Deadline: Sunday, 19 July 2026
CHEVS is seeking an experienced research consultant or multi-regional research consortium to lead a six-month, nine-country study examining how African LBQTI-GNC women are recognised, resourced, and sustained within the existing feminist SGBV response framework.
The selected consultant or team will design, execute, and deliver a rigorous mixed-methods study generating evidence to strengthen LBQT inclusion, advocacy, and funding practices across the continent.
Background
Across Africa, women and girls navigate intersecting systems of oppression, including patriarchy, colonialism, religious fundamentalism, and capitalism that produce multi-dimensional violence including physical, sexual, psychological, economic, and technology-facilitated harm. Feminist movements and women’s rights organizations (WROs) have responded by building critical support infrastructure such as safe houses, legal aid, psychosocial services, and crisis hotlines. As these response infrastructures rise up to the tasks, rates of gender-based violence continue surging, and significantly in the years during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, placing additional strain on these already overstretched infrastructures. LBQTI-GNC persons experience disproportionately high rates of SGBV; however, the representation & inclusion of LBQTI-GNC persons and their experiences within these feminist and WRO response infrastructure remains profoundly
under-documented. In the places where these SGBV response infrastructures exist, they are largely designed around a heterosexual, cisgender subject, and for lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming (LBQTI-GNC) women and people, this infrastructure frequently fails to account for the specific and compounding risks they face, including state criminalization, family rejection, corrective violence, and exclusion from the very services intended to support them. Whether this exclusion is driven by ideological
disposition, legal constraints, donor conditionality, or structural gatekeeping in resource flows is not well understood. In parallel, local LBQTI-GNC collectives have and continue to develop independent safety and response mechanisms that operate largely without recognition or resourcing, constrained by hostile legal
environments and the funding dynamics that shape the broader SGBV response infrastructure sector.
What is missing is a rigorous, cross-regional account of how these dynamics operate in practice and what they mean for LBQTI-GNC safety and survival. Across nine African countries, this study will map existing SGBV response infrastructure and trace how resources move through them; examine how organizational
decisions produce inclusion or exclusion of LBQTI-GNC populations; identify the structural, interpersonal, and resource barriers LBQTI-GNC persons face when attempting to access mainstream services; document the self-organized responses of local LBQTI-GNC collectives and the constraints and enablers that
shape their operating environments; and assess the legal and policy landscape to determine how laws, national action plans, and institutional policies enable or constrain LBQTI-GNC-inclusive SGBV responses. The findings are intended to inform feminist organizations, funders, and movements working to build SGBV
responses that are accountable to the full range of people they claim to serve
Purpose of the Evaluation
The purpose of this consultancy is to retain a qualified Lead research consultant (or research team) to design, execute, and deliver a rigorous, multi-country, mixed-methods study analyzing the structural dynamics influencing how African LBQTIGNC women and feminists are recognized and served within existing
feminist and WRO responses to TF/SGBV in Africa
Objectives of the Research
The consultant will lead a three-phase study across nine (9) African countries to:
- Map existing SGBV responses and support structures, including their focus populations, geographic reach and funding sources.
- Determine how resources earmarked for SGBV are distributed, where do bottlenecks/gatekeeping occur, and to what extent they reach LBQTI-GNC movements directly.
- Determine how mainstream WRO/feminist organizational responses account for African LBQTI-GNC populations, and what shapes their decisions to include or exclude them
- Explore the specific structural, interpersonal, or resource barriers that LBQTI-GNC persons face when attempting to access mainstream SGBV services
- Understand how local LBQTI-GNC collectives work to independently prevent/respond to violence, and what constraints or enablers shape their operating environments?
- Assess the legal and policy landscape across the nine focus countries to determine how laws, national action plans, and institutional policies enable or constrain LBQTI-GNC-inclusive SGBV responses.
Scope of Work
The consultant will be responsible for executing the study across nine (9) African countries spanning three distinct regions: Eastern, Southern, Northern (2 countries each), and West Africa (3 countries). Country selection will be finalized during inception based on civic space, legal frameworks, and security contexts.
Methodology
The consultant is expected to deploy a robust, decolonial feminist and intersectional mixed-methods framework.
Deliverables
The selected consultant/team must deliver the following high-quality outputs:
- Inception Report: Detailed methodology, finalized sample sizes, country selection matrices, risk mitigation protocols, and a comprehensive work plan.
- Data Collection Tools: Multi-lingual (where applicable), culturally sensitive, and ethnically sound qualitative/quantitative data guides.
- Comprehensive Research Report: A deeply analyzed, master report detailing structural dynamics, systemic bottlenecks, and actionable frameworks for feminist organizations and funders.
- Internal Advocacy Brief for CHEVS: A highly tactical, operational document tailored to guide CHEVS’ advocacy strategies with donors, decision-makers, and institutional gatekeepers.
- Tailored External Outputs: Co-developed briefs for movements, governments, or donors as determined in consultation with the GEJ Portfolio Advisor
Duration of Assignment
The assignment will run for a period of six (6) months from the date of contracting
What we’re looking for
- 7+ years of experience in human rights research, policy analysis, and/or social assessments in Africa, with a focus on SGBV and/or WRO/feminist resource architecture
- Strong, established relationships with African LBQTI-GNC and feminist movements
- Exceptional qualitative and analytical skills, with a track record of handling sensitive funding flow analyses or ecosystem mappings
- Strong storytelling, report-writing, and brief-drafting skills for both donor, national and grassroots audiences
How to Apply
Please read the full Terms of Reference (TOR) before applying
Interested consultants can apply for subregional-level or regional-level execution.
Please submit the following to opportunities@chevs.org by Sunday, July 19th, 2026
- A technical proposal (including methodology and work plan)
- Financial proposal
- Relevant portfolio of previous evaluations
- CV(s) of lead consultant and team members