Country: Guatemala
Closing date: 14 Dec 2018
I. Organization and Context background information
Terre des hommes (Tdh) is the leading Swiss child relief agency. Through our health, protection and emergency aid projects, we provide assistance to over three million children and their families in over 45 countries each year. Given the many ways in which children’s rights are abused or ignored, Tdh actively support social change.
All around the world, children are the first victims of wars, natural disasters and poverty. Tdh aims at protecting these young people and building brighter futures, by protecting child migrants and children at risk of child labour, promoting restorative justice, defending children’s fundamental human rights, improving child health, providing specialized medical care and humanitarian aid.
Terre des hommes’ actions protect child victims and prevent children from becoming victims of child labour in fragile states. Every year, Tdh provides assistance to approximately 90,000 children victims of exploitation. Tdh ensures its approach towards tackling child labour is holistic and integrated, placing the children at the core of its interventions and ensuring access to their fundamental rights. Based on its experience and expertise in the field, the Foundation has progressively focused its work on the supply chains of large companies. By 2020, Terre des hommes wants to increase its impact by working with large companies to reduce child labour and improve children’s working conditions in their supply chain.
Following this lead, Tdh recognises Nespresso’s efforts in improving livelihoods and child protection within coffee farms. Tdh’s intention is to align its work with MultiNational Enterprises (MNEs) such as Nespresso to make a true difference in the prevention and reduction of child labour, by co-creating a model of intervention to tackle the issue of child labour in the coffee value chain, developing a long-term project in partnership with Nespresso. The company has been working on sustainability in Guatemala since 2012, implementing the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality™ Programme towards better environmental practice and increased quality production. The programme supports suppliers to make positive changes in the long term, investing their earnings in their farms and communities, aiming at better living conditions.
In Latin America, Tdh has activities in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Haiti and Panama. The successful work of Tdh in the area made it one of the reference organisations for topics from access to justice to humanitarian crisis, from migration to child protection. Moreover, WASH (Water and Sanitation) projects have also been built in Colombia, Haiti and Ecuador. The strategy adopted in South America is aligned with the overall child centred approach of Tdh, proven – for instance – by interventions with indigenous groups promoting restorative approaches in terms of juvenile justice, readapting justice systems to children and youth. Tdh is therefore very much present in South America, actively working on child protection on multiple levels, which would represent the optimal foundations to intervene in Guatemala in partnership with Nespresso.
Understanding child labour in Guatemala While in 2016 Guatemala made a significant advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour and to draft a roadmap for Prevention and Elimination of Worst Form of Child Labour, children in Guatemala still perform dangerous tasks in agriculture3. Approximately two-thirds of the 507,000 children4 working in the country are employed in agriculture, subjected to dangerous working conditions including long working hours, long exposure to sun, carrying heavy loads, and working with sharp tools5. Further reports reveal serious problems with illegal child labour and signs of forced labour such as armed guards, debt spirals, and confiscation of ID papers6. Terre des hommes is concerned about the effects of such conditions on the wellbeing, protection and development of children and their families. As a result, Tdh is committed to develop and implement a pilot project throughout the coffee value chain in Guatemala in partnership with Nespresso and to accompany the company in including children’s rights in the broader and global Nespresso sustainability strategy.
The area where the project will take place is Huehuetenango department, a region prone to drogue traffic and violence. It is however also an economically active area, a municipality with high level of employment where they produce corn, vegetable and coffee (in the zone of La Libertad in particular). Security will be guaranteed by high level of cooperation with Nespresso team on the ground.
II. Objectives and scope of the assignment
The objective of the consultancy is to assess the multidimensional involvement of children in coffee farming and processing in Huehuetenango district – Guatemala, an essential stage before proceeding with a pilot project focused on Nespresso’s coffee farms in the area. The purpose of the situation analysis is to enhance knowledge around the critical issues of child labour as well as successes to tackle it. This will enable a better understanding of the link between the company’s current practices and policies, their impact on children and ways to maximize positive impacts. Following the situation analysis, the pilot project in Guatemala will have solid evidence to inform its actions and measure the changes it will have contributed to.
The specific objectives of the consultancy will touch upon the child labour issue in the area, the pull and push factors, causes , the existing interventions in these regards, the business practices around Nespresso coffee farms and the feasibility of moving forward with concrete set of actions to respond to the issue of child labour.
