Context​

Founded in 2004, RAES is a Senegalese NGO that uses innovative communication strategies to enrich quality of life, particularly with respect to health, education, and citizenship.​

RAES is particularly known for using stories to meet audiences where they are and impact their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. RAES is a leader in edutainment (also known as entertainment-education or EE), an approach that embeds accurate and inspiring information into a high-quality entertainment product (such as a compelling TV show) in order to reach, teach, move, and motivate audiences. RAES is also known for designing strategic communication. Strategic communicators use data to craft messages that will resonate with important audiences. By securing these audiences’ acceptance of key ideas, campaigns are more likely to realize their core objectives.​

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The Pamoja project​

​RAES leads strategic communication for the Pamoja project. Pamoja, meaning ‘together’ in Swahili, is a regional effort that brings together diverse stakeholders – from civil society actors to members of the legal community to health care providers to policymakers to ordinary folks – so that Africans’ can better access safe, legal abortion and self-managed termination of pregnancy.​

Effective communication is crucial. In sub-Saharan Africa, abortion is among the most taboo of discussion topics. The silence and struggle around abortion conversations prevent both information-sharing and relational bridge-building, which often means unsafe, clandestine abortions are individuals’ only recourse for terminating an untimely pregnancy and avoiding painful stigmatization. The more we talk about abortion, the more we’ll reduce stigma, or lessen the heavy emotional baggage imposed by judgement, guilt, and shame. Then we’ll be better able to connect to compassion and consider options that would improve access to safe abortion.​

Pamoja is a six-year project that consists of three, two-year segments. The segment of Years 1&2 concluded in August 2024, and Years 3&4 launched immediately after, in September 2024. The final segment of Years 5&6 will debut in 2026, and the overall program will conclude in August 2028.​

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How is RAES’s Pamoja work designed?​

As strategic communication lead, RAES develops strategy and supports the communication efforts of its diverse partners (e.g., creative agencies, storytellers, CSO’s). Their efforts aim to advance their nation’s broad movement to expand access to safe, legal termination of pregnancy and/or contribute to targeted campaigns designed to increase support for expansion of access to safe, legal termination of pregnancy. RAES’s partners operate in the following seven countries: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, and Zimbabwe.​

During Years 3 and 4, every country will host at least two campaigns with the following objectives:​

Inform & destigmatize ​

1. Primary targets: Youth; Women of child-bearing age; Health care providers.​
2. Secondary targets: First responders; Members of the legal community; Storytellers.​
3. Tertiary target: General public​

Policy change​

1. Primary target: Decision-makers​

Secondary target: General public

Professional creative agencies will develop creative concepts for these campaigns and produce + distribute content via mass media and digital media channels. CSO partners will develop and facilitate community-based activities to promote content and catalyze conversation.​RAES Pamoja partners’ communication activities include:​

• CREATIVE AGENCIES: develop a campaign’s creative concept, produce and distribute content to activate the campaign.​
• STORYTELLERS: create content designed to advance their nation’s broad movement and/or a particular campaign occurring in their country (e.g., documentaries, animated video series, radio dramas, influencer-centered social media content).​
• CSOs: promote (or “boost”) a campaign by re-posting and engaging with its content and/or developing and facilitating community-based activities; develop and facilitate community-based activities designed to advance their nation’s broad movement (e.g., VCAT trainings with pharmacists); create content [select few].​

Partners’ content and activities are “enriched” – that is, they contain important, curated information, were informed by key messages that were co-designed and/or co-created by diverse stakeholders and workshopped with members of intended audiences so that they resonate and are shaped according to theory and evidence from the social and behavior change communication (SBCC) corpus.​

RAES Pamoja campaigns reach audiences via community-level outreach, mass media distribution, and/or digital distribution. This holistic distribution approach is known as “360-degree communication.”​

​Objectives of the consultancy​

• OBJECTIVE A – REQUIRED. RAES seeks a consultant or a firm to develop a Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) plan for each country based on its discrete strategy.​
• OBJECTIVE B – OPTIONAL. If interested, RAES also welcomes a consultant or firm to provide technical assistance to the M&E staff and Pamoja project team with respect to implementation of the MEL plan. This would include:​
•  a consultancy to conduct the evaluation and propose methodology and approaches to collect and analyze the data to inform the MEL plan ; AND/OR​
•  an approach to collect and summarize learnings.​

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Deliverables​

​The consultant should submit the following deliverables:​

• 1. REQUIRED: MEL Plan for each country – seven (7) in total: Each plan will articulate how to measure each country’s discrete strategy and make its learnings accessible.​
• 2. OPTIONAL: Separate proposal(s) for Objective B.i. and/or Objective B.ii.​

Timeline​

• 1. Create the seven MEL plans: May 2025 to June 2025​
• 2. OPTIONAL: Conduct evaluation, collect data, create approach for learning: July 2025 to July 2026​

Reporting and communication​

The consultant will report to RAES’s Research Director, with oversight provided by RAES’s Executive Director. When pertinent, RAES’s Manager for Monitoring and Evaluation and Pamoja project coordinator also will be consulted with respect to the consultant’s work.​

Qualifications and Expertise​

The ideal consultant should possess the following qualifications and expertise:​

• Strong research skills, comprising the ability to design theories of change (TOCs) and monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) plans​
• Robust project management skills, including the ability to manage multiple projects/deadlines in an organised and timely manner​
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with English language and French language proficiency present within the team​
• Advanced degrees and/or certifications attesting to team members’ skill sets and knowledge​
• Comfort with the prospect of expanding access to safe abortion in Africa.​

Budget​

The candidate is expected to provide a budget with a detailed breakdown of anticipated expenses as part of the expression of interests. The candidate needs to clearly identify fees, logistical costs or printing and translation costs.​​

Call for Tenders ​

Interested candidates should send a technical and financial offer to achat@ongraes.org and cc RAES Research Director Dr. Laurel Felt, laurel.felt@ongraes.org by April 20th, 2025. ​

The offer should include in separate documents:​

• A technical offer with your understanding of the request and a detailed schedule​
• A separate financial offer​
• A CV or portfolio demonstrating experience in relation to the professional profile sought​
• Research sample – report from a previous evaluation that showcases rigorous methods, ethical practices, and accessible communication.​

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