Call for Proposals: Advancing the Rights of Individuals Engaged in the Sex Work (Nepal)

Deadline: 24-Apr-23

UN Women is currently accepting proposals to address vulnerabilities which are rooted in intersecting oppressions, by providing alternative livelihood opportunities, enhancing access to information, services and resources of individual engaged in sex work and facilitate their network building to create a safe space for care, support, solidarity; increasing their social capital and negotiation ability as well as strengthen their voice and agency.

Objectives and Scope of Activities

• Objective 1): To address vulnerabilities which are rooted in intersecting oppressions, by providing alternative livelihood opportunities, enhancing access to information, services and resources
  • Enhancing access to information and essential services – As part of this initiative, the following essential support will be provided to address the immediate needs of project participants and their households:
    • Access to essential services
    • Access to non-formal education
    • Access to digital and banking access
  • Re-skilling and alternative livelihoods – The second component will focus on skill development of those project participants seeking alternative livelihood opportunities, and will entail the following:
    • Reskilling and business expansion of Phase I participants: The responsible party will assess the needs of 500 participants from Phase I in terms of reskilling and expanding their business. These participants are engaged in small businesses such as tea shop, vegetable shop, pani puri, chatpate, shoes shop, farming. The responsible party will develop a plan of action, through a needs assessment to clearly identify possible areas of support.
  • In-kind support – As part of this initiative the following in-kind support will be provided to address the immediate needs of project participants and their households. This will include all 500 participants from Phase I and 1000 from Phase II.
    • Access to food – To address the food insecurity of households, direct provision of rations/food supplies will be provided. This will entail Rice-30 kg; Lentils-3 kg, Salt-1 kg, Cooking oil-2 ltrs; Cereals-1kg; Sugar-2 kg per person.
    • Access to essential supplies—To enable project participants to health and hygiene standards, essential supplies such as soaps, detergent, sanitary napkins, contraceptives for safer sex will be provided. This will include: Soap-6pcs, Detergent-1 kg, Sanitary pad (cotton pad), 12 pcs per person.
• Objective 2): To strengthen leadership skills, networks/network building of individuals engaged in sex work creating a safe space for care, support, solidarity; increasing their social capital and negotiation ability as well as strengthen their voice and agency
  • Network building amongst individuals engaged in sex work is strengthened   to create a safe space for care, support, solidarity; increasing their social capital and negotiation ability as well as strengthen their voice and agency to demand their rights and entitlements.
  • This will include participants from both Phase I and Phase II.
  • A series of capacity development efforts will strengthen the networks to discuss, identify and develop their immediate, mid and long-term strategy in terms of strengthening and sustaining the networks of individual engaged in sex work.
    • The first capability-enhancing workshop will focus on the concept and importance of network building, collectivising, its relevance, and its design, according to the felt needs and the context of project provinces.
    • The second workshop, will focus on institutional strengthening of existing network/s of individual engaged in sex work. The second workshop will also highlight why and how the community based organisations (CBOs) of individual engaged in sex work formed at the local level for collective advocacy should be affiliated with existing network/s to strengthen their collective voices. As of now, many CBOs are still not affiliated with network/s which make their voices weak/unheard if they are not collective. The capacity of these CBOs needs to be strengthened.
    • The third workshop will focus on Feminist conversation: The responsible party will strengthen the leadership, organizing and network building capacity of individual engaged in sex work using intersectional feminist pedagogy. A three-days (one time) capacity development training will be organized. Dedicated sessions on advocacy, networking can be included in the curriculum. A maximum of 40 participants selected will participate in the training.
    • The final workshop will focus on developing a long-term sustainability plan of the network/s, CBOs, NGOs of individual engaged in sex work, aimed at creating ownership and leveraging in-built mechanisms at the community level – to sustain the initiative beyond the project duration.
  • Each of the workshops will be designed to enable a consultative process with the network and CBO members so that they not only own the process but are invested in the process of building/promoting and strengthening their network/s.
• Objective 3): To strengthen institutional capacities of community based organizations/ grassroots organizations advancing the rights of those engaged in sex work.
  • Institutional support to WESW led GWOs/CBOs: In order to strengthen institutional capacity of individual engaged in sex work led CBOs/GWOs, the responsible party will provide institutional support to 10 CBOs/GWOs in the project provinces. A total of NPR 235,000 will be provided to each of the 10 CBOs/GWOs as an institutional support. This will enable CBOs/GWOs to continue their organizational operation and sustain advocacy for the rights of individual engaged in sex work.
  • Capacity development on financial and organizational management: A two-day organizational and financial management orientation will be organized with all 10 CBOs/GWOs by the responsible party with the objective of strengthening the knowledge of CBOs/GWO member on effective utilization and management of the institutional support fund.
  • Learning/knowledge exchange: Annual learning/knowledge exchange workshops will be organized for the 10 CBOs/GWOs to share lesson learnt, good practices and identify strategies for further organizational development. This will be linked to the second capability development workshop under the previous objective.
• Objective 4): To amplify advocacy efforts at different level to address gaps in existing policy and legal frameworks, with a view to challenging norms and systems which lead to, and maintain deep-rooted intersecting inequalities and discriminatory practices around those engaged in sex work.
  • Advocacy efforts 
    • Creating platforms for advocacy: This initiative will strengthen advocacy efforts with the local and provincial governments to integrate an intersectional and LNOB perspective by recognizing and prioritizing needs of groups that are ‘invisibilised’ such as those involved in sex work, and their children, in local development plans, and humanitarian efforts.
    • Based on the lesson learned of the Phase I of the project, decriminalization of sex work and dignified life to individual engaged in sex work were identified as one of the key areas for continuous advocacy with the government.  Hence, two policy briefs with specific recommendations for local, provincial and federal government to address gaps in the legal framework as well as strengthen access of women/individuals in sex work to services (including for GBV), information, justice mechanisms and livelihood opportunities will be developed. These will be disseminated through a national level dialogue on the rights of people involved in sex work.

