Design of Gendered Displacement Drivers Assessment (GDDA) Framework

Terms of Reference (ToR):
Design of Gendered Displacement Drivers Assessment (GDDA) Framework

1. Summary

Nagaasho – Integrated Solutions for Preventing Displacement and Strengthening Rural Resilience in Somalia and Somaliland is a consortium of national and international organizations – CARE (lead agency), iRise Hub, Saferworld, the World Food Programme’s IGNITE Innovation Hub, WARDI Relief and Development Initiatives, and the Women’s Action for Advocacy and Progress Organization (WAAPO). Nagaasho’s objective is to address the root causes of displacement by building the climate, economic, and social resilience of rural communities in high-risk districts. The consortium works across the humanitarian–development–peace nexus, tackling three interlinked displacement push factors: climate shocks and low adaptive capacity, limited economic opportunities, and conflict combined with weak governance. Nagaasho’s approach is community-led, contextually adaptive, and grounded in the priorities of women, youth, and marginalized groups, ensuring that solutions are locally owned and sustainable. Currently under the Danish Somalia Strategic Framework, the consortium is implementing a four-year programme that integrates climate-smart agriculture, inclusive market systems, conflict prevention, and institutional strengthening to reduce displacement risks and promote long-term stability in Somalia and Somaliland.

CARE Somalia is seeking to procure the services of an external consultant to design, harmonize, and implement the Gendered Displacement Drivers Assessment (GDDA) Framework.

1. Nagaasho Background

Somalia’s internal displacement crisis is driven by a complex interplay of interdependent push factors: increasingly severe climate shocks with low local resilience, limited economic opportunities and fragmented governance with weak capacities to prevent or manage conflicts over resources. These drivers have contributed to an estimated 3.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) around a quarter of the population, up sharply from 1.1 million in 2017 (UNHCR).

Recent displacement monitoring underscores the scale and urgency of the crisis. Between February and March 2025, the IOM’s Emergency Trend Tracking (ETT) recorded 107,930 new arrivals across 9,003 settlements in twenty-five districts, with 82% settling in urban areas and 18% in rural locations, including 6,696 IDP sites. The largest influxes were recorded in Bay (28%), Gedo (19%), Middle Shabelle (17%), and Banadir (15%). Most movements (73%) occurred within the same region, while 27% originated from other regions or countries. The primary causes were drought (60%) and conflict (34%), followed by floods (4%) and evictions (2%).

Climate shocks intensified by low adaptive capacity are the leading driver of displacement. Five failed rainy seasons to 2022 devastated rural livelihoods, and 2023 floods displaced 190,000 people in Baardheere and 484,000 in Belet Weyne. With degraded ecosystems, weak water systems, and limited adaptation planning, ETT confirms climate-related drought is the top cause of new displacement in early 2025. Economic pressure deepens the crisis: over half of cropping households lack seeds (FAO), post-harvest cereal losses reach 20–30% (World Bank), only 16% use formal banking (9% for women), and inefficient value chains push rural families toward cities; women are disproportionately affected. Without livelihood diversification and better market access, climate-economic displacement will persist.

Conflict and weak governance also force large-scale displacement, 654,000 people in 2023 alone. In Laascanood, 195,000 people were displaced by conflict, reflecting the scale of insecurity, and competition over scarce resources especially water remains a flashpoint, with per-capita availability at only 411 m³, far below the UN’s 1,000 m³ scarcity threshold. Weak dispute-resolution mechanisms and the exclusion of women from decision-making limit the effectiveness of local governance. The latest ETT findings confirm that conflict remains the second-largest displacement trigger, accounting for over one-third of new movements in early 2025.

The interconnectivity of these drivers means that climate shocks intensify conflicts and undermine livelihoods, while resource-based disputes further weaken economic opportunities. Displacement push factors vary across communities, making community-driven planning essential to address context-specific risks and the need for targeted interventions for vulnerable groups.

