Background

The tea industry in Bangladesh is a significant contributor to global tea production: the country is the tenth largest producer of tea in the world, and the ninth largest exporter. At present, internal consumption accounts for 98% of what is produced and is growing because production capacity is not growing fast enough. This is reducing the amount of exportable surplus. It is expected that by the end of 2021 internal demand will reach 76 million kg while production will only reach 70 million kg at this current rate.[1]

Against this backdrop, the Bangladeshi Government has passed the Tea Act 2016 and unveiled “Vision-2021” and “Road Map: Bangladesh Tea Industry” to ensure the industry meets domestic demand and reaches full export potential by increasing the production of quality tea.[2] “Vision-2021” has highlighted a target to produce 100 million kg of tea by 2021. Linked with the Vision, the Road Map outlines a short-term, mid-term and long-term action plan for overall development of Bangladesh tea industry with special emphasis on strengthening the Bangladesh Tea Board and Bangladesh Tea Research Institute (BTRI).  These entities support the production, certification and exportation of tea under the Ministry of Commerce.

There are over 100,000 tea workers active in more than 160 tea gardens in Bangladesh, and approximately 64% of all workers are female[3]. The total population of people living in tea gardens (workers and their family members) is approximately 400,000.[4] Tea workers and their families often lag behind the rest of the population in human development indicators such as infant and under-five mortality, child malnutrition due to poor living conditions. Long working hours, low pay, inadequate accommodation, and very limited education and healthcare facilities are not uncommon[5]. Tea garden workers also are socially and economically excluded in Bangladesh, because they are typically low caste, and live and work in the tea gardens and have little interaction with the mainstream population. They have negligible opportunities to find alternative work. According to a study conducted by ILO,[6] there is a high degree of gender division of labour practiced in tea estate where women are mainly engaged in tea plucking which is the lowest paying, while the somewhat better paid factory work, supervisory work and security guards are dominated by men. Women often have to carry on working through the last stages of pregnancy; they have poor access to pre and post-natal care, limited maternity leave,[7] and limited access to childcare facilities. Women’s safety and security issues are pressing, and the absence of shelter close to the workplace, no safety kits, no toilet facility and long working hours in a harsh environment are amongst the challenges highlighted by the workers.  Working mothers therefore are forced to keep their children with them in the open spaces around or leave young infants at home in the care of their older siblings, often the daughter. Parents engage their daughters in household activities such as cooking, taking care of siblings, collecting firewood and as a result, they are unable to attend school. Child marriage is also common, and this also leads to girls dropping out of school.[8]

Tea garden workers are covered by labour legislation, notably the Bangladesh Labour Act 2006, which provides significant rights. However, there is a significant gap in enforcement of the laws. Despite having strong labour legislation in place, lack of enforcement and grievance redress means tea garden workers are forced to accept exploitative working conditions. There is also no effective union representation of the workers. A number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are operating some schools and health facilities in tea gardens, but on the whole, there have been few initiatives or programmes to support tea workers. Tea worker’s unions have insufficient reach and limited capacity, and workers lack awareness of basic rights and grievance mechanisms available.

Taking into account the potential that the tea industry can play in furthering development and the Sustainable Development Goals in Bangladesh—including SDG 1, No poverty; SDG 5, Gender Equality and; SDG 8, Decent work and economic growth, among others—and given the number of adverse impacts on women’s rights on some tea gardens, it is of utmost importance to bring together key industry and development actors to jointly identify gaps and address pressing issues on gardens and encourage the tea industry to develop in accordance with international ethical sourcing standards. As such, Unilever, UNDP, UN Women are jointly commissioning a needs assessment to develop a detailed understanding of gender and human rights concerns in the Bangladesh tea sector and identify possible priority actions that could maximize the industry’s contribution to sustainable development.

OBJECTIVES

The objective of the needs assessment is to better understand the gender equality and human rights conditions of tea garden workers and their families, provide policy recommendations and identify strategic actions at the macro (government and industry) and micro (tea garden) level to improve compliance of the tea gardens with human rights standards and promote ethical business practices.

[1] Bangladesh Tea Research Institute, Ministry of Commerce (2016), Five Year Plan Bangladesh Tea Research Institute FY2017-2021.http://btri.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/btri.portal.gov.bd/page/8bb05a54_8c0b_42ca_9f70_574ff47d2ee4/FYP_BTRI_2017-2021.pdf

[2] ibid

[3] A Study Report on Working Conditions of Tea Plantation Workers in Bangladesh, Faisal Ahmmed, PhD and Md. Ismail Hossain PhD, ILO, 2016: p. 7

[4] Ahmmed & Hossein, 2016: p.6

[5] Idris, I. (2018). Modern slavery within the tea industry in Bangladesh. K4D Helpdesk Report. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies. p.2;

UNICEF (2016). Analysis of the Situation of Children and Women in Bangladesh 2015, p. 68 https://www.unicef.org/bangladesh/Analysis_of_the_Situation_of_Children_and_Women_in_Bangladesh_Low_23-06-2016.pdf

[6] Ahmmed & Hossein, 2016

[7] Masum, M. R. A. (2016). Rights of Tea Garden Workers in Sylhet, Bangladesh. Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and Research Initiatives, Bangladesh (RIB). https://www.slideshare.net/MdMasum7/rights-of-dalit-tea-garden-workers-in-sylhet-bangladesh

