An Unequal Pandemic: Collaborative report on marginalised groups amidst the pandemic

The International Civil Society Centre is looking for a project consultant to support the Making Voices Heard and Count project.

Specifically, we need a consultant to help us prepare a series of short publications focussing on insights, learnings and personal stories from the work of our partners with marginalised communities. The publication series is to be disseminated via the partnership’s website and the Global SDG Knowledge Hub, addressing the international SDG and development community.

Making Voices Heard and Count is a collaborative project of the Leave No One Behind partnership, which is hosted by the Centre. It brings together international and national civil society organisations (CSOs), civic networks and platforms with the ambition to bring about a scalable solution for filling data gaps on marginalised groups in the monitoring and review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Thereby, the project aims to make a key contribution towards fulfilling the Agenda 2030’s universal pledge to leave no one behind. The project fosters an inclusive model of SDG monitoring, supporting the collection, analysis and dissemination of community-driven data and giving a stage to data produced by the local target groups themselves – helping to make their voices heard and count.

In our follow-up project, running over the coming years, the ambition is to reach 100.000 people in up to eight countries, demonstrating through our inclusive approach that there is a scalable and widely applicable solution to fulfil the promise to ‘leave no one behind’ in SDG implementation.

For this purpose, the Centre is commissioning a consultant to:

• Attend a virtual evaluation workshop that the partnership arranges on 19 May between 10.30-13.30h UTC;
• Assess country reports to extract knowledge around specific learning questions;
• Conduct interviews with the partnership’s country teams and global experts to extract further knowledge, where needed;
• Develop a concept for publishing the above-mentioned article series, including:
  • Contextualisation: identify key themes, case studies, impact stories and/or personal stories. Balance between country / topic focus and cross-country knowledge.
  • Visualisation: make use of visual elements (e.g. graphs, illustrations, pictures, etc.) throughout the publications.
• Write a series of articles of up to 1,000 words each (number of articles to be agreed with contractor);
• Work in close collaboration with the global partnership coordinator.

Find the full tender and how to apply here

The Centre invites qualified individuals or organisations (“Offerors”) to submit a proposal for the requested services. The application needs to be submitted by 9 May 2021. Interviews of finalists will take place between 12 and 14 May.

If you meet the selection criteria, please submit your application to Peter Koblowsky including:

1. Proposal Narrative, no more than 3 pages, including:

• A brief description of the Offeror’s experience and expertise in the field that illustrates overall qualifications and capabilities. 
• A brief description of the Offeror’s understanding of the scope of services and proposed methodology for the work.

2. Resume or CV of individual or principals, in the case of a consulting firm

3. List of Past and Current Clients

4. Cost Requirements 

The Offeror should include a detailed budget, which at a minimum includes the daily rate and level of effort for each person who will work on the services described above. All budgets must be in Euros (EUR). Please note that we expect the consultancy to encompass no more than 13 working days. 

5. Proposal Submission: Proposals, including any attachments, should be sent electronically in PDF format to: pkoblowsky@icscentre.org. Be sure to include in the subject line: “Call for tenders – Making Voices Heard and Count”

Adriana Sahagún Martínez

Communications Manager

International Civil Society Centre

Announced today, the Civil Society Collaborative on Inclusive COVID-19 Data will work alongside marginalised communities and activists to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and collectively advocate for an inclusive recovery.

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With COVID-19 pushing up to 150 million people into extreme poverty by the end of 2021, the urgency to understand and meet the needs of the world’s most marginalised people has never been greater. However, pervasive gaps in official data and statistics are hindering efforts to protect and support those being left behind. To address this, over 15 civil society organisations (CSOs) are coming together and launching a collaborative that will combine their data-driven insights to create a more intersectional understanding of the pandemic’s effects.

From women to persons with disabilities to refugees, the pandemic has highlighted and deepened long-standing inequalities. But the true scale of the pandemic’s effects is obscured by data gaps. Many millions of people are invisible in official data and statistics, their lives and needs uncounted in policy decisions. An equitable recovery from COVID-19 requires better data on the lives of marginalised people, collected with their knowledge, consent, and participation.