NAGAASHO project is built around three interlinked outcomes: (1) enabling communities to anticipate and adapt to climate shocks through gender-responsive, climate-smart practices and sustainable natural resource management, (2) supporting women and youth to shape local food systems, establish climate-smart livelihoods, and strengthen market linkages and (3) promoting inclusive governance and peacebuilding to enhance social cohesion and prevent conflict. Targeting rural people, the project prioritizes pastoralists, agro-pastoralist. Through community-driven approaches, capacity building, and locally led planning, Nagaasho integrates climate adaptation, livelihood diversification, and conflict prevention as mutually reinforcing pathways to address the root causes of displacement.

The Gendered Displacement Drivers Assessment (GDDA) will integrate climate and conflict-sensitive participatory tools with explicit gender analysis to surface differentiated drivers and risks and generate CAP-ready, locally led entry points for action. This directly supports Nagaasho’s aim to strengthen adaptive capacities, expand climate-smart livelihoods, and promote inclusive, conflict-sensitive governance with a strong focus on women, youth, and marginalized groups linking climate adaptation, market access, and social cohesion as mutually reinforcing pathways to reduce displacement.

1. Purpose

The purpose of this consultancy is to design, harmonize, and field-test a simplified, user-friendly, and action-oriented Gendered Displacement Drivers Assessment (GDDA) Framework and accompanying facilitator’s manual. The GDDA Framework will integrate CARE’s Gendered Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (GCVCA), Saferworld’s Gender-Sensitive Conflict Analysis (GSCA), and other relevant participatory displacement assessment tools into a unified methodology for use.

The GCVCA is a participatory framework for understanding how climate change affects communities differently by gender, age, and social factors, while identifying local adaptive capacities. It integrates climate science, socio-economic analysis, and community perspectives through tools like seasonal calendars, hazard mapping, historical timelines, and vulnerability ranking. By combining participatory rural appraisal with gender analysis, it reveals differentiated vulnerabilities, root causes, and priorities for locally led adaptation, ensuring interventions address the specific needs and capacities of all groups.

The GSCA examines the root causes, key actors, dynamics, and impacts of conflict, with a focus on how these affect women, men, and marginalized groups differently. Using participatory tools such as stakeholder mapping, conflict timelines, and power analysis, it identifies inequalities, exclusion, and barriers to participation, while highlighting opportunities for peacebuilding. This ensures interventions are inclusive, context-specific, and promote social cohesion, gender equality, and locally owned, sustainable peace. The GSCA moves beyond merely avoiding harm to fostering gender-transformative change, supporting meaningful participation for women, men, and marginalized groups.

By merging these two methodologies into the GDDA Framework — while also drawing, where appropriate, on other relevant and proven participatory methodologies and best practices specifically related to displacement prevention — the consultancy will create a comprehensive participatory tool that addresses climate/environmental, economic, and social resilience factors; identifies displacement drivers; and lays the groundwork for inclusive Community Action Plans (CAPs) and Community Action Forums (CAFs) that are contextually adaptive and community-led. the GDDA will be institutionalized within the Nagaasho consortium (training package, facilitation aids, and QA checklist) and embedded in partner SOPs for future assessments; scaled across additional districts beyond the pilot; and made available to all partners to support wider programming on displacement prevention and resilience.

1. Objectives

The objectives of the consultancy are to:

1. Framework & Manual Development. Develop a harmonized, simplified GDDA Framework and concise facilitator’s manual that integrate GCVCA, GSCA, and relevant displacement tools.
2. Partner Enablement & Field Roll‑out. Coordinate and facilitate the partner‑led roll‑out in target communities, build local capacity (on‑the‑job coaching, ToT, quality assurance), and ensure inclusive participation of women, youth, and marginalized groups.
3. Analysis & Programming Guidance. Analyze and synthesize GDDA findings to: (a) identify climate, economic, social and conflict drivers of displacement; (b) surface differentiated risks by gender/age/livelihood/mobility; and (c) generate actionable recommendations to tailor Nagaasho interventions and inform subsequent community planning.The GDDA outputs will support later CAP development by the Nagaasho project teams and ensure gender and conflict‑sensitive establishment/operation of CAFs (alignment with CVCA/GSCA toolboxes).
4. Scope of Work

