CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR ACTION RESEARCH ON RECOGNISING, REDUCING AND REDISTRIBUTING WOMEN S UNPAID WORK IN INDIA

Transcription

1 CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR ACTION RESEARCH ON RECOGNISING, REDUCING AND REDISTRIBUTING WOMEN S UNPAID WORK IN INDIA The UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) Multi Country Office (MCO) for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka is inviting civil society organisations to submit proposals for an Action Research on Recognising, Reducing and Redistributing Women s Unpaid Work in India. A. GUIDELINES FOR PREPARING AND SUBMITTING A PROPOSAL The proposal must contain 1) a technical section and 2) a financial section. The proposals submitted must be in line with the Terms of Reference (Annex 1). The interested organizations must include short additional documents or other publications of their previous work related to the required tasks which demonstrate their production capacities such as organizational brochure and three previous years audit reports. Proposals can be submitted by only one organization of the non-profit organizations/institutions category. The applying organization must be registered in India. Format of Proposals Given the attached Terms of Reference, the proposal should contain, at a minimum, the following: 1) A Technical Proposal consisting of: 1. Context analysis: A brief summary of relevant policies in the domain of women and work (paidunpaid) with focus on sub-sectors including, but not limited to maternity entitlements, child-care, water and sanitation and public works (1 page); 2. Justification: Rationale for selection of (1) constituencies of women workers for mapping the continuum of paid- unpaid work; (2) sub-sectors such as maternity entitlements, child-care, water and sanitation and public works and (3) why the organization is best-suited to undertake the task of conducting this research (2 pages). 3. Project strategies, methodology and proposed activities: Provide a description of the methodology to be used to (i) undertake field based research to map women s work (paidunpaid), working conditions and access to entitlements and services; and to (ii) organise and build capacities of women workers coalitions to advocate for their access to entitlements and services (2 pages). Briefly describe how the action research will assist in strengthening policy dialogue and collective action towards addressing specific vulnerabilities and interests of the selected constituencies of women workers (1/2 page). 4. Results Framework: The expected results of the project (1 page);

2 5. Work-plan and budget: A description of expected research results, key activities, timeframe and budget details to conduct the activities (Refer to Annex 2 for Work-plan and 3 for Budget template); 6. Partnerships: Include a description of the partners needed to successfully implement the project and their roles (1-1 1/2 page); if any; 7. Institutional profile: Provide a brief description of your organization, including registration details, personnel, and experience in the relevant field (not more than 1 page); 2) A Financial Proposal consisting of: 1. An output and activity based budget i.e. budget showing how much is required to achieve each output. 2. The budget should include an allocation for preparation of a certified financial report annually and one audit report during the project; 3. The administrative cost should not exceed 8% of the total budget. B. CRITERIA FOR SELECTION The proposal will be selected on the basis of technical (70%) and financial (30%) assessments. 1. Feasibility and appropriateness of the proposal responding to the expected results (20 points) i. Extent to which the proposal fulfills the requirements of the Call for Proposals; (10 points) ii. Clarity of the situation analysis and problem identification (10 points); 2. Proposed Methodology (20 points) i. Soundness of strategy, proposed activities and expected results against the problem analysis (5 points); ii. Proposed design including identification of qualitative and quantitative research tools for field research and organising and capacity building of women workers into coalitions (10 points). iii. Realistic work plan to complete the activities (5 points). 3. Institutional technical capacity and relevant experience (20 points) a) Relevance of specialized knowledge and experience to promote women s rights and gender equality in the context of work (10 points); b) Established capacity for institutional partnerships with government, civil society networks and campaigns and academia (10 points); 4. Qualification of the team leader of the action research (10 points); a) Specialized knowledge on women s work demonstrated through past and current organisational affiliations and research work (5 points); b) Relevant experience in implementing research projects (5 points); The financial assessment will review the efficient utilization of budget (30 points) as follows: a) Activity-based budgeting; b) Reasonable cost of implementation; c) Administrative cost equal to or below 8% of total budget; d) Inclusion of annual certified financial report and one most recent audit report

