Consultant to Conduct a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Analysis

Advancing Growth Innovation and Leadership for Enterprises in Vietnam (AGILE) Project

Consultant to Conduct a Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Analysis

Terms of Reference

Vietnam

Location: Vietnam

Duration of Contract: 30 days

Reports to: Project Director – with technical assistance from the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Advisor

Expected Start Date: June 20, 2025 – August 15, 2025

Background

World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is a leading Canadian international development organization that focuses on three programmatic areas: economic opportunities, Education, and Empowerment. Our vision is a world where every young person thrives and belongs. Our mission is to catalyze change by improving education and economic opportunities for young people. We support all young people, with a focus on women and people affected by displacement. Our organizational values are rooted in a commitment to collaboration and partnership, learning and adaptability, courageous leadership, youth voice and agency, and inclusion for all.

WUSC currently works in over 25 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and Latin America, with an annual budget of approximately CAD 50 million. Globally, we partner with a network of higher education institutions, civil society organizations, private sector partners, professionals, students, volunteers, faculty, and community leaders who help us achieve our mission.

Description of the Advancing Growth Innovation and Leadership for Enterprises (AGILE) Project in Vietnam

The Advancing Growth, Innovation, and Leadership for Enterprises (AGILE) project in Vietnam is designed to enhance the resilience of vulnerable populations, particularly women, to climate change. The project focuses on driving systemic change by strengthening support for climate enterprises (CEs), particularly those led by, employing, or addressing the climate adaptation needs of women. This will be achieved by facilitating increased investment in gender-responsive climate adaptation solutions and fostering the growth of CEs at the growth stage.

Inequality affects various individuals and groups differently, particularly at the intersection of gender equality, climate change, and women’s entrepreneurship. Despite Vietnam’s projected attainment of upper-middle-income status by 2035, the country ranked 83rd out of 146 countries in the 2022 Global Gender Gap Index. Women play substantial roles in key economic sectors such as agriculture, aquaculture, services, and manufacturing, yet they bear disproportionate impacts of Vietnam’s extreme climate vulnerability. Discriminatory gender norms exacerbate this inequity by limiting women’s access to essential resources, opportunities, technology, and decision-making platforms. For instance, although women constitute 70% of the agricultural workforce, their control over land and assets remains limited, significantly impeding their adaptive capacities (FAO, 2018).

The AGILE project aims to close this gap by improving women’s access to capital, particularly through venture capital (VC), which offers better terms than traditional finance. Women-led businesses, although often more efficient and reliable, struggle to secure venture capital (VC) funding due to gender biases in male-dominated investment spaces. AGILE advocates for gender-lens investing and supports VC actors in assessing and advancing gender equity through their portfolios.

Consultations with VCs and women entrepreneurs revealed persistent challenges: entrenched gender norms, limited access to technical education, and the triple burden of unpaid care and work responsibilities. These barriers hinder women’s participation in climate tech sectors and access to ecosystem support, which is often not gender-responsive.

AGILE will aim to address systemic barriers by:

Embedding gender equality into all project activities;
Building investor capacity for gender-lens investing;
Supporting local actors like WISE to serve as gender translators;
Delivering tailored acceleration programs with childcare and flexible modalities;
Partnering with women’s support organizations to improve women’s access to capital and leadership in climate adaptation.

This approach aligns with AGILE’s broader goal of fostering a more inclusive, equitable, and climate-resilient entrepreneurial ecosystem in Vietnam.

Scope of Assignment

As part of the AGILE project’s inception phase, WUSC seeks a consultant to conduct a comprehensive, intersectional Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) Analysis focused on CEs in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta and Coastal regions. Importantly, the GESI Analysis will be an integrated analysis with strong ties to Gender Sensitive Ecosystem Mapping and Climate Vulnerability Assessment.

The GESI Analysis will incorporate both primary and secondary data to ensure a comprehensive understanding of gender dynamics in Vietnam. It will also aim to identify the root causes of gender inequality and harmful social norms that limit women’s economic empowerment, with an emphasis on the barriers and constraints that affect the growth of women-led or women-serving CEs and investment in gender-responsive climate solutions. The GESI Analysis will include an environmental sustainability lens and an inclusive market systems perspective to assess gender-based constraints and opportunities in an integrated fashion.

Findings will inform the AGILE project’s activities, addressing relevant gender-based issues and inequities to support women, men, and gender-diverse groups, including women-led CEs or CEs that employ or address climate adaptation for women (and other vulnerable groups).

Purpose of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Analysis

The GESI Analysis aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis in Vietnam to provide critical insights, including challenges, skills, successes, innovative ideas, and interventions that will confirm and inform the design, planning, and effective delivery of the AGILE project. This project will aim to address gender dynamics in a transformative, inclusive, and contextually relevant manner.