Funding Information

• The budget range for this proposal should be under the range of USD 250,000-330,000.

Timeframe: Two years – 15 April 2023- 31 December 2025

Expected Results

Project specific Outcome, Output and Indicators:

• Outcome: Individuals engaged in sex work in Nepal have voice, choice and agency to exercise their human rights and live dignified life free from violence and discrimination
• Indicators:
  • Percentage of project participants who self-report strengthened voice and agency and increased social capital and negotiation ability.
  • Percentage of policy recommendations accepted by the local, provincial and federal government.
• Output 1: Individuals engaged in sex work have enhanced skills, capacity, voice and agency to access decent work/income generation and sustainable livelihoods
• Indicators:
  • Number of individuals engaged in sex work with increased capacity on entrepreneurship/income-generating opportunities.
  • Number of businesses established by individuals engaged in sex work
• Output 2: Enhanced institutional capacities of GWOs or CBOs to advocate for the rights of individuals engaged in sex work
  • Number of organizations activity engaged in   network building for collective advocacy
  • Nature of narratives on collectivization and network building among individuals engaged in sex work supported by the project
• UN Women follows a results-based monitoring system. In light of this, the organisation applying should include a detailed monitoring plan to collect both quantitative and qualitative data in a regular period. Once selected the partner agency should report the progress on the Outputs and indicators using the UN Women Standard performance monitoring framework. The activities and output results to be reported on a quarterly basis. The partner agency should propose a unique identifier code to keep track of the right holders, avoid duplication and ensuring confidentiality and ethical considerations at all aspects. Further, pre and post-assessments for all capacity development initiatives, the feedback loop for community mobilization efforts and dissemination plan for all knowledge products/policy briefs should be developed under this initiative.

Target Group/Constituency

• The initiative should target 1500 individuals from diverse groups in Bagmati and Madhesh Provinces (minimum of 2-3 districts in each province and at least four LGUs in each province), who are engaged in sex work. In term of diversity among this group, this can include LGBTIQ+persons, single women, adolescent women and girls, women with disabilities, women living with HIV, pregnant and lactating women, homeless/destitute women, women involved in wage work and daily labour etc. In line with UN Women’s LNOB approach, we will centre those that are most likely to be left behind.

Geographic Locations

• The initiative will be rolled out in Bagmati and Madhesh provinces (minimum of two districts in each province and at least four LGUs in each province) in collaboration with women’s organizations, targeting 1500 individuals engaged in sex work. The rationale for selection of local government unit and districts should be included in the proposal.

Eligibility Criteria

• Proven technical competencies in the application of human rights-based and intersectional feminist approaches to advance gender equality and for ensuring the voices and needs of those involved in sex work as rights holders
• Demonstrable organizational experience in working with those involved in the sex work from the right-based approach and able to facilitate the formation of a consortium of diverse individuals involved in sex work and reflect it well in the applied proposal
• Sound knowledge and technical expertise on gender and intersectionality in humanitarian action
• Demonstrable experience in implementing programmes on gender equality and women’s empowerment, rooted in an intersectional feminist approach, and in formulating result-oriented programme, monitoring programme based on indicators and quality reporting
• Proven organizational experience in building strategic partnerships, connections and networks with relevant partners, including government agencies, community-based organizations, CSOs at the provincial local level
• Demonstrable commitment to working with women, girls and other genders that are economically, socially, culturally, or otherwise excluded, excluded and/or marginalized.

Team Composition

• In order to manage and coordinate the intervention in an effective and timely manner, the partner agency/consortium is requested to establish a management team in charge of day-to-day management and operations of the training as well as communication and coordination with UN Women. The management team will consist of but not limited to the following core members: (1) One Team Leader with progressively responsible experience in programme management and strong working experience with excluded groups in the development/humanitarian context (2) three project officers (3) One Monitoring and Documentation Officer and (3) One Finance Officer.
• The agency/consortium can propose other relevant and justifiable human resources in addition to the management team to manage and coordinate the assigned tasks and responsibilities in an effective and timely manner. Agencies are required to provide detailed job descriptions and qualifications and experiences of the proposed human resources. Qualifications and experience of additional human resources will be evaluated as the overall capacity of human resources of the partner agencies.

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