ABOUT COWATER INTERNATIONAL
Cowater International is a leading global development consulting company. and has successfully delivered a portfolio of over 2500 projects and assignments in more than 95 countries. We work with governments, private sector actors and communities implementing projects that support socio-economic development, institutional strengthening, environmental improvements and advance equal opportunities for all. We are a diverse and experienced team committed to building a better tomorrow for the people we serve.

ABOUT THE GREAT PROGRAM
GREAT, a 10-year flagship initiative of Australian Government, managed by Cowater International since 2016, focuses on women's economic empowerment in Vietnam's ethnically diverse north-west region. Utilising a market systems development approach, it primarily benefits women in Son La and Lao Cai provinces, particularly targeting ethnic minority communities, which are home to twelve and twenty-six ethnic groups respectively.

The objectives of the GREAT Program are:
Objective 1: Women, particularly ethnic minority women living in Son La and Lao Cai provinces have improved economic benefits.
Objective 2: Women, particularly ethnic minority women living in Son La and Lao Cai provinces, have increased confidence and social status, including more balanced workloads and greater decision making within the home, workplace, and community.
Objective 3: Women, particularly ethnic minority women and household members living in Son La and Lao Cai provinces benefit from more gender responsive, inclusive, and effective provincial and national policies, plans, strategies, and programs.

BACKGROUND
Communications and promotion is an integrated part of the program to highlight the visibility of the Australian Government and GREAT, scale up impactful lessons and contribute to bolstering GREAT's objectives, strengthening the program's capacity for influence and advocacy.

To support the program’s communication and promotion objectives, GREAT will support its partners across all sectors to enhance their capacity and skills, in coordination with GREAT, in undertaking communication and promotion activities for improved communication effectiveness. This will be realised through two training courses from November 2024 to March 2025, focusing on building capacity of GREAT partner communication and promotional skills and expertise including through enhanced photography, writing evidence-based and intervention logic based stories of change and social media skills. The outcomes of the training include improved communication and promotional skills and capabilities, and the development of a communication and promotion plan for each partner for their activities with GREAT. The communication and promotion plan and related products will also contribute as evidence to the policy improvement and behaviour change objectives of GREAT and its partners amongst market actors to enhance women’s economic empowerment and social inclusion in agricultural and tourism value chains.

SUMMARY OF ASSIGNMENT
We are looking for a service provider (an individual consultant or a consultancy firm) who can provide high quality training in areas of communications and promotion for our partners with details as described below. There may be further opportunities to work with us in other areas of communications if the service provider has qualified competencies. In detail:

Overall, it is expected that lead partners and businesses in the supported value chains will understand and be better equipped to develop and use evidence-based and intervention logics based stories of change to promote their work and, in particular, their contributions to inclusive business development and women’s economic empowerment. Training will be designed to support communication and promotion of partner activities as well as their contribution to the GREAT program and its goals.

Partners will be equipped with the necessary skills to design and develop transcripts of a story of change and to develop action plans to implement this as part of the intervention activities. This will include, but not be limited to: 1. Documenting improvements to the business and production process by taking photos, shooting videos and obtaining other qualitative evidences such as quotes; 2. Using the documented evidence to construct a compelling story of change according to the design and expected transcript; 3. Promote the stories of change and the materials through various channels.

Training 1 – TOT training for GREAT lead partners in effective communications for GREAT- supported activities, including basics of photography skills, stories of change writing skills and social media
1.    Objectives
•    To equip lead partners of GREAT with the communications guidelines and communications skills including photography, writing stories of change and social media
•    To serve as a TOT training for lead partners, so that they will be able to co-facilitate training on the development of their communications plan in the second training with the participation of their co-facilitating partners such as businesses, cooperatives and collective groups
2.    Key participants: Lead partners of the GREAT program
3.    Location: Lao Cai and Son La
4.    Duration: 2 days in each province (excluding travel)
5.    Time: November/December 2024
6.    Outcomes:
Lead partners will take a lead role in developing and implementing communications and promotion plans and supporting their market partners and stakeholders to contrite to those plans and to the generation of products and materials in support of those plans. This lead role requires partners to:
•    Understand and develop a compelling story structure based on project intervention logics
•    Understand the use and value of evidence-based story development to convey and promote the results (including women’s economic empowerment results) of their work with GREAT to development peers and stakeholders
•    Understand the information and evidence requirements to support the construction of high quality transcripts and generation of insightful photos, videos and anecdotes / quotes
At the end of the training, participants should be able to:
•    understand and apply the program’s communication guidelines across all channels for their GREAT-replated communications activities
•    be able to create clear, consistent, and impactful messages aligned with the GREAT communications guidelines
•    be able to capture high-quality photos that effectively communicate the project’s messages and constantly use photography as a means of visual storytelling
•    understand the basics of writing stories of change and social media to effectively communicate the project’s impact
•    be able to co-facilitate the training on the development of their communications plan in the second training