Additionally, the GESI Analysis’ findings will:

Inform the development of mitigation strategies for gender-specific risks.
Contribute to developing the Gender Equality Strategy, which will be included in the Project Implementation Plan (PIP).
Ensure targeted capacity strengthening for staff, partners, and key actors on WUSC’s code of conduct and safeguarding measures such as protection from sexual exploitation, abuse, and harassment, gender analysis, gender mainstreaming, and monitoring gender equality results throughout the project cycle.
Inform an integrated approach between the GESI Analysis, Gender Sensitive Ecomapping, and Climate Vulnerability
Assessment (CVA) and the project’s environmental sustainability approach, focusing on the intersection between women’s economic empowerment and environmental considerations.

The successful Consultant will work closely with the project’s GESI, Environment, and Market Systems Advisors to ensure that these perspectives are integrated into data collection tools and analysis as appropriate.

Goals of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Analysis

The integrated GESI Analysis aims to inform both the Gender Sensitive Ecosystem Mapping and CVA to ensure the following goals are achieved:
To understand how gender equality and inclusion dynamics affect or could affect the delivery of the AGILE project.
To understand how the AGILE project impacts or would impact gender equality and inclusion dynamics and gender-based constraints across the target regions.
To understand how the various groups (women, men, and gender-diverse groups) will benefit or be impacted differently from the AGILE project.

Objectives of the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Analysis

The GESI Analysis will provide critical insights to inform the design and delivery of the AGILE project’s interventions. The study will contribute to the achievement of the following specific objectives:
Validate and refine gender equality gaps, inequalities, and gender-based barriers facing CEs, particularly women-focused or women-led CEs, identified during the proposal phase. Assess how these findings influence gender roles and relations between women and men, including equitable access to and control over critical resources such as education, training, entrepreneurship opportunities, leadership roles, and decision-making processes. Identify gender gaps facing intermediary stakeholders that are working to support CEs
Confirm and further define gender-based constraints, barriers, and challenges posed by social and systemic structures that have led to ineffective climate adaptation interventions within the climate enterprise ecosystem, further entrenching gender inequality. Recommend essential actions for the project to address the root causes of identified gender inequality issues so that women, persons with disabilities, and other equity-deserving groups equitably benefit from the project’s activities and intended outcomes, contributing to transformative change in Vietnam.
Validate intersecting factors such as age, sex, gender, ethnicity, disability, region, and socioeconomic status to understand the obstacles women-led CEs face in accessing resources and opportunities. For example, the barriers for women entrepreneurs from various ethnic groups, regions, and socioeconomic statuses are likely to differ, with those in rural areas and from equity-deserving groups potentially facing unique challenges.
Identify opportunities for women’s economic empowerment and address barriers to their participation in leadership and decision-making roles, processes, and opportunities, leveraging research during the proposal phase and local partner knowledge and insights.
Examine who has access to and control over resources (e.g., grants, which will be distributed to improve gender equality and empower women in targeted regions), services, and decision-making processes. Identify barriers that prevent women from accessing resources and services within the climate enterprise ecosystem.

Methodology

The methodology will incorporate both primary and secondary data sources for a comprehensive and integrated GESI Analysis. Primary data will be gathered from those leading, owning, and being served by CEs, especially women. Secondary data will be drawn from global, regional, national, and local sources. The GESI Analysis will also prioritize inclusivity by engaging individuals from diverse backgrounds, including persons with disabilities and other equity-deserving groups. Data should be disaggregated by gender, age, and other intersectional factors relevant to the context, such as sex, rural/urban regions, ethnicity, type of business/occupation, people with disabilities, etc., where appropriate and wherever possible.

As part of the primary data collection, Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) will be conducted with a diverse group of stakeholders, including women, men, female and male youth, and individuals who identify as gender-diverse. Additionally, consultations will include partners and ecosystem actors from various sectors, including the public sector, private sector investors, women’s rights organizations, organizations addressing Gender Equality, Social Inclusion (GESI), environmental and climate change issues, Business Service Providers (BSPs), and financial institutions.

WUSC staff will provide input and feedback on the preliminary findings, recommendations, and conclusions to ensure relevance and alignment with project objectives.

Level of Effort

The level of effort required for this consultancy is estimated at 30 days.

WUSC Responsibilities

Work closely with the Consultant to ensure that the assignment’s completion is in accordance with organizational guidelines and donor requirements.
To provide relevant documentation and respond to the Consultant’s questions to accomplish this mandate.
To mobilize the necessary internal team to support the Consultant and designate a person responsible for this assignment.
To provide the Consultant with feedback and comments on the documents produced according to the approved work plan.

Specific Tasks for the Assignment

Refine the guidelines for the integrated GESI Analysis in collaboration with the WUSC team and advise on the data collection tools.
As necessary, participate in inception meetings, enumerator training sessions, and validation workshops with WUSC staff, partners, and key stakeholders.
Develop a detailed inception report and work plan in close consultation with designated WUSC staff, clarifying and refining the study’s approach, methodology, and timing.
Conduct a literature review to support the secondary data collection on the key objectives of the study.
Collaborate with WUSC staff and WISE to design and facilitate training for enumerators on gender-responsive data collection methods, safeguarding, ethical considerations, GESI risks, and mitigation strategies.
Collect quantitative and qualitative data, including reviews of secondary information, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews.
Facilitate a validation session with the WUSC team and other consultants undertaking the Gender-Sensitive Ecosystem Mapping and Climate Vulnerability Assessment.
Prepare the draft report as outlined in the deliverables above, including actionable recommendations that focus on their relevance for interventions. The final report should also include a detailed bibliography of secondary research and a complete list of participants consulted.
Revise the final report and recommendations following feedback from WUSC staff and key partners.

