Program for Supporting Rural Bridges Project

Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) under the Local Government Division (LGD) of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives is implementing the Program for Supporting Rural Bridges (SupRB) with financing from the International Development Association (IDA), member World Bank Group (WBG). The main objectives of the program are enhancing rural connectivity, improving the preservation and climate resilience of rural bridge assets, and strengthening institutional capacity for the development, maintenance, and management of the rural bridge assets. The SupRB program started in 2019.

It is assumed that the SupRB implementation may create GBV risks, as there is an influx of women labor force along with project workers, LGED staff, consultants and contractors at the project sites. The NGO services are required to assist LGED in general and the Gender and Development Forum in particular in evaluating, preventing, and mitigating the possible risks of gender-based violence and ensuring women’s engagement in implementing the program by establishing and nurturing an informal organization consisting of the local stakeholders. Steps Towards Development (Steps) showed its interest to be involved in this endeavor and in providing consulting services and thus submitted a Request For Proposal (RFP) accordingly. The organization was later selected as the consulting firm for supporting LGED in monitoring female engagement, gender-based violence (GBV) and risks management in rural bridges program (SupRB) following due selection process. The contract signing took place on 12 October with a project effective date from 20 October 2022. This assignment has commenced in October 2022 and will continue up to 18 months (April 2024) or any other period subsequently agreed by the parties.

Objectives of the Project

The specific objectives of the NGO services include:

• Assist LGED in monitoring women’s engagement
• Guide employment and equality of women in all development activities under the Program
• Prevent, mitigate and evaluate possible project-induced GBV, including SEA/SH incidences by establishing and nurturing an informal organization consisting of the local stakeholder at the bridge
• Respond to the GBV incidents
• Develop institutional integration and management capacity of Gender and Development Forum in LGED

Scope of Work

The NGO must understand the requirements of the Gender and Development Forum and Gender Equality Strategy of LGED and must follow the SupRB Program requirements. In general, the Scope of the Services include, but will not necessarily be limited to, awareness building, reporting, referring, and pursuing support (legal, medical, psycho-social) to the survivors, ensuring women participation in program activities so that the women workers can be encouraged to participate and receive tangible benefits from the program. In short, the activities will be:

1. Assessment of risks and existing mechanism
2. Strengthening Institutional Capacity
3. Develop or adopt a standard Gender-Based Violence Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM)
4. Mapping institutional arrangement
5. Support services to survivors
6. Supporting communication activities
7. Procedure
8. Monitoring women’s engagement
9. Any other activities as advised by the Program Director, PMU and LGED