3 C. PROPOSALS DUE DATE The last date for submission of proposals is 14 August 2015, 11:59 pm India Time. Please send proposals to Please ensure that that the subject line of the is: Action Research on Recognising, Reducing and Redistributing Women s Unpaid Work in India D. ANNEX: 1. Terms of Reference (TOR) 2. Work-plan Template 3. Budget Template

4 Annex 1 TERMS OF REFERENCE ACTION RESEARCH ON RECOGNISING, REDUCING AND REDISTRIBUTING WOMEN S UNPAID WORK IN INDIA BACKGROUND The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which a vast majority of States are signatory, enshrine the role of the State to address unpaid work when the distribution of such work creates or perpetuates gender inequality or proves an obstacle to full and equal human rights enjoyment. The proposed post-2015 development framework advocates for public services, infrastructure and social protection policies, and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family as nationally appropriate (Target 5.4) as a critical way forward towards recognising, reducing and redistributing women s unpaid care work. Important links between macroeconomics and unpaid care work have also been made in the Report on Unpaid Care Work by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and the global consensus on the Social Protection Floor (SPF 2012). Gender equality advocates and feminists globally have raised the need to recognize women s unpaid work. Women bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid work including care that prevents them from participating in other activities. They are responsible for much of the production of goods and services that poor households consume, yet this is not reflected in economic measurements. Moreover, women and girls have to forego their basic rights to education, healthcare, decent work and leisure time in order to balance all these activities (Action Aid 2013). Feminist economists argue that unpaid work entails a systemic transfer of hidden subsidies to the rest of the economy that go unrecognized, imposing a time-tax on women throughout their life cycle. They argue that this gets exacerbated within a framework of macroeconomic policies that promotes Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP), including trade liberalisation and privatisation of basic rights and essential services. The relationship between unpaid work and macroeconomic policies, especially fiscal policies which involve cutting down expenditure on social sectors such as health, childcare, nutrition, sanitation and so on, is well-known. These hidden subsidies that women are forced to bear, signal the existence of power relations between men and women; also, they connect the private worlds of households and families with the public spheres of markets and the state in exploitative ways. In India, women are employed in large numbers in informal jobs in the manufacturing sector, construction and agricultural activities (NSS ). Their work in these sectors is characterized by

5 informality, invisibility, vulnerability and drudgery. Even when they are remunerated, the conditions of work and wages remain grossly exploitative and in contravention of international and national labour standards. The marginalization of these women is further exacerbated due to their socio-economic position in society. 1 However entering the labour market does not mean women abandon their unpaid care work. Instead, the expectation is that they will continue with multiple activities. Therefore the understanding of women s unpaid work in developing economies requires analysis not just of the duration, but also the distribution, of time between paid/unpaid work and the allocation of unpaid time among a range of activities as well as the presence or absence of enabling conditions. As already mentioned, the burden of unpaid work is further exacerbated by the lack of adequate public provisioning in critical sectors such as health, water and sanitation, food security and livelihoods. According to Jayati Ghosh (op cit), there is a dual process at work in most developing countries at the moment. At one level, as governments reduce their provision of various public goods and services, they become more expensive and therefore difficult to access for poor women, who are then driven to the labour market in order to increase household incomes. At another level, the same process also requires more and more women to be employed in caregiving and service sectors as other women need to farm out some of their previously unpaid domestic activities. It is a trajectory that has been followed by other countries in the past; what is distinct in the current context is that previously, government took up a substantial part of the costs for provision of such services, whereas now it is left to private markets. The functioning of such markets necessarily entails working conditions which are much inferior to public employment. At the lower end of the spectrum, it involves not only a double burden of paid and unpaid work for women, but also substantial increases in the sheer volume of unpaid work (ibid). 2. JUSTIFICATION In the existing literature, two broad trends are discernible in the unpaid work discourse. The first pertains to the debate around capturing women s paid and unpaid work in the market economy, as defined by the United Nations System of National Accounts of 1993 (SNA). The primary focus has been on conducting Time Use Surveys (TUS) to capture the different forms of work that men and women do. On the one hand, while there is greater awareness about the critical importance of time-use data, the policy uptake of data from TUS remains limited, particularly in developing countries (UN Women, 2011). The second area of focus has been on unpacking the care dimension of women s unpaid work, specifically in the context of their reduced access to labour markets. It is argued that care is a serious economic and social policy issue, which necessitates due attention within policy frameworks (Elson 2005; Folbre 2001). Thus far, the policy response in this regard has primarily been on providing maternity and child care support (Orloff 2002; Rubery et al. 2001; Ghosh 2009). Although the existing work on TUS as well as on care, have contributed immensely to widening the horizons of women s work, voices from the Global South are increasingly arguing for a more nuanced 1 For example in India, over 81 per cent of agricultural workers belong to SC/ST/OBC community (ILO 2011).