Training 2 – Training for GREAT beneficiary partners (businesses, cooperatives, collective groups) in effective communications for GREAT-supported activities, including basics of photography skills, stories of change writing skills and social media, with co-facilitation of GREAT lead partners
1.    Objectives
•    To equip beneficiary partners of the GREAT program with skills and capacity to showcase stories of impact and change resulting from their collaboration with the project and/or new practices introduced
•    To develop and action a simple media communication and promotion plan for each beneficiary partner (including photo, information and data collection plan, stories to be developed, how and when to publish them, etc.)
2.    Key participants: GREAT lead partners and their beneficiary partners
3.    Location: Lao Cai and Son La
4.    Duration: 2 days in each province (excluding travel)
5.    Time: March 2025
6.    Outcomes:
•    Participants will have improved skills and ability to show case and communicate how their businesses, activities and/or communities have been positively impacted by changes introduced with the support of the GREAT program through photography and compelling stories, including the development of a communication and promotion plan of each partner (including photo, information and data collection plan, stories to be developed, how and when to publish them, etc.)
•    These stories can be used to showcase business and community activities and promoted to other communities and/or business partners.

SPECIFIC TASKS
The service provider will provide:
•    Discuss with the GREAT team about context, ideas and timeline
•    Conduct a need assessment to better understand the communication and promotion potential and opportunities in each project context
•    Design a concrete training plan for both training courses
•    Development of training materials customized for the GREAT program and to address the needs of GREAT partners
•    Provide coaching and training sessions for the participants with topics and timelines as described above
•    Conduct post-training surveys
•    Provide post-training mentoring services for partners to develop the communications plan for GREAT-supported activities
•    Write an approximately 5-page report summarizing the highlights and results of the training for each course

DELIVERABLES
•    A capacity assessment survey tool for each training
•    A short document analysing the findings of the capacity needs assessment for each training
•    A documented training approach and course agenda for each training
•    A set of training material including basic principles, examples, case studies, templates, video clips, photos, etc. for each training
•    Two training sessions to be conducted for GREAT partners (one in Lao Cai and one in Son La) for each training
•    A concise report of approximately 5 pages on outcomes the training course including practical recommendations for each partner for each training
•    Communications plan for GREAT-supported activities of each participating partner

REQUIREMENTS
•    Strong profile and experience in providing training service in areas of communications, including but not limited to photography, storytelling and social media
•    Experience with conducting trainings/coaching sessions at community level
•    Experience with working with local media, authorities, communities in remote areas, especially ethnic minority groups and women
•    Excellent analytical skills and report writing skills in English
•    Understanding of women’s economic empowerment and experience in the agricultural and tourism sectors is preferred

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS
Please submit your proposal to aus4equalityrecruitment@gmail.com by 5 pm (Hanoi time) 30 September 2024 specifying the position you are applying for in the email title. The proposal should include:
•    Cover letter addressing the selection criteria (maximum 2 pages)
•    CV of individual applicant/Portfolio of the organisation including demonstration of past relevant experience in the past five years
•    Quotation for the assignment

Cowater International is an equal opportunity employer, basing employment on merit and qualifications as they relate to professional experience and position expectations. Cowater does not discriminate against any employee or applicant on the basis of race, religion, sex, gender identity, disability, age, or any other basis protected by law.