The profile of working children and youth, siblings and their families in coffee farms in Huehuetenango district including but not limited to:
o the underlying reasons behind the phenomenon of child labour in coffee farms in the study area
o the length of the issue with differentiated consideration of boys, girls and various age ranges
o the specific child protection and wellbeing risks related to engagement of children and youth in child labour in coffee farms
The push and pull factors of child labour in Huehuetenango district and its underlying causes leading to the persistence of child labour
o geophysical and agro-ecological characteristics of Huehuetenango district area
o the socio-economic dynamics at play
o the population and ethnicity, with particular focus around work distribution within communities / households, gendered roles, cultural / traditional customs regarding work and children.
o structure of the rural economy and the specific role of the coffee value chain for poverty reduction;
The child protection systems in place (formal and informal) in Huehuetenango district, including but not limited to:
o political and administrative settlement;
o state of the public and collective infrastructure;
o basic social services’ availability and access;
o specific information regarding the feasibility of introducing an Early Alert & Remediation System, including but not limited to:
– the legal framework and availability of support services, including considerations in terms of applicability of technology and practice.
– the extent to which the current services and social protection system in the area is responding to the needs of the working children and youth, conduct a mapping of cooperatives, individual farmers, households and other actors and stakeholders (associations, trade unions, NGOs, local authorities, community leaders) and identifying gaps in service delivery.
The business practices of Nespresso in its local farms and surroundings of coffee farming and to what extent they do align with Child Rights policies, identifying the gaps in these regards.
III. Study methodology
The preliminary phase of the situations analysis entails a document review and a first exploratory mission.
The consultant will thus initially proceed with a broad review and analysis of secondary data, including official statistics and development planning documents issued by the government, specialized agencies and international partners such as World Bank, FAO, IFAD, ILO and UNICEF. Economic, institutional, social and cultural aspects will be focused in order to highlight the underlining causes of child labour in this strategic sector for the country economy. Additionally, a legal framework analysis will be undergone, aiming at evaluating the degree of compliance of existing legal instruments addressing child labour against international laws and standard as well as their effective enforcement.
The first exploratory field mission will shortly follow, in consultation with Nespresso field staff. This mission aims at drawing a detailed picture of the physical, social, political and economic environment within which coffee farming related child labour takes place.
In an attempt to collect all required information concerning the causes of child labour, the activities performed by children, their working conditions and the consequences they are subjected to, the consultant will develop his / her own methodology. However, the following research methods are highly suggested:
a) Key informant interviews. This is a useful method to facilitate access by identifying entry points to key locations and information thanks to close collaboration with Nespresso local staff. In fact, key informants – Nespresso local staff, local leaders, teachers and influential people - are a good source of information in terms of revealing the locations where children are to be found, the conditions under which they work and the types of risks and hazards children are exposed to.
b) Direct observation. In terms of working children, the key aspects to consider are the following: i) extent of child labour presence in each site; ii) gender distribution of the working children; iii) general characteristics of the working children (i.e. their physical appearance, health status, facilities and protective gear used); iv) working conditions of children (e.g. in cold, rainy, open spaces, and the type of risks children are susceptible to).
c) Interviews with children and their families. Whenever possible, according to the context and in full respect of methodological and ethical safeguard policies. A pilot interview to test feasibility of interviews with children is advisable, whose structure will be established and validated in close collaboration with Tdh’s local senior child protection specialist and Q&A department of Tdh at Head Quarters.
d) Focus group discussions including participatory research methods. Two distinct series of group discussions involving a specific category of children will be held, plus focus groups with parents as well. The groups of children will encompass working and non-working children respectively Generally, Focus Group Discussions (FGD) take place after the study has already obtained a substantial quantity of information, proceeding with a clear idea around the extent of the issue and its nature. Likewise, participants in the FGD will be assumed to have fairly good knowledge about the problem being studied. Recruitment of both the working and the non-working children will be done purposely, dividing children and parents by location in order to have precise geographical information (since experiences may vary according the children’s location). The key issue areas that will be covered in the FGDs comprise inter-alia: the children’s opinions regarding the problem of child labour; the major underlying causes of child labour and its consequences; children’s priorities and prospects for the future; parents motivations to have their children work; general attitudes of parents towards child labour; the socio-economic conditions of the working children and the general characteristics of the households the working children belong to.
e) Questionnaire. The data obtained should largely be qualitative. However, as the study requires both qualitative and quantitative analysis, a questionnaire to collect information in the sampled key locations will be included in order to supplement the qualitative information. Most of this quantitative information will entail social/demographic variables such as primary school enrolment, dropouts in the key locations, number of pupils who failed to pay fees in primary schools, with a general comparison between livelihood conditions of families with and without working children.
Target groups: After having identified and explored the target areas in close collaboration with Nespresso, the sampling subjects in the identified study area will comprise different categories of respondents. In fact, working children, non-working children, parents, plantation owners, teachers, local leaders and trade union leaders should all be included. Respondents from each category will be randomly selected, while key informants in limited numbers will all be deliberately included.