6 interpretation of the domain of work and the need to look at the complex overlaps between various categories of work (Darooka 2013). While SNA/Non SNA provide a useful framework for analysis, it tends to reduce women s work into the binaries of market/non market, productive/non-productive, and paid/unpaid. As a result, it fails to adequately capture the continuum of women s work. Feminist economists do provide a comprehensive framework that moves beyond the SNA/Non SNA to capture women s work in its various dimensions, including the concept of extended SNA, which in countries like India are eight times more than for men 2, but is not counted as work. However, the challenges of the time use methodology are the fact that it is time-consuming, and there exists a disciplinary bias in documenting women s economic activities, whereas a lot of the unpaid work and drudgery that women are involved in as caregivers, subsistence workers, farmers, self-employed workers, community volunteers and underpaid care workers continues to be unreported and outside of the ambit of economic activity. The links between the paid-unpaid, productive-reproductive, public-private, continue to be undocumented and therefore, not approached holistically in policy and programme. UN Women is inviting proposals from organisations and institutions to conduct an Action Research on Recognising, Reducing and Redistributing Women s Unpaid Work in India. The objectives are as follows: 1. To build a knowledge base on the continuum of women s work (paid-unpaid), with a focus on women workers from the most marginalised communities**. 2. To build capacities of women workers and their coalitions to advocate for an effective policy mechanism to recognize, reduce and redistribute women s unpaid work. 3. EXPECTED RESULTS Evidence based advocacy will result in gender responsive formulation and implementation of policies in select sectors that leads to the recognition, reduction and redistribution of women s unpaid work. Existing collectives of women workers in select states will have access to resources to enable recognition, reduction and redistribution of their unpaid work. 4. SCOPE OF WORK The specific tasks will include: 1. Defining research questions building on UN Women s Working Paper that analyses legislations, budgets, policies, and programmes impacting women s work (paid-unpaid). 2. Developing an inter-disciplinary methodological framework to map the continuum of paidunpaid work in select sectors through the lived experiences of women workers, including their access to work, working conditions, entitlements and essential services and the burden of unpaid work. 3. Building capacity of collectives of women workers in the states where the research is being carried out to enable them to demand greater access to information, social protection and services that recognise, reduce and redistribute their unpaid work. 2

7 **The focus could be on select constituencies of women workers such as caregivers, subsistence workers, farmers, self-employed workers, community volunteers and underpaid care workers. 5. MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENT UN Women Multi Country Office (MCO) for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka will oversee work of the implementing partner (IP). The IP is tasked to design and conduct the activities, and UN Women will provide feedback on the content and scheduling of the activities. UN Women will set up an Advisory Group on Women s Unpaid Work for providing strategic direction and guidance. The IP will be a local non-profit organisation/ institution and may enter into subcontracting arrangements with other local partners (non-profit organisation/ institution only) for fulfilling the requirements of the TOR. 6. EXPECTED DELIVERABLES The deliverables from the project are as follows: 1. Final Action Research Report including the following: Literature review Methodological framework Analysis of findings Policy recommendations for the selected sectors 7. DURATION September December ELIGIBILITY Proposals can be submitted by a registered non-profit organization/ institution in India.

8 Annex 2: Proposed Work-plan EXPECTED OUTPUTS PLANNED ACTIVITIES Timeframe Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Quarter 3 Quarter 4 Quarter 5 Quarter

9 Annex 3: Proposed Budget Sl. No. Expected Outputs Activity (aligned to outputs) Budget Head Unit Cost No. of Units Total Cost Indirect Programme Support Costs Audit Administrative Cost (8%) Total