The consultancy will be responsible for the coordination and facilitation of the GDDA process of design, development, validation, and implementation of the Gendered Displacement Drivers and Assessment (GDDA) Framework and accompanying facilitator’s manual. The work will be undertaken in close collaboration with the Nagaasho consortium technical team and relevant stakeholders as well as CARE and partner field teams, who will support with local facilitation, data collection, and community engagement. The consultancy will also ensure alignment with CARE’s GCVCA tools, Saferworld’s GSCA/CAF tools, and other best-practice participatory methodologies. The scope will include the following key components:

1. Desk Review and Tool Mapping

• Review the Nagaasho programme documents, CARE’s GCVCA and resilience tools, and Saferworld’s GSCA and Community Action Forums (CAF) tools.
• Identify and analyze relevant external resources, including IOM’s Community-Based Planning Manual (2022) particularly historical mapping and participatory community mapping components and other displacement assessment tools from agencies such as NRC, DRC, or IDMC.

Produce an annotated tool mapping and gap analysis (as an appendix to the Inception Report) highlighting displacement trends, conflict incident reports, and climate risk data) to complement field assessment activities.

1. Co-Design Workshop

• Organize and facilitate a full-day co-design session with consortium technical staff and key stakeholders including government ministries and other partners.
• Refine learning questions and define priority information needs for displacement prevention and resilience programming.
• Jointly select a targeted and contextually relevant set of participatory tools, drawing on findings from the desk review and existing frameworks (e.g. GCVCA, GSCA), with the aim of avoiding duplication and minimizing participant fatigue. Collaboratively adapt the selected tools and structure of field exercises to reflect the displacement prevention focus of the assessment and ensure they capture the perspectives and differentiated risks of key groups, including women, youth, pastoralists, and agro-pastoralists.

1. Framework and Manual Development

• Draft the GDDA Framework and a concise, user-friendly facilitator’s manual with step-by-step guidance, tool descriptions, facilitation tips, and documentation templates.
• Provide step-by-step facilitation notes, templates (e.g., problem trees, risk ranking, opportunity mapping), checklists for quality assurance, and guidance for SADD and safe data capture.
• Ensure all tools are participatory, inclusive, trauma-sensitive, and protection-conscious, enabling safe and meaningful engagement of all community groups.
• Maintain a strong focus on practicality and usability, ensuring the manual is concise, easy to navigate, and provides clear guidance on the information to be collected and how it will be used in programme design and implementation.

1. Field Implementation (consortium partner-led)

• Facilitate the rollout of GDDA field exercises in the five Nagaasho target districts, working closely with CARE and partner field teams to conduct participatory community-level assessments that identify displacement-related risks and resilience capacities across social, economic, climate, and conflict dimensions.
• Ensure the process feeds directly into the development of inclusive Community Action Plans (CAPs) anchored in CARE’s Impact Chain and Adaptation Pathways tools, and Saferworld’s CAF approach.
• Build local facilitation capacity through on-the-job training and mentorship during the field rollout.
• Troubleshoot methodological issues and oversee documentation standards and data quality.

1. Analysis, Learning Consolidation, and Knowledge Product Development

• Compile and analyze findings from all districts to produce:
  • A concise synthesis learning brief (maximum 10 pages, layout-ready) responding to 2–3 agreed learning questions and highlighting key trends, insights, and implications for programming.
• Community Displacement Risk Profiles (3–4 examples) illustrating distinct displacement typologies differentiated by gender, age, and livelihood systems. Position the GDDA as both a practical operational tool for Nagaasho and a sectoral learning product to advance understanding of displacement drivers and resilience-building in fragile contexts.

