RFP - Continuous Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) for the project Boosting Female Labor Force Participation through Strengthened Urban Care Ecosystem: Focus on Childcare

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About the Organization

As the lead United Nations agency on international development, UNDP works in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. We help countries develop policies, leadership skills, partnerships and institutional capabilities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our work is centred around six core development areas, known as our signature solutions: poverty and inequality, governance, resilience, environment, energy and gender equality.

UNDP’s mandate is to end poverty, build democratic governance, rule of law, and inclusive institutions. We advocate for change, and connect countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life.

About the Proposal

Background:

UNDP has been working in India since 1951 in almost all areas of human development. Together with the Government of India and development partners, we have worked towards eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, strengthening local governance, enhancing community resilience, protecting the environment, supporting policy initiatives and institutional reforms, and accelerating sustainable development for all.

With projects and programmes in every state and union territory in India, UNDP works with national and subnational government, and diverse development actors to deliver people-centric results, particularly for the most vulnerable and marginalized communities. As the integrator for collective action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within the UN system, we are committed to supporting the Government of India’s national development vision and priorities and accelerating the achievement of the SDGs for the people and the planet.

Our new Country Programme (2023-2027) builds on our prior work and aims to provide an integrated approach to development solutions in three strategic portfolios:

• Strong, accountable, and evidence-led institutions for accelerated achievement of the SDGs.
• Enhanced economic opportunities and social protection to reduce inequality, with a focus on the marginalized.
• Climate-smart solutions, sustainable ecosystems, and resilient development for reduced vulnerability.

UNDP’s Country Programme Document (2023-2027) intended outcome 2 states that “By 2027, people will benefit from and contribute to sustainable and inclusive growth through higher productivity, competitiveness and diversification in economic activities that create decent work, livelihoods, and income particularly for youth and women”.

In the above context, UNDP is embarking on a three-year project “Boosting Female Labour Force Participation through Strengthened Urban Childcare”.

Project Background:

The care economy entails a diversified range of productive work with both paid and unpaid work activities for providing direct and indirect care for children, the elderly, disabled and ill, as well as for prime age working adults. A substantial amount of this care work is performed on an unpaid basis in the domestic sphere.

Across the world, women perform three-quarters of unpaid care work, or 76.2 per cent of the total hours provided. Even with many gains in education, India’s Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) is one of the lowest in the world, ranking 165 among the 176 countries, and it has been falling in the recent decades. The ability of women to participate in the labour force is dictated by various economic and social factors, unpaid care work being one of the primary ones. Amongst care related chores, childcare arguably takes a large part of women’s time. Additionally, gendered work division and norms fuel the perceptions of childcare being a woman's job. The impact of the burden of unpaid care work, specifically childcare, on a women’s ability to actively participate in the paid workforce holds particular significance in India. A study conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) in India found that in urban areas, 44% of women who were not in the labour force cited domestic responsibilities, including childcare, as the reason for their limited or non-participation in economic activities.

The care industry in India has grown significantly in recent years. However, these services, mainly operated by private companies, are typically used by middle-income and higher-income households. While there are a few public programmes and policies which support the provision of childcare / creches, these remain concentrated in rural areas, leaving little attention on India’s urban childcare needs. This is especially critical given the vast informal economy that exists in the urban sector, of which poor urban women with no social or economic protection make up a majority. Apart from the lack of government-run childcare services, some of the other main challenges related to childcare provision in urban areas include little or no public financial provision to support or subsidize private childcare services, trust issues of parents concerning small-scale privately run childcare centres, lack of trained childcare professionals, high cost of providing quality care.

The Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge (NNC) piloted under the Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) with support from the Bernard van Leer Foundation and WRI India, has been working to make cities friendly for young children and their caregivers. Similarly, Ministry of Women and Child Development has launched the Palna Scheme to initiate childcare centres amongst other government departments initiatives. In the G20 New Delhi Leader’s declaration had special emphasis on strengthening care infrastructure, increased public investing in the provision of care services, with childcare services serving as the initial building block along with commitment to high quality services and regulations in the care sector. There is notably growing interest amongst public and private sector stakeholders to strengthen the care infrastructure.