[8] Ahmmed & Hossein, 2016: p. 14

Duties and Responsibilities

SCOPE OF WORK AND SPECIFIC TASKS

The research team will design and carry out the needs assessment to fulfil the abovementioned objectives through desk review, stakeholder interviews and field research in a select number of tea gardens. More specifically, the research team will:

• Conduct a desk review and stakeholder interviews to identify a preliminary list of gender and human rights related concerns to be explored further through field research.
• Map existing tea gardens by geography, size, production volume and other pertinent characteristics (research team to propose the criteria) and propose 3 tea gardens from the list of tea gardens that Unilever can facilitate access to for field data collection which will provide a representative view of tea gardens. This assessment will help guide decisions around the location of any piloted activities.
• Undertake field data collection in the selected tea gardens, to assess conditions for women tea pickers, potential for engagement, including beneficiary participation, while also defining potential risks and risk management strategies.
• Review government policies and plans, industry policies and initiatives in place to address identified concerns, and any gaps that need to be addressed, particularly in light of  government and the industry’s intentions under Vision 2021 and the Road Map. A map of the remedial options available should be included
• Identify good practices that can be scaled up and key stakeholders that should be engaged in addressing key gender and human rights concerns across the industry – such as certification bodies, other private sector entities, non-profit partnerships, etc.
• Develop a comprehensive report on the assessment that includes a situational analysis of tea garden workers, existing policies and practices to address the key gender and human rights related concerns, findings and recommendations at macro (government and industry) and micro (tea garden) level for next steps.
• Present the assessment findings and recommendations to stakeholders at a validation workshop and finalize the report based on feedback.

The final report should be no more than 40 pages (excluding annexes) and accompanied by a power point presentation summarizing the findings. A validation exercise will be held to assess the findings. After inputs from the validation group are finalized a workshop will be conducted, sharing the findings and targeting a pre-agreed group of key stakeholders including UN system actors, government authorities, CSO actors and industry leads as relevant.

INPUTS

• UN Women and UNDP will share available research and documents known to them
• UN Women and UNDP will share contact information of relevant stakeholders.
• Unilever will share a list of tea gardens that they have access to and will facilitate access of the research team to the 3 tea gardens selected for field data collection.

SUPERVISION 

UN Women and UNDP will jointly supervise the technical aspects of the work of the research team. Each agency will assign a focal point for the research team. Contractual supervision will be done by UNDP who will be the contracting entity.

RESEARCH TEAM COMPOSITION

The assessment should be led by a research team consisting of a team leader with more than 10 years experience with action-oriented gender and human rights research. The team leader will be supported by research assistant(s). The team composition to accomplish the task should be proposed by the research organization. The research team should have a gender balance.

 EXPECTED OUTPUTS AND SCHEDULE OF WORK

Competencies

Reputation of Organization and Staff:

• Documented successful track record (for newly formed organizations, the personnel to be
• assigned to lead the research should have a proven track record of at least 10 years of social and policy research experience);
• A proven commitment to results (able to provide records of successful research projects);
• Proven credibility in Bangladesh, especially in terms of social and policy research on gender equality and human rights of marginalized communities.

General Organizational Capability:

• Strength of project management to conduct successful research
• Record and evidence of organizational culture of accountability, such as previous record of successful research projects, written programmatic processes to ensure delivery of quality and timely results, written code of conduct including on ethical research as well as on anti-corruption and sexual harassment.

Organizational expertise in the area of specified research:

• Evidence that the organization can conduct high quality action-oriented research that engage multi-stakeholders from government, business, civil society stakeholders and grassroots community actors;

Accountability and Financial Control:

• The organization demonstrates strong financial capacity and reliability to deliver the activities described in the TOR
• The proposer is in sound financial condition based on the financial documentation and information furnished in their proposal which should not show any financial concerns, such as negative net worth, bankruptcy proceedings, insolvency, receivership, major litigation, liens, judgments or bad credit or payment history.

Language

• Fluency in written and spoken English and ability to writing report is required.

Required Skills and Experience

Educational Qualification:

• Minimum master’s Degree in law, Human Rights, Development Studies, International Relations, Sociology or any other relevant Social Science discipline.

Experiences:

• At least 10 years of working experiences in the field of human rights;
• Proven experiences with action -oriented gender and human rights research;
• Previous proven experience in conducting human rights issues related need assessment, developing report, study etc;
• Previous proven experience with UN agencies/donor agencies/international or national organizations.

Cumulative analysis-

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation;
• Technical Criteria weight; 70 marks.Only candidates obtaining a minimum 49% mark in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria (Total 70 marks):

Financial Evaluation (Total 30 marks)

All technical qualified proposals will be scored out 30 based on the formula provided below.

The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal. All other proposals received points according to the following formula:

p = y (µ/z)

Where:

• p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;
• y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;
• µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;
• z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

Financial Milestone:

DOCUMENTS TO BE INCLUDED WHEN SUBMITTING THE PROPOSALS

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Proposers who shall not submit below mentioned documents will not be considered for further evaluation.

1. Technical proposal, including a brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment including methodology.
2. Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
3. Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; P11 can be downloaded from the link below: http://www.bd.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/operations/jobs/ 
4. Financial Proposal: Financial Proposal has to be submitted through a standard interest and availability template which can be downloaded from the link below:

 http://www.bd.undp.org/content/dam/bangladesh/docs/Jobs/Interest%20and%20Submission%20of%20Financial%20Proposal-Template%20for%20Confirmation.docx

Please combine all your documents into one (1) single PDF document as the system only allows to upload maximum one document.