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Consultancy

Data gathering and report drafting on youth participation in parliament

Background

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the world organization of parliaments, is a global forum for parliamentary dialogue, cooperation and action. It advances democracy and assists parliaments and parliamentarians throughout the world to fulfil their mandates.

The IPU develops standards, disseminates information on good practices and helps build parliamentary capacity and efficacy. It promotes respect for universal values, norms and principles. It works in support of gender equality and the participation of women, youth, minorities, indigenous peoples in political and public life.

Young people between the ages of 15 and 25 account for one fifth of the world’s population today. In many cases, young people actively participate in informal political activities, such as online activism, demonstrations and boycotts. While in some cases this engagement has made history, young people’s dwindling interest in formal political activity, including voting and party membership in all parts of the world, is a threat to democracy.

Concerned by the patent decline in young people’s engagement in politics, IPU promotes youth participation by supporting parliaments in opening up to the youth and by providing support to young parliamentarians.

Cognisant on the lack of data and information of youth representation in parliaments, in 2014, IPU developed a first of the kind database on youth participation in national parliaments. The data was gathered through parliaments. A report on Youth participation in national parliaments was subsequently produced in October 2014 and updated in 2016 In addition to providing fresh data, the 2016 report made recommendations to adopt youth quotas, increase the numbers of MPs in their 20s and 30s, support young women’s participation and align the minimum permitted age to run for office with the minimum voting age. The IPU data and information on youth participation in national parliaments informs the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 16. The data and information is shared with the United Nations to that end.

Currently, the IPU is updating and completing the data gathering with the aim to produce an up-dated report on the state of youth participation in parliaments in 2018. In follow up to the 2016 edition, the 2018 report will focus on quotas for youth in national parliaments. It will identify existing good practices as well as challenges faced in the design, adoption and implementation of youth quotas.  Based on the information collected and lessons learned, it will make concrete recommendations on best target proportions and age limits to use when designing quotas for youth in parliament.

Objectives

The project aims to update and complete data on the number, sexe and background of parliamentarians under the ages of 30, 40 and 45 in parliaments and to produce an updated report on youth participation in national parliaments.

The information collected will inform policy orientation related to enhancing youth participation in parliament and enhance IPU’s dataplatform on parliaments. It will also contribute to monitoring implementation of SDGs 5 and 16.

The project also aims present the current status of existing quotas for young people in parliaments and make recommendations for a youth target.

When possible, additional data on social origins, evolution and responsabilities in parliament of young men and women MPs will be collected and analyzed.

The outputs should be easily extractable so as to facilitate incorporation into factsheets or policy briefs for dissemination by the IPU.

Methodology

The report drafting should be based on a desk review of existing literature on youth participation and youth quotas in parliament accompanied by the responses gathered from the IPU questionnaire on youth participation sent to parliaments as well as from responses to interviews.

Deliverables

The deliverables will be a dataset and a comparative report (20 pages) with tables and graphics presenting and analyzing the data and information on youth participation levels in national parliaments.

To achieve this, the consultant will:

  • Collect data on the number of young parliamentarians from existing literature, publicly available information (e.g. parliamentary websites, news stories), interviews of young MPs etc…;
  • Review the responses received to the IPU questionnaire on youth participation;
  • Collate the data gathered into tables by country and by region, based on the IPU geographic regions;
  • Draw tables with rankings of countries based on numbers of young parliamentarians below the age of 30, 40 and 45;
  • Collect information on existing youth quotas in parliament and carry out interviews to identify strengths and weaknesses of such measures in different national contexts with a view to draw conclusions and recommendations on best target proportions and age limits to use when designing quotas for youth in parliament;
  • Write up a comparative report that will:
    • explain the background of this research,
    • present the main findings of the data at the global level as well as at the regional and national levels;
    • present the main findings of the data in lower houses and upper houses of parliaments,
    • analyse the data from a gender perspective,
    • identify and explain challenges encountered by young people to be elected/apointed as members of parliament and showcase good practices developed to overcome the challenges,
    • identify and analyze existing quotas for youth in national parliaments including describing good practices as well as challenges faced in the design, adoption and implementation of such measures and drawing up lessons learned and concrete recommendations on best target proportions and age limits to use when designing quotas for youth in parliament,
    • analyse correlations between the number of young parliamentarians with electoral systems, voting age and age to be elligible, youth population rates as well as with the existence and/or absence of measures (quotas and others), youth parliamentary bodies or youth parliaments etc…,
    • present key conclusions and recommendations on the different dimensions described above.
  • Present the tables in such a way so as to facilitate their extraction and presentation as factsheets or policy briefs.

The final piece should be of publishable quality in accordance with the criteria set by the IPU.

Format

MS Excel and MS Word. All draft reports and the final report must be written in English or French.

Duration

Forty-two (42) working days between 1 February and 16 April 2018, with the following timetable:

  • 1 February to 16 March 2018: Research, including desk review, data gathering, data entry and data analysis
  • 16 to 30 March 2018: Preparing a draft version of the report
  • 2 to 13 April 2018: Incorporation of comments and preparation of revised drafts
  • 16 April 2018: Submission of the final version of the report

Required qualifications

The consultant should be proficient in data collection, tabulation and analysis, ideally using MS Excel. He/She should also be proficient in the use of MS Word and any other word-processing software, with proven skills in drafting reports and presenting and analysing data.

The consultant should have relevant experience with survey design, data collection and analysis, and with parliamentary processes. A social sciences background is desirable to facilitate the data collation and presentation tasks. The consultant should have proven skills in drafting reports.

Recent research conducted in the field of youth participation in parliament would be a strong asset.

The consultant should have excellent drafting skills in English or French. Knowledge of other languages is highly desirable.

Remuneration

The IPU shall pay the consultant an agreed upon lump sum upon satisfactory delivery of the deliverables described above.