Consultancy Service for Systemic Market Change Assessment

Terms of Reference (TOR)

Systemic Market Change Assessment
(Open for both international and national organisations)

Maximum budget: AUD 80,000

Program Overview

With more than 35 years of experience, Cowater International is Canada’s global leader in management consulting services specialising in international development. We have managed the implementation of over 800 projects in more than 80 countries around the globe for clients such as DFID, DFAT Australia, the World Bank and Global Affairs Canada. We work with governments, partner organisations, communities and civil society to design and implement sustainable solutions that generate lasting social, economic and environmental impacts. Our adaptive approach to management has led to our award-winning work and recognition as one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies in 2017 and 2018.

The GREAT Program is a flagship initiative of the Australian Aid program in Vietnam – it commenced in November 2017 and will run for five years until 2021. The Program seeks to promote women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in the ethnically diverse north-west region of Vietnam. The primary beneficiaries are women living in the provinces of Son La and Lao Cai with a focus on the economic inclusion of women from ethnic minority communities. The objectives of the Aus4Equality|GREAT Program are:

• Objective 1 – Empowering local women: Women living in local communities have increased capacity, space and choices to beneficially engage with agriculture and tourism businesses.
• Objective 2 – Inclusive business partnerships: Selected private sector actors within the agriculture and tourism sectors innovate to profitably and sustainably trade with more women entrepreneurs and operate in gender-sensitive ways.
• Objective 3 – Improving sector governance and policy: Government agencies reinforce policies, and enact plans, regulations, and services that enable more inclusive socio-economic development.

The goal of the Program is to improve the livelihoods of 10% of the adult female population in Son La and Lao Cai, including increasing the income for 40,000 women and creating 4,000 new jobs for women across the two provinces. The Program’s Theory of Change details the expected changes at the end of the Program.

Systemic Market Change Assessment

GREAT partners with private and public sector entities to reach the end of Program outcomes through approximately 50 interventions in the tourism and agriculture sectors, targeting rural households, particularly ethnic minority women. Through these interventions, the Program aims to facilitate a range of systemic changes to support women’s economic empowerment in both the agricultural and tourism sector and also the broader enabling environment.

The GREAT Program is seeking proposals from suitably qualified institutions to conduct an assessment of the systemic market changes, such as the ones listed above, that are sustainable and beneficial to ethnic minority women. The main purpose of the study is to identify and quantify systemic market changes within specific sub-sectors that GREAT operates eg. vegetables, tea, passionfruit, and tourism and the broader enabling environment. The assessment will provide evidence for the Program and partners to inform strategic direction, work-planning and effective scaling up. It will also provide robust evidence to support wider policy changes at provincial and national level.

It is expected that measurement and analysis of changes, and the contribution of GREAT, will be disaggregated by gender, sub-sector, province, and partner level, and aggregated at whole-of-Program level.

A full copy of the Terms of Reference is attached.

How to Apply

Proposals need to be sent to [email protected] before 5pm Tuesday, 25 August 2020 with the subject line “Assessment on Systemic Market Changes – GREAT”. Late applications will be not considered.

The successful applicant will need to sign a contract that is compliant with Cowater International’s Head Contract with the Australian Government including the full copywrite ownership of all deliverables from this assignment.

An information session will be organized on Tuesday, 11 August 2020. Relevant documents will be provided upon request from applicants of interest.