Civil society is uniquely positioned to generate data and insights with marginalised people that can complement official statistics and fill data gaps. From citizen-generated data to rapid needs assessments to programmatic data, the collaborative is harnessing existing data collected by CSOs over the past year.  

The collaborative will work with communities and activists to develop a data-driven report and advocacy campaign, launching in July this year at the United Nations High Level Political Forum. 

Alongside new insights on the effects of COVID-19, the report will highlight CSOs and citizens’ learnings on inclusive and participatory data collection methods, and offer recommendations for improving collaboration and coordination between official data producers, civil society, and citizens.

The collaborative is led by a Steering Group, involving Action Aid (Denmark), Christian Aid, Development Initiatives, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, International Civil Society Centre, Plan International, Restless Development, and Sightsavers. 

A diverse and growing range of CSOs are engaged as partners, including Africa’s Voices Foundation, CBM, CIVICUS, Consortium for Street Children, HelpAge, Institute for Global Homelessness, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Save the Children, VSO, and World Vision.

The collaborative is an open platform for civil society, communities, and activists. If you would like to learn more about engaging, please contact Kate Richards, Inclusive Data Charter Outreach Manager.

The collaborative is made possible by the Steering Group’s contributions and convened by the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data and the International Civil Society Centre. 

Kate Richards

Inclusive Data Charter Outreach Manager

Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data

Kate Richards is the Outreach Manager for the Inclusive Data Charter, an initiative of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. She leads on engaging new Inclusive Data Champions, as well as developing and implementing communications and advocacy strategies that catalyze action on disaggregated and inclusive data. She previously worked at Dalberg, advising leading foundations, multilaterals, and NGOs on strategic communications and advocacy, and at Oxford University. Kate has an MPA from the London School of Economics and is based in London.

Peter Koblowsky

Senior Partnership Manager - Leave No One Behind

International Civil Society Centre

Peter joined the Centre in January 2013, back then as a trainee. He completed the traineeship in the advocacy & campaigning office of World Vision Germany. Peter now coordinates the Leave No One Behind project and contributes to the development and implementation of various other strategic formats. Before joining the Centre, Peter worked for various organisations and think tanks in the development sector, being an expert in multi-stakeholder processes. He studied at the University of Bonn and graduated with an MA in Political Science with a focus on multi-actor advocacy for climate policy.

The International Civil Society Centre is looking for a project consultant to support the Civil Society Collaborative: Inclusive COVID-19 Data.

The goal of the collaboration is to bring together CSOs and use their data to understand and amplify the needs of marginalised people, especially in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, 15 partner organisations from the international civil society have signed up to the project, including key actors like Plan International, Sightsavers, Development Initiatives, Restless Development and CIVICUS.

The key output of the collaboration will be a joint report to be launched and presented at the UN High-Level Political Forum, taking place in early July. Further presentations are planned for the UN World Data Forum in October and potentially other occasions. The report’s main content will be an analysis of the data, learnings, and insights that partner organisations have jointly contributed, focusing on COVID-19 and its impact on marginalised people. 

The Centre and GPSDD are currently conducting a survey across the participating partner organisations, collecting their relevant insights, learnings and available data. For the next steps of project implementation, the Centre is commissioning a consultant to:

• Utilise the landscape survey and analysis conducted across the project partners to develop a report structure and outline;
• Author of the advocacy report (10,000-12,000 words) to influence global leaders;
• Identify case studies and impact stories to be promoted; and,
• Work in close collaboration with the Centre, GPSDD and the project Steering Committee throughout the entire process to reconcile the report development with the interests of all participating parties. 

Find the full tender and how to apply here

If you meet the selection criteria, please submit your application to nhelmy@icsentre.org including:

• A brief description of the Offeror’s experience and expertise in the field that illustrates overall qualifications and capabilities;
• A brief description of the Offeror’s understanding of the scope of services and proposed methodology for the work;
• Resume or CV of individual or principals, in the case of a consulting firm; 
• List of Past and Current Clients; and,
• Cost Requirements. 

Proposals, including any attachments, should be sent electronically in PDF format by Thursday, 4 March 2021. Please include the subject line: “Call for tenders – COVID-19 Data Collaborative”. 

Adriana Sahagún Martínez

Communications Manager

International Civil Society Centre