Timelines and Deliverables of the Assignment

The contract period spans 30 days, from June 20, 2025, to August 15, 2025. The estimated working days required for contributions will be determined in consultation with the selected candidate. The Consultant will put in place all the necessary actions to launch the GESI Analysis within the following schedule:

Task – Days -Timeline

Inception Meeting – 0.5 -June 20, 2025
Submission of a detailed work plan, draft inception report, and revised data collection tools (as necessary) – 1.5 – June 23, 2025
Submission of the final version of the inception report, which incorporates WUSC comments and final tools for data collection – 1 – June 25, 2025
Conduct an in-depth literature review to support the secondary data collection on the key objectives of the study – 4 – June 30, 2025
Research, Ethical Considerations, and Safeguarding training for enumerators- 2 – June 30, 2025
Data collection through desk review, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions – 10 – July 10, 2025
Data analysis of key findings from FGDs and KIIs – 5 – July 14, 2025
Submission of the draft report, including methodology, findings, and recommendations. The report should also include a detailed bibliography of secondary research, and a complete list of participants consulted – 3 – July 18, 2025
Facilitate a validation session with the WUSC team and other consultants undertaking the Gender-Sensitive Ecosystem
Mapping and Climate and Vulnerability Assessment – 0.5 – July 24, 2025
Facilitate a validation session with WUSC, partners, and key ecosystem actors – 0.5 – July 28, 2025
Submission of the final report, including methodology, findings, recommendations, and conclusion, including WUSC comments. – 2 – July 31, 2025

Total: 30

Candidate Qualifications

The candidate should have at least 5-7 years of professional experience and a demonstrated track record of conducting intersectional gender analysis for women’s economic empowerment projects.
The candidate should hold a graduate degree in social sciences, gender studies, development studies, international development, or a related field.
Strong research and report-writing skills are essential for this consultancy.
Knowledge and understanding of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy and Feminist International
Assistance Gender Equality Toolkit for Projects
Technical knowledge and experience in the climate enterprise adaptation ecosystem would be an asset.
Experience in applying systems and market systems analysis approaches to women’s economic empowerment programming, environment, sustainability, and climate action would be an asset.

Applications

Interested candidates are encouraged to submit an application package that includes both a technical and financial proposal.

WUSC’s activities aim to address inequities and foster sustainable development globally. The work ethic of our staff, volunteers, consultants, representatives, and partners aligns with the organization’s values and mission. WUSC promotes responsibility, respect, honesty, and professional excellence, and we will not tolerate harassment, coercion, sexual exploitation, or abuse in any form.

Legal Responsibility

Any document shared with the service provider as part of this TOR is considered part of WUSC property and cannot be distributed or used by any other agency.

All materials produced under this ToR are the property of WUSC and cannot be distributed or used by any agency.

Guiding Questions for the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Analysis

The GESI Analysis will include tools and questions for various actors, including government and policy actors, private sector and financial institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs) and NGOs, training and academic institutions, women entrepreneurs, women-led community enterprises (CEs), and community enterprises employing or serving women, as well as environmental and climate action actors.

Gender and Social Inclusion

How do cultural norms influence gender roles, time use (e.g., unpaid care work and domestic responsibilities), and expectations at the household, community, and organizational levels?
What gender-based barriers do women face in accessing credit, land, technology, training, or investments?
What perceptions exist around women’s leadership and participation in decision-making?
What gender-specific policies or strategies exist that support women’s economic empowerment?
How do factors such as age, gender, disability, location, and socioeconomic status compound the barriers that women face in accessing education, training, and economic opportunities?

Climate Enterprises

What gender-based challenges and constraints do CEs face, including women-led CEs and CEs employing or servicing women?
What opportunities exist or can be leveraged to better serve CEs, including women-led CEs and CEs that employ or serve women?
To what extent are women represented in decision-making and leadership positions within CEs, including women-led CEs and CEs employing or serving women?
How do gender-based differences in access to and control over resources and opportunities such as capital, information, technology, and training affect CEs, women-led CEs, and CEs employing or serving women?
What policies, programs, and partnerships exist as they pertain to women’s leadership and participation in CEs, including women-led CEs and CEs employing or serving women?

Climate Vulnerability

How do intersecting factors such as age, disability, ethnicity, disability, and socioeconomic status compound climate vulnerability for women, men, and marginalized groups?
How do climate-related risks like drought and flooding, for instance, affect women, men, and marginalized groups differently?
To what extent are women included in leadership positions and decision-making processes related to climate adaptation practices?
What social or cultural roles and norms place women at greater risk during climate-related disasters or limit their adaptation abilities?
How do gender differences in control or access to resources affect the ability of women, men, and marginalized groups to adapt to climate change?

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