UNDP will implement this project in collaboration with the DAY-NULM, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Through this project, UNDP India aims to find an effective way of strengthening the urban care system including engaging with men and boys to break the stereotypical gendered division of unpaid care work. This is to reduce the unpaid care work responsibility and time poverty faced by women. While the care ecosystem encompasses different forms of unpaid care, keeping in view the criticality of childcare, UNDP plans to start with a specific focus on provisioning of childcare services targeting urban poor households and establish the critical need for an increased investment in care services in general from the government, private sector, and development partners to enable women to join and/or re-enter the paid workforce.

The overall goal of the project is to contribute to “Increased opportunities for urban poor women to participate in paid workforce, driven by the availability of accessible and affordable quality childcare services in their community/vicinity of workplaces.”

This would be done through three main strategies:

• Assessment of the current care service landscape with focus on childcare in India and various models targeting urban lower income households including feasibility and scale potential, synthesis of the existing research and key partners and enablers in India. To achieve this, a landscape assessment including feasibility and scalability potential analysis of existing services models for urban lower income households will be undertaken. Based on the results of the landscaping study, models targeting urban lower income households will be identified for piloting along with potential partners and enablers. Along with this, a comprehensive plan including impact measurement framework and feasibility analysis of financing options including blended instruments will also be undertaken. A challenge call to identify and accelerate innovative care service provisioning solutions including childcare targeting urban poor will also be designed and launched.
• Increased availability and uptake of accessible, affordable, and quality childcare services, alleviating the unpaid care burden on urban poor women and unlocking their economic potential. To achieve this, adapted and customized training content will be developed and used to train childcare workers and carepreneurs along with piloting of childcare service models in partnership with existing and new service providers.
• Enhanced awareness and capacity of public and private sector key stakeholders and enablers to increase investment for care services specifically targeting urban lower income households. A Care Coalition will be established by UNDP which will be an advisory group of key sector experts, Think Tanks, research organizations, implementing partners and other national level players working on women economic empowerment and care economy. This will Increase knowledge and awareness among policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders on the importance of investing in childcare provision as a key driver of gender equality, economic growth, and social development in India. This will enable the sharing of documented best practices, lessons learnt, and policy briefs; policy dialogues, roundtable convenings and capacity building workshops at state and national level will be conducted; and convergence with and leveraging of investments under public funded initiatives such as NULM, Smart Cities Mission, National Creche Scheme (Palna), etc. will be prioritized. Awareness and nudge campaigns aimed at changing perception and promoting shared responsibilities related to unpaid care work will also be undertaken.

About the assignment:

UNDP is seeking the services of an experienced service provider to collaborate with the UNDP project team and partners in establishing a robust Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation (MLE) system for the project. The service provider will be responsible for continuous monitoring, evaluation, and documentation of learnings from all the 25–30 childcare centers, drawing insights from both project-funded and government-supported models. The primary objective is to generate data-driven evidence that links childcare services to women’s economic empowerment, providing actionable insights to inform policy and programmatic decisions. The key responsibilities include collecting and analyzing data, synthesizing findings basis gathered data insights for regular progress updates, and delivering a comprehensive final report that evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of all pilot models and presents a strategic blueprint for scalable and sustainable approaches.

The scope of work for the service provider will include but not be limited to:

• Develop a comprehensive MLE plan and framework
• Concurrent Monitoring & Evaluation of Pilot Childcare Models
• Knowledge Sharing and Documentation
• Development of a blueprint for childcare service model/models that can be scaled up in urban low-income locations

Deliverables and Schedules/Expected Outputs:

Inception report outlining the final learning questions, MLE framework, methodology and timeline showing agreed dates of delivery of specified deliverables.

• Finalized MLE plan for the project
• Finalization, review, and submission of MLE tools.
• Baseline, endline and any other evaluation reports.
• Final report with analysis of all pilots and blueprint of scalable model/s
• Presentations on project progress as required.
• Documentation as agreed including policy analysis, draft briefs, meeting minutes etc.
• Monthly, quarterly, and annual report on activities undertaken and project progress.
• Monthly submission of MIS data in format as agreed with UNDP.
• Final MIS and datasets along with data and trend analysis.

How to Apply

Deadline: 18-Mar-25 @ 08:00 AM (New York time)

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Tags Children and Childcare Smart City and Urban Issues Women Empowerment Others