Call for applications – The United States Institute of Peace عودة إلى الفرص

The United States Institute of Peace

in collaboration with 

World Food Programme

&

UN Women 

Drivers of Conflict on the Tunisia-Libya and Southern Libya Borders

Location: Tunisia and Libya

Release Date: May 22, 2020

Proposal Submission Deadline: 11.59 pm Tunis time on June 19, 2020

• Introduction and background:

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is soliciting proposals for research in partnership with World Food Programme (WFP) and UN Women.

USIP is a national, nonpartisan, independent institute, founded by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, practical, and essential for U.S. and global security. In conflict zones abroad, the Institute works with local partners to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict. For more information, please visit http://www.usip.org.

Following the uprisings of 2011, civil conflicts in Libya and revolution in Tunisia created new security, economic, and political challenges with profound impact on border practices and border communities. Myriad responses of state and non-state actors to the instability in both countries resulted in further breakdown of state-sanctioned informal trade severely affecting the livelihoods of communities on both sides of the border. 

Following an attempted ISIS uprising in Ben Guerdane along Tunisia’s border with Libya in 2016, USIP began engaging with community stakeholders to better understand vulnerabilities to extremism and to facilitate constructive engagement between traders, civil society, local authorities. In 2018, USIP held an informal conflict assessment of the Ras Jdir border crossing involving civil society, traders, political actors, local government, and border authorities. In 2020, USIP’s Tunisia program is expanding its research to better understand the nexus of conflict dynamics on both sides of the border.  Concurrently, USIP is facilitating dialogue between traders, informal vendors, and local authorities to resolve underlying causes of conflict in Ben Guerdane.  Across Tunisia’s southwestern border regions, USIP works with youth, civil society, government, and security forces to address drivers of fragility, improve local governance and socio-economic opportunity, and increase trust and constructive engagement between citizens and government.     

In southern Libya, the conflicts have caused upheavals in border management. They have always been porous, but the lack of a unified national authority has made control a renewed source of conflict. Militias, many based on tribal structures, vie for control and provide mostly young men opportunities for economic gain in trafficking persons, illicit goods, drugs, and weapons. USIP has engaged in southern Libya since 2017 through work with the UN Development Program’s (UNDP) Stabilization Facility for Libya (SFL), local partners, and the World Food Programme (WFP). Currently, it is conducting community-level dialogues with the goal of increasing social cohesion in post-conflict settings. 

WFP resumed operations in Libya in September 2014 and provides a variety of assistance across all parts of Libya: dry food rations to food insecure host communities, ready-to-eat food to urban migrants, date bars to schoolchildren, and livelihoods training and job matching for unemployed people. 

UNW has strengthened its presence in Libya, responding to the complex governance, humanitarian, development and security challenges through its triple mandate, which involves (1) Providing support to Libya for achieving gender equality and working with national partners and civil society to design laws, policies, programs and services needed (2) Implementing programs for Libyan women and girls to contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from humanitarian action and (3) Coordinating the UN system’s work in advancing gender equality in Libya. UNW ’s premise is that peacebuilding efforts, including political dialogues, conflict resolution and humanitarian efforts will be more effective and have higher chances of success if they

are inclusive, responding to gendered experiences, needs, capacities and interests the Libyan women across their diversities. Alongside supporting women’s participation in peace processes on all levels, the program is also working to strengthen women’s political participation, gender responsive economic recovery and coordinating gender mainstreaming within the UN in Libya. 

• Purpose of the RFP

USIP, in partnership with UNW and WFP, is seeking proposals to conduct research on the conflict dynamics along the Tunisia-Libya border and Libya’s southern borders.

Geographic Areas of Focus

The research will be separated into two lines of effort divided by geographic focus: 

1. 1. 1. The first line of effort will focus on border crossings and surrounding communities along the Tunisian and Libyan border.  

• Main Points of Entry: Ras Jdir and Dehiba/Wazin

• Primary communities on Tunisian side of the border: Ben Guerdane, Medenine, Zarzis, Dehiba, Remada, Tataouine.  

• Primary communities on Libyan side of the border: Zultan, Zwara, Wazin, Nalut, and secondary communities affected by border dynamics. 

1. 1. 1. The second line of effort will focus on border crossings and surrounding communities connected to Libya’s borders with Algeria, Niger, Chad, and Sudan.     

• Main Points of Entry: Debdeb, Al-Sayen (near Ghat), and Al-Toum (south of Murzuq), Sarra (Chad) and Awihat (Sudan)

• Routes crossing informal entry points and checkpoints

• Primary communities on the Libyan side of the border: Ghat, Ubari, Sebha, Murzuq, Kufra, and others affected by border dynamics

Thematic Areas of Focus 

In each line of effort, the research will investigate the specific drivers of conflict and examine how border dynamics affect livelihoods and, where relevant, food security. The research will look at these categories of inquiry with a gender lens to identify similar and different impacts on women and men, girls and boys. 

