TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR IMPACT DOCUMENTARY RESOURCE PERSONS
Consultancy: Development of an Impact video documentary on addressing the barriers and solutions to include women-led businesses in Procurement.
Title: Consultancy
Duration: One month
1. Introduction
Public procurement is the biggest market in the world with 12-20% of annual GDP spent on the purchase of goods, works and services. Over 60% of national annual budgets in Africa are spent through public procurement. Also, Public contracting is central to Covid-19 response- providing much needed equipment and logistics to deal with cases but also resuscitate economies.
However women-led businesses are vastly underrepresented in the market. There are Disproportionate number of contracts won by women owned enterprises – less than 1%. Disclosure is low but doesn’t disaggregate by gender at the same time. Some initiatives and commitments to promote inclusiveness have been made but not yet implemented.
2. Background to the assignment
In Uganda, for instance, public sector procurement accounts for 60% of government spending excluding wages, and 30% of the nation’s GDP2.
Although the Government of Uganda spends over 59% of its annual budget through public
procurement, women-owned businesses (WLBs) are disproportionately disadvantaged in
participating and winning contracts from government ministries, departments and agencies due to legal, technical, financial and socio-cultural factors.
AFIC and partner’s under the GroW research- part of a five-country study has established that whereas 38.2% of businesses in Uganda are owned by women, only 1% were doing businesses with government agencies. The study further found that the majority of WLBs doing business with the government, 45% were in supplies, rather than works and services where higher value contracts are more prevalent. The study further reveals that 7 in every 10 WLBs doing business with the government are based in Kampala district (44.7%) or Wakiso district (25.2%). These are the most urban and economically active districts in the country, 30.1% of the contracts won by WLB are spread across the country’s 140 districts and cities.
There have been attempts to increase local participation in public contracting but these haven’t gone far enough to include women’s participation in public contracting. Through Sections 43, 44 and 97 of the PPDA Act (2003 as amended) and Section 94 of the Local Government Act 30% of public contracts are reserved for local firms.
Whereas these are important, they haven’t enabled a major lift for women owned enterprises to participate. Our IDRC funded project has found that among others, lack of legal definition for women owned businesses, absence of specific provision requiring MDAs to reserve a specific percentage of contracts for WLBs, disproportionate lack of access to information on procurement opportunities for WLBs, lack of technical capacity on preparing winning bids, delayed payments and lack of access to capital as some of the daunting barriers to women’s participation in public contracting in Uganda.
A new and major opportunity to vouch for stronger participation of women owned enterprises in Uganda’s public procurement has opened up with the amendment of the PPDA Act in 2021 specifically providing for reservation of contracts for women, youth and people with disabilities. In order for this amendment to be effected, the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED) needs to issue a subsidiary Regulations to guide MDAs in the I`mplementation of the provisions of this amendment.
One of the gaps identified in the study was a lack of clarity on the specific thresholds on the percentage of contracts to be given to WLBs. Because of this gap, it is complex to secure gender disaggregated data on contracts won by WLBs. And, the value of contracts won where there is no database of businesses legally owned by women that are engaging in public procurement. This eventually affects any advocacy aimed at positioning the WLBs to participate in public procurement.
In addition, there is an opportunity to engage and influence development of national statistics on women in procurement as a special interest group to inform development of thresholds for women in procurement.
To make use of these opportunities, AFIC is undertaking a series of lobbying, capacity building and awareness raising engagements, to engage duty bearers and oversight bodies to appreciate, embrace and create a favorable environment for WLBs in procurement.
We have solicited commitments from the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MoFPED) through PPDA to create regulations and procurement guidelines that are gender inclusive. We have also engaged the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social development to profile WLBs to understand their needs.
More demand, however, is needed to raise awareness about the challenges that WLBs face, the need to create a favorable procurement environment for them, and to exert influence and pressure on the need to implement policies and regulations to that effect. To that end, AFIC and its partners are taking a number of steps to document interventions, create awareness and build WLBs capacity to get involved.
