assignment is to update the existing Asia Girls’ Leadership Index and the Pacific Girls’ Leadership Index and examine whether there are any changes (key trends) on the situation of girls’ leadership in countries of focus across all seven domains, taking to account current regional and/or global factors that may have created impact on the situations under those domains. It is also expected that the consultant will provide a narrative report of analysis of data, which is meant for both internal use and external dissemination and is expected to be publicized. The report will provide qualitative information from data analysis and policy recommendations which aim to further assist APAC regional hub and country offices in devising their relevant influencing strategies. To perform the mentioned tasks, a consultant/consulting firm will be engaged on behalf of Plan APAC Regional Hub as per this Terms of Reference (TOR).

Suggested Methodology: 

The Index is a tool, which has been built through extracting indicators from the standardized databases. It is designed to look at the broad enabling environment for girls’ leadership across countries in the region. Six domains in the GLI cover 23 distinct indicators and recently added one climate domain includes 5 indicators. The Index mainly focuses on adolescent girls (10 - 19 years) and youth (10 - 24 years).

The consultant/consulting firm is anticipated to propose a detailed methodology to update the values for indicators in the domains of GLI. We propose that values for indicators are drawn from internationally recognised databases available online and where data is not available in the same database, those can be obtained through using the original source of the data . After populating the indicator values (raw data), each value is verified by cross-checking it against the original database and alternatives.

To support the analysis, the consultant/consulting firm is expected to conduct a desk review and then after completing the calculations of both sub-domain and overall index scores, analyse the relationships and trends between the findings of desk review and sub domain and overall index scores. In updating the index, the consultant/consulting firm is expected to examine whether any changes happen in the situation for girls’ leadership in all 19 countries in Asia and 14 countries in pacific individually focusing on the indicators. Once the consultant/consulting firm is finally selected, Plan APAC Regional Hub will share the raw data and working formula which were used in previous years

Ethics and Child Protection: 

Plan International is committed to ensuring that the rights of those participating in data collection or analysis are respected and protected, in accordance with Ethical MERL Framework and our Child and Youth Safeguarding Policy. All applicants should include details in their proposal on how they will ensure ethics and child protection in the data collection and analysis process, if any.

To view more details, please click this link: Please click TOR APAC GLI 2024.pdf

How to Apply: 

Interested applicants should provide a proposal covering the following aspects:

• Detailed response to the TOR
• Proposed methodology
• Proposed timeline
• Curriculum Vitae
• Three references
• Brief account of similar type of assignment done earlier.
• Detailed budget, including daily fee rates inclusive of taxes, etc.

Please send your application to Supornchai.Nawataweeporn@plan-international.org referencing “Asia-Pacific Girls’ Leadership Index - 2024” in the subject line and including supporting documents as outlined. Application deadline is 8th March 2024.