Training Facilitator

1. ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND

The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) is a civil society coalition comprising grassroots women’s rights organizations from Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Uganda. Established in 1995, SIHA aims to strengthen the capacity of women’s rights organizations in the Horn of Africa, contributing to the empowerment of women and advocating for effective change. More information about SIHA is available at www.sihanet.org

2. JUSTIFICATION AND OBJECTIVES

In December 2024, SIHA Network conducted Organization Capacity Assessment (OCA) surveys in six countries in the HoA, including Ethiopia, with the overall purpose of identifying strengths and challenges among SIHA member organizations. Key areas covered during the OCA included country-specific assessments of the operating environment, impact, advocacy capacity, engagement, inclusivity, organizational leadership and governance, risk mitigation and operational contingency, collaboration and connections, resource and power dynamics, and monitoring & learning.

While Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Ethiopia have demonstrated commitment and progress in achieving advocacy objectives, their ability to influence policies and drive meaningful change remains hindered by limited access to policymakers, political resistance, and funding constraints. Based on the above-mentioned survey, the use of digital tools for advocacy, such as social media (33%), online campaigns (22%), webinars (15%), and other digital channels; remain fragmented and underutilized, with low engagement in tools like email marketing (4%) and blogs (11%). Moreover, digital rights advocacy is largely absent, leaving partners without the necessary skills to leverage online platforms securely and effectively in restrictive or high-risk environments. These gaps highlight an urgent need for targeted digital literacy training to strengthen partners’ capacity for safe, impactful, and resilient advocacy in Ethiopia.

In addition, the continued lack of safety and security in the online space threatens to undermine the limited strides made in advocacy, exposing organizations to risks unique to the digital sphere. Furthermore, the growing rate of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) in Ethiopia poses a serious and escalating threat to the safety, wellbeing, and effectiveness of women’s rights organizations and activists. Online harassment, doxxing, cyberstalking, and coordinated disinformation campaigns increasingly target women human rights defenders, amplifying offline risks and fostering a climate of fear. These digital attacks not only violate personal security and privacy but also undermine the ability of activists to speak out, organize, and mobilize communities without retaliation.

Women’s rights organizations, in particular, require not only the technical knowledge and skills but also the behavioural changes necessary to safeguard their digital presence. Equipping them with these capacities will ensure their safety is not compromised, while enabling them to actively harness the digital world’s potential to counter and push back against entrenched resistance to the women’s rights agenda, amplifying their voice and influence through secure, strategic online engagement. SIHA will thus engage with an outsourced consultant to deliver targeted training on digital safety and security to identify and mitigate risk for effective advocacy work while navigating the narrowing of civic space and the dangers posed online and to ensure that women’s rights voices are not silenced but amplified in the fight for equality.

Specific Objectives:

1. Enhance participants’ ability to effectively use digital tools and platforms for advocacy while maximizing outreach and engagement.
2. Enhance the digital safety and security skills of Ethiopian women’s rights organizations (WROs) and grassroots women advocates to protect their personal and organizational data, communications, and online presence from technology-facilitated threats.
3. Equip participants with practical tools and strategies to identify, assess, and mitigate digital risks that threaten their advocacy efforts in both online and offline environments.
4. Strengthen the capacity of WROs to operate safely within a restrictive civic space, ensuring they can continue advocacy and community mobilization despite legal, political, and security challenges.
5. Promote resilience and solidarity among women human rights defenders by building awareness of coordinated online harassment tactics and fostering peer support networks for rapid response and collective protection.
6. Integrate digital safety into broader organizational risk management frameworks to ensure sustained advocacy impact and operational continuity in the face of evolving threats.

3. METHODOLOGY

The consultant is expected to adopt an interactive, participatory approach that combines theory with hands-on learning. The methodology should include:

• Interactive, Participatory Learning – Consultant-led workshops with close guidance from SIHA Ethiopia, combining theory with hands-on exercises that build critical thinking and solidarity while teaching standards and security measures for safe digital engagement in high-risk advocacy environments.
• Scenario-Based Group Work – Practical simulations on device and data security (including mobile phones, laptops, and cloud storage), email encryption, secure communication tools, social media security, and incident response protocols, alongside risk assessment and management techniques for identifying and mitigating digital threats.
• Case Studies & Role-Playing – Analysis of local and regional WRO experiences in countering technologyfacilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), including real-life examples of online harassment, hacking, surveillance, and disinformation, complemented by exercises on recovery and maintaining a secure online presence.
• Expert Inputs – Presentations on cybersecurity frameworks and standards relevant to women’s human rights advocacy, legal contexts for digital protection, and strategies for maintaining secure and responsible digital advocacy without compromising safety.

4. TASKS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The consultant will undertake the following tasks:

• Develop training presentation that comprehensively addresses all the training objectives and methodologies as described above.
• Develop a pre and post training assessment in both Amharic and English.
• Deliver a three-day training from August 26-28, 2025.
• Develop an M&E tool to help SIHA analyze the outcome of the training at 3 months and 6 months.
• Deliver a training report using SIHA developed template.

5. DELIVERABLES

• Pre and post training assessment
• Training presentation/s
• M&E tool for assessment at 3 and 6 months
• Training report

6. DURATION OF WORK

This assignment will run for a maximum of two months.

7. APPLICATION PROCESS

Interested and qualified candidates are invited to submit their CV with a cover letter highlighting relevant experience and a maximum two-page technical and financial proposal for the assignment.

Applications should be sent to ethiopiaprocurement@sihanet.org  before August 20, 2025.