Consultant - PROMOTING LEGISLATION
& PROMPTING ACTION AGAINST
CHILD MARRIAGE

TERMS OF REFERENCE

LONGTERM TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR AMPLIFY CHANGE - PROMOTING LEGISLATION, PROMPTING ACTION AGAINST CHILD MARRIAGE

1.     Background

Since the 18th amendment to the Constitution, provinces have become responsible for drafting laws on child marriage, while the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929, which previously applied to the whole of Pakistan, remains in place in federal territory alone. This implies two provinces, namely KP and Baluchistan, are without legislation to protect the innocence of children, while Sindh and Punjab provinces have passed weak laws that remain without effective implementation.

The project aims at giving a counter narrative to prevailing religious, cultural and social acceptance of this practice through a concerted advocacy campaign. The campaign will have participation from both state and non-state actors and use both mainstream traditional and new media to advocate for legislative reforms and implementation. It proposes to engage journalists and religious leaders to create conditions for legislators to put forth legislative reforms and strengthen implementation against the practice of child marriage in Pakistan. The scope of the campaign will be both national and provincial. 

The Center, through social and behaviour change communication, advocacy and community mobilization, works to address social and cultural issues while adopting multi-channel holistic approaches to adequately address diversities. Center focuses on tailor-made interventions ranging from using interpersonal, group and community-based channels of communication to strategically employing traditional, modern and mainstream media vehicles to reach large and diverse groups of people.

2.     Introduction 

The project is built around Kingdon Agenda Setting theory. It proposed that for an issue to get on the political agenda, three processes must take place: a. the Problem refers to the process of persuading policy decision makers to pay attention to one problem over others; b. the Policy represent the process by which policy proposals are generated, debated, revised, and adopted for serious consideration; and the c. the Politics are political factors that influence agendas. When simultaneously a problem is recognized, a solution is available, and the political climate is positive for change, a window of opportunity, a policy window, opens which facilitate policy change[1].

The policy window is an opportunity for advocates to push attention to their special problems. Policy advocates must be prepared with their proposals available at hand in order to realize their goals while the policy window opens. Then, the separate three streams come together. A problem is recognized, a solution is developed and available in the policy community, apolitical change makes it the right time for policy change, and potential constraints are not severe. However, it is to be noted that a policy window opens sometimes predictably, other times unpredictably. It usually opens for a short period of time and closes if seemingly a problem has been fixed; people see that it’s not going anywhere; a crisis passes or there is change in personnel or no single alternative emerges. 

Through Amplify Change funding, Center for Communication Programs, Pakistan, has initiated the implementation of an advocacy project aiming at promoting action against Child Marriage, across Pakistan. Long term technical assistance is required not only for synthesizing evidence and presenting it through an advocacy toolkit, aimed at legislators, religious leaders and journalists but also developing social media content. Furthermore, the technical assistance is also required to assess and evaluate the project through a social impact assessment study using the case study approach.

3.     Objectives of the technical assistance:

Technical Assistance is required for the duration of the project. Specific Objectives of this TORs are as below;

1. Synthesize and prepare evidence based material for the use of legislators, religious leaders and journalists in the form of an advocacy toolkit
2. Develop social media content for social media campaign
3. Conduct social impact research of the project

4.     Methodology:

The proposed methodology for the advocacy toolkit, developing social media content and conducting social impact assessment is given below:

• For development of Advocacy Toolkit, desk review of available literature, both published and unpublished, on the subject will be included. The toolkit should include a fact sheet (provincial data as well as national); legislative analysis/policy brief (especially of Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, Sindh), background paper and other information on child marriage.
• For social media content, based on available resources as well as bearing in mind the target audience i.e., marginalized groups including women, young girls and people with special needs, 1 three-minute animated video, 3 adaptations and 6 digital banners will be developed to be utilized during the social media campaign.

• For Social Impact Research, review of indicators and milestones will be done; consultation and in-depth interviews will be conducted with legislators, journalists and religious leaders leading to the development of case studies and success stories aiming at evaluating the project. 

5.     Major Deliverables:

Following are the major deliverables:

6.     Timeframe: 

October 01, 2017 – June 30, 2018

7.     Reporting: 

The Program Director & Advocacy Specialist will give technical supervision and support whereas Center’s senior management will provide administrative oversight.

8.     Eligibility Criteria: 

The consultant must have:

• A masters degree;
• Proven experience in documentation, policy analysis, conducting monitoring and evaluation studies as well as a clear understanding of developing quality mass-media outputs for all genres, especially animated documentaries, intro videos, etc,
• Previously worked on content development including media content development (i.e. graphics, animations, television and/or radio, that accommodate and reflect different cultural norms, preferences, traditions and dialects of Pakistan); conducting case studies as well as evaluations;  
• Mobility and willingness to accept assignments at a short notice;
• Previously worked on issues SRHR, preferably in the domain of early marriage;
• Previously worked with large development and aid organizations.