The situation analysis will be conducted independently from Nespresso, the latter will in fact solely provide logistical support and not participate in the design of the study, the data collection and analysis process. It is also highly advised to involve young Guatemalan researchers from Universities or young local researchers to the situation analysis in order to ensure a friendly research environment and be quickly accepted by local communities.
IV. Key deliverables
The following deliverables are expected from this assignment:
1) An inception report detailing the situation analysis methodology, data collection instruments and field work plan;
2) Final report including the following annexes
o Electronic and hard files with all the anonymized raw data collected during the assignment;
o Log of analyses carried out during data analysis and report writing phase;
Facilitate a 1 day learning workshop/debriefing session to present the draft findings of the review to Tdh staff in Switzerland and Nespresso and to gather feedback needed to finalize the report.
Final report in English which must include, but is not limited to the following sections:
-Executive Summary;
-Background;
-Objectives;
Situation analysis Methodology (to include locations, questionnaire design and development, training, field work, data entry and processing, data analysis, limitations to the study);
-Results presented in narrative and tables/graphs;
-Recommandations ;
-Annexes (to include references, questionnaire, etc).
V. Intended Users
The last section of the situation analysis will identify viable and sustainable solutions to address the worst forms of child labour in the coffee value chain. This section is intended to help Nespresso to better take into account child labour issues in implementing and evaluating its coffee value chain improvement project. Furthermore, Tdh will build on this section in order to develop an innovative business model to assist all involved actors, governmental, non-governmental and private, in the successful progressive reductionof child labour in the Guatemalan coffee economy. Once a comprehensive knowledge on child labour-related issues along the coffee value chain has been built, Tdh will use the situation analysis findings to develop project proposals aiming at raising funds from major institutional and private donors (European Commission, USAID, DDC, etc…, corporate foundations), in order to allow for the operationalization of its new business model in Guatemala and elsewhere in partnership with Nespresso.
VI. Modalities and Timeline
The situational analysis is expected to be carried within a period of 3 months between the 1st of January and the 1st of April 2019. It is essential for the study to be conducted during this period of time, because the harvest season end in February.
The incumbent will report directly to the Child Labour Head of program, with monthly support/ supervision from the AmLat zone to review work plan and progress made and address operational issues.
Nespresso will provide a logistical support (vehicle) in order to create the 1st contacts. Tdh and the consultants need to follow Nespresso’s instructions regarding the first contact with farmers and producers for security reasons, setting up meetings in the framework of this assignment. As a result, Tdh will be able to conduct the situation analysis in an independent way, without any further interference from the part of Nespresso.
The proposed professional fees would not include travel and accommodation expenses the consultant will incur into to complete the study.
The expert or the team of experts should meet the following conditions, qualifications and experience:
- Master Degree in social sciences, development studies, economics or related field;
- 10 year minimum working experience in Central American countries – Guatemala particularly – with strong understanding of social and child protection issues;
- Thorough knowledge of and expertise in conducting studies, situation analysis, evaluations involving ambitious process of data collection and analysis in Child Protection ; Experience in conducting field research using qualitative and quantitative methods;
- Good knowledge of issues related to child labour and agriculture supply chains;
- Expertise in working directly with children, Knowledge of child-friendly data collection method, sound understanding of methodological and ethical issues related with studying a CP (Chil protection) topic and sensitive environments Experience with participatory data collection approaches;
- Fully Available for the whole period of the study;
- Excellent analytical skills (experience in consolidating and analyzing data, writing reports and making operationalizable recommendations for development projects);
- Excellent communication skills; Ability to present complex data in a clear and understandable format;
Proficiency in English and Spanish is required.
Application in English: Please send 1) a current resume (CV) with contact information of two references (your former supervisors); 2) a technical proposal for the situation analysis including proposed methodology for the study and financial plan for the consultancy (with number of days needed for the completion of the entire assignment); 3) an economical offer for the consultancy; 4) an example of relevant work to peggy.herrmannljubicic@tdh.ch and marc.luna@tdh.ch.
Please indicate in the subject box “Situation Analysis – Child Labour in Coffee Farms in Huehuetenango Guatemala” and send your complete applications by Friday 14th December 2018.
How to apply:
Application in English: Please send 1) a current resume (CV) with contact information of two references (your former supervisors); 2) a technical proposal for the situation analysis including proposed methodology for the study and financial plan for the consultancy (with number of days needed for the completion of the entire assignment); 3) an economical offer for the consultancy; 4) an example of relevant work to peggy.herrmannljubicic@tdh.ch and marc.luna@tdh.ch.
Please indicate in the subject box “Situation Analysis – Child Labour in Coffee Farms in Huehuetenango Guatemala” and send your complete applications by Friday 14th December 2018.