1. Key Deliverables
2. Inception Report — methodology, work plan, proposed GDDA structure [ADDED] and an appended Annotated Tool Mapping & Gap Analysis **(**desk-based mapping of relevant tools from consortium partners (e.g. CARE’s GCVCA, Saferworld’s GSCA), relevant external sources (e.g. IOM, NRC, DRC), and identification of gaps in capturing gendered displacement drivers. This includes review of available secondary data sources to complement field-based data collection.
3. Co-Design Workshop Plan and Facilitation

   Design and facilitation of a focused 1-day technical workshop to define core learning questions, refine methodological parameters (e.g. group structure, participatory approaches), jointly select a targeted and streamlined set of participatory tools, drawing on existing frameworks and desk review findings, and adapt selected tools and approaches to ensure they are contextually appropriate for rural, low-literacy settings and capable of capturing differentiated displacement risks (e.g. for women, youth, pastoralists, and agro-pastoralists).

4. Final GDDA Framework (incl. Field Guide)

   Development of a concise and user-friendly framework and facilitator’s guide, including clear purpose, core domains, step-by-step instructions, suggested tools and exercises, and guidance on how findings will feed into planning and programming. Tools should be easy to implement and sensitive to protection considerations.

5. Displacement Risk Profile Annexes

   Development of brief annexes summarizing key displacement dynamics and risk patterns identified in each target district, including distinctions by gender, age, and livelihood group where relevant.

6. GDDA Knowledge Product

   A short, layouted learning brief (max. 10 pages) synthesizing findings from the GDDA process. The brief will be structured around 2–3 defined learning questions and provide clear, actionable recommendations for programme adaptation and wider learning.

7. Timeline

The consultancy is expected to take place between August and October 2025. A detailed work plan will be developed in consultation with the Nagaasho consortium.

Activity

Days

Inception meeting and desk review (including annotated tool mapping & gap analysis)

3 days

Co-design workshop planning and facilitation

2 days

Development of GDDA Framework and facilitator’s guide

5 days

Field implementation in 5 districts (including CAPs and community reports)

12 days

Data analysis and development of displacement risk profiles

3 days

Drafting GDDA knowledge product (learning brief)

3 days

Review and feedback incorporation

2 days

Finalization and submission of all deliverables

2 days

Total

32 days

The selected consultant is required to travel to Mogadishu, Somalia to facilitate the assignment.

1. Application Procedures and Requirements

Interested consultants are required to submit the following:

1. Cover Letter – introducing the consultancy team, with names, roles, and relevant expertise of each member.
2. Technical Proposal – no more than 15 pages, outlining:
   • Understanding of the TOR and proposed approach to designing, harmonizing, and field-testing the GDDA Framework.
   • Methodology for integrating GCVCA, GSCA, and other relevant tools.
   • Plans for field implementation, CAP development technical support and production of displacement risk profiles and learning briefs.
   • Timeline of activities aligned with the TOR’s scope of work.
3. Team CVs – up-to-date resumes for all proposed team members, highlighting relevant thematic, technical, and field experience.
4. Evidence of Similar Work – at least two samples of previous assignments of comparable scope, preferably in displacement prevention, resilience programming, or participatory tool development.
5. Financial proposal – clearly disaggregating consultancy fees, travel, accommodation, and any other associated costs, structured by key phases of the assignment.
6. Ethical/Do No Harm Statement – A brief statement outlining how the consultancy will ensure ethical conduct, data protection, and a “Do No Harm” approach, particularly in displacement-affected and gender-sensitive contexts.
7. Qualifications and Experience – demonstrating:
   • Advanced degree (master’s or PhD) in climate resilience, conflict prevention, displacement studies, development studies, or related fields.
   • Minimum 5 years’ proven experience in designing and applying participatory assessment tools in fragile or displacement-affected contexts.
   • Demonstrated expertise in gender-sensitive programming, community-led planning, and resilience measurement.
   • Experience integrating climate, economic, and conflict analysis into programming tools.
   • Strong facilitation skills in rural, low-literacy contexts.
   • Previous experience working in Somalia and/or Somaliland preferred.
8. The applications should be submitted to som.consultant@care.orgnot late then 23-09-2025**.**