Objectives

This research project will  1) produce a literature review of the existing body of knowledge on conflict dynamics along these two sets of borders, including its gender aspects; 2) produces new data and recommendations for community actors, practitioners, and policy makers in Tunisia and Libya; and  3) identify new areas for research that are useful to local actors, international practitioners, and policy makers 

Given the large geographic remit of this project, it is recommended that offerors dedicate individuals or teams to each line of effort, or set of borders, described in Geographic Focus Area subsection above.   

• Scope of Work

The research will be conducted in two phases. Phase I will review existing literature that provides answers to the set of questions outlined below.  In Phase II, the contracted researcher(s) will produce new research addressing specific gaps identified in the first phase. 

• Phase I: Literature Review

The literature review will detail what existing research provides on the below questions, highlighting areas where existing knowledge is insufficient for programming or nonexistent.

• What is the current state of the Tunisia-Libya and southern Libya borders?

1. • What are the laws related to border management and how are they being implemented on both sides of the crossings? Highlight the similarities and differences between the two sets of borders. 
   • What are the main legal and illegal goods being traded across these borders? Do different groups and genders tend to fill particular roles in the value chains for particular goods?
   • What are the security measures on both sides of these sets of borders and what is their impact different groups and genders?
   • Are there differences in political dynamics related to border management between the official points of entry along the two sets of borders? 
   • What are the occupations/ income generating activities that were available on either side of these borders pre-2011? What livelihoods are available now and to whom? 
   • How have measures associated with the coronavirus changed the dynamics at different border crossings? Do these measures impact specific groups or genders in different ways? 

• For each set of borders what are the key drivers of instability?

1. • Identify and categorize key drivers of instability (political, economic, administrative, security) and the parts of the population that they affect.
   • Map the stakeholders contributing to and affected by the instability at the border. 
   • To what extent do economic drivers push people into armed groups, smuggling, or other illicit activities? 
   • How do tensions and instability manifest, and what are the reactions to instability (violence, taking legal or administrative measures, protest, irregular migration, moving to extremism, etc.)? 
   • What roles do traditional perceptions of society and masculinity play in economic drivers? Are men or women more likely to be impacted by these drivers and how?
   • What other factors are considered when people contemplate becoming involved in illicit activities?
   • What roles do communities play in preventing instability and in building peace at the community level? Who in the community is involved in this prevention?
   • If other livelihoods were available, would they stop people from trying to make a living out of illicit activities? 
   • How can women’s involvement in activities, including violence prevention, address the drivers of instability to increase social cohesion?
   • What has changed since the 2019 movement of Libya’s eastern-based forces into southern Libya, as well as the April 2019 conflict in Tripoli? What impact has this had on different groups, tribes and genders? 
   • Identify and categorize any existing recommendations to address the drivers of instability to increase social cohesion and prosperity, as well as preventing violent conflict. 

• Phase II: Field Research

The literature review will identify areas where current research relevant to programming is weak, outdated, or nonexistent.  In phase II, the successful offeror will conduct field research to answer research questions identified through the desk research in phase I, and agreed on with USIP, WFP and UNW. 

The research along the two sets of borders will be carried out concurrently.  This will ensure that any challenges during the data collection phase along one set of borders does not hinder the progress of the data collection, analysis and other steps in the research methodology in the other. Applicants should consider organizing their key personnel accordingly.  

The contractor will be responsible, with UN Women, USIP, and WFP advising, for:

• Obtaining and maintaining institutional review board (IRB) approvals, as required 
• Designing the research methodology; 
• Selecting and/or designing the data collection instruments; 
• Collecting the data in partnership with local Tunisian and Libyan partners of USIP (see below); and 
• Analyzing the data, validating findings,  and delivering the final report that describes the research process, answers the agreed research questions and provides actionable programmatic and policy recommendations. The recommendations should consider previous and existing international and local initiatives aiming to address the same issues. 

The successful offeror will mainstream gender and age considerations into all parts of the project, including the research methodology, questions, and findings and recommendations.

• Role of Local Partner Organizations

USIP and the UN have local programmatic partners in southern Libya and on both sides of the border between Tunisia and Libya. These partners possess invaluable knowledge of local dynamics in each research location. The researcher will work in close coordination with local partners in the conduct of this research. Local partners will aid the project in the following ways:

• Support identification of important state and non-state actors to interview; 
• Establish contact with local actors; 
• Support in designing and contextualizing questionnaires and other data collection tools;
• Organize interviews, focus groups, meetings, etc. as part of the research process; and
• Support in the data analysis by providing contextual information as appropriate. 

As a capacity-building element to this undertaking, the contracted researcher(s) will substantially involve the local partners in designing the data collection instruments, collecting the data, analyzing the data, validating the findings, etc. It is expected that the contracted researcher(s) will also utilize their own network and sources of information in addition to local partners of USIP, WFP, and UNW.

• Anticipated Deliverables

Phase I deliverable: a report summarizing the existing body of knowledge on the research questions defined above in section A.  

Phase II deliverables:

• • Documentation of IRB approval, if required 
  • A final research methodology along both sets of borders
  • Draft analysis of data collected
  • A preliminary final report on the research

• Final report

1. Tentative Project Timeline

Phase I: July 20 – August 21, 2020

Phase II: September 28 – December 20, 2020

• Qualification and Experience Required