To contribute towards this need, a 10- to 15-minute documentary, will be created to educate viewers on the importance of creating a favorable procurement environment and a gender-inclusive procurement policy and guidelines.
Read full report here: Note that; Ugandans can only apply to do a documentary for Uganda and in Uganda. This applies to all the other countries; Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Rwanda.
3. Objectives
Generally, the documentary will aim to educate viewers on the importance of including women-led businesses in procurement processes and provide solutions for how this can be achieved. In specific terms,
The documentary will serve to enhance the advocacy of the project recommendations
It will serve to create awareness of the challenges and barriers faced by WLBs.
It will highlight the impact made towards inclusion of women led businesses in public procurement.
Finally it will issue a call to action to stakeholders, by partners, government agencies and civil society.
4. Specific tasks due for the Resource person
The Resource person will be required to deliver the following specific assignments.
– Hold preparatory discussion with the AFIC team and its partner teams where applicable about the preparation of videos.
– Prepare script and narration for the overall documentary.
– Develop specific storyboards, product props, production notes and related clearances for the video.
– Conduct necessary interviews and capture video footage as agreed with AFIC Team and its partners in respective countries where applicable and as according to the prepared script.
– Record narration and prepare background music for the videos in English and French.
-Develop a 10 to 15 minute High Definition advocacy documentary for the specific country applied for (e.g Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania or Rwanda)
– Finalize the videos according to the feedback provided by the AFIC project teams.
– Provide all necessary tools and equipment including tapes, DVD etc.
-Provide all raw footage including photos and videos.
5. Deliverables
This is what the resource person will be required to deliver;
1. A script indicating the flow of the themes, sub themes, animations and story lines as per
the objectives and scope of work.
2. 10 to 15 minute High Definition advocacy documentary video..
3. All raw footage including videos and photos.
6. Authority and Responsibility
The Resource person will be responsible for the delivery of the advocacy documentary. In this role, they will:
1) Manage the logistics necessary for all tasks presented in the Scope of the assignment section of the ToR.
2) Develop the deliverables within the given time period in clear English and French Languages. AFIC will offer feedback and comments, but will not edit deliverables. The Resource person would be responsible for doing these themselves or work with a professional editor within the existing budget.
3. Give a substantial period for any needed edits after the final outputs.
AFIC team will be responsible for the following tasks;
1) Provide a clear ToR
2) Provide information on existing documents concerning the work.
3) Be available for clarifications and support
4) Review drafts of required deliverables and suggest necessary changes.
5) Approve final versions of deliverables and make payments accordingly.
3. Consultancy Requirements
The Resource person should meet the following requirements:
1. Active management, communication and interpersonal skills. Should have a demonstrable creative flair, up-to-date knowledge of industry software and a professional approach to time, costs and deadlines.
2. Five (5) years of relevant working experience, applicants should share links to pieces of related work done especially in advocacy.
3. A Bachelor’s Degree in Graphic Design or Fine Art or Communication Design, Mass communication or its equivalent from a recognized Institution. Professional training in related themes is an added advantage.
4. Understanding of the procurement and accountability systems in Uganda.
5. Should be operating in the local country where the work is to be executed.
5.Interested individuals will be required to present the following;
The consultant(s) who meet these requirements should submit a maximum of 3 pages expression of interest including one pager updated resume with related work including the following:
A one pager suitability statement, about the proposed task, methodology including a detailed work plan including commitment and availability for the entire assignment, spelling out qualifications and experiences. The consultant MUST be from the project country (Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya and Rwanda.)
A detailed budget, including daily cost per major activity.
6. Timeframes
This task is expected to take a maximum of one month. The detailed indicative timeframe will be provided in subsequent exchanges upon agreement.
5. Logistics
Resource persons will work with their own resources as per the contract price negotiated.
6. Application
The deadline for expression of interest is on the 05th May 2023.
Please email expression of interest to, the Executive Director AFIC via info@africafoicentre.org and cc maria@africafoicentre.org , celestine@africafoicentre.org
7. Intellectual Property Rights
The outputs are the property of AFIC