Consultant for Women's Land Rights Campaign

Background

Despite significant progress in strengthening gender equality in Timor-Leste, many women continue to face barriers in accessing, owning, inheriting, and making decisions about land. Although national legislation recognizes equal rights for women and men, customary practices, limited awareness of land laws, unequal decision-making power and social norms often prevent women from fully exercising these rights.

Secure land tenure is fundamental to women's economic empowerment, food security, climate resilience, and community development. Women play a critical role in agriculture, natural resource management and household wellbeing. Ensuring their equal access to land contributes to stronger livelihoods, improved resilience to climate change, economic empowerment, and Reduce Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and more inclusive and sustainable communities.

To contribute to these outcomes, Oxfam in Timor-Leste will implement a two-month public awareness campaign that combines digital communications, community engagement, storytelling, and public dialogue to promote women's land rights. The campaign will raise awareness, amplify women's voices and experiences, encourage public discussion, and support ongoing advocacy for gender-responsive land governance.

Campaign Goal

To promote equitable land rights for women in Timor-Leste by increasing public awareness, encouraging community dialogue and supporting advocacy for gender-responsive land governance.

Campaign Objectives

• Increase public awareness of women's legal rights to own, inherit and register land.
• Improve understanding of gender equality in land ownership among communities, youth and civil society.
• Promote positive public attitudes toward women's equal participation in land ownership and decision-making.
• Amplify the voices and experiences of women affected by