Baseline Survey Consultant

Kituo Cha Sheria (KITUO) is Kenya's oldest and most experienced legal aid and human rights non-governmental organization, dedicated to empowering the poor and marginalized and enhancing equity and access to justice across the East and Horn of Africa region.

The primary objective of this consultancy is to engage an expert to develop and execute a baseline assessment for the Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA) and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) legal aid program. This assessment will establish initial values for critical outcome and output indicators, document the current state of access to legal aid and justice for CSEA/GBV survivors in the specified target counties, and create a robust evidence base for tracking program progress, informing implementation strategies, and supporting future evaluations. Specific objectives include establishing baseline values for indicators within the program's results framework, assessing the current capacity and functionality of legal aid, community paralegal, and referral structures (such as Community Justice Centres and GBV/Children’s Court User Committees) across the seven target counties. The consultant will also document existing knowledge, attitudes, and practices among communities, survivors, justice-sector actors, and service providers concerning CSEA, GBV, survivors’ rights, and available legal remedies. Furthermore, the role involves identifying context-specific barriers and enablers to reporting, accessing legal aid, and navigating the justice system, with data disaggregated by county, sex, age, and disability status. Finally, the consultant will provide recommendations to inform the refinement of the program’s theory of change, monitoring plan, targets, and overall implementation approach.

1. Hold an inception meeting with Kituo Cha Sheria and partners to clarify expectations and refine assessment questions.
2. Prepare an inception report detailing the refined methodology, sampling strategy, data management plan, ethical considerations, and a detailed workplan.
3. Design comprehensive survey tools and qualitative instruments to capture awareness, access to legal aid, survivor experiences, and the functioning of referral mechanisms.
4. Train a team of enumerators on data collection tools, research ethics, child safeguarding, and data collection protocols.
5. Conduct a thorough desk review of program design, results framework, relevant national legal and policy frameworks, and existing secondary data.
6. Oversee quality-assured quantitative and qualitative data collection across all seven target counties, ensuring appropriate sampling for disaggregation.
7. Conduct key informant interviews with justice-sector actors, health providers, county child protection/gender officers, and Kituo Cha Sheria staff.
8. Facilitate focus group discussions with community members, adolescent girls and boys, community paralegals, and ethically appropriate survivors of CSEA/GBV.
9. Review and, where feasible, spot-verify case-management, referral, and Court User Committee records.
10. Clean, code, and analyze quantitative and qualitative data to produce baseline values for each indicator in the program’s results framework.
11. Prepare a draft baseline assessment report with an executive summary, findings by objective and county, and actionable recommendations supported by clear data visualization.
12. Organize and facilitate a validation workshop with Kituo Cha Sheria and key stakeholders to present and discuss draft findings.
13. Incorporate feedback from the validation workshop into the final baseline report, a summary brief, and the indicator baseline matrix.
14. Support Kituo Cha Sheria in sharing final findings with relevant county and national stakeholders as required.

1. Advanced degree (Master’s or equivalent) in Monitoring and Evaluation, Statistics, Social Sciences, Development Studies, Law, or a related field.
2. Minimum of 10 years of professional experience designing and leading baseline studies, evaluations, or research on GBV, child protection, access to justice, or related areas.
3. Demonstrated expertise in mixed-methods research design, quantitative sampling and analysis, and qualitative data collection and analysis.
4. Prior experience conducting research involving survivors of violence or other vulnerable populations, with a strong understanding of survivor-centered, trauma-informed, and ethical research practices, including child safeguarding and prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA).
5. Familiarity with Kenya’s legal, justice, and child-protection systems; prior experience working with UNICEF or similar development partners is an added advantage.
6. Excellent report-writing and communication skills in English; working knowledge of Kiswahili and local languages spoken in the target counties is an advantage.
7. Willingness and ability to travel to all seven target counties, including hard-to-reach and remote areas.
8. If proposing a small field team (e.g., enumerators or research assistants), the proposal should describe their qualifications and how data quality and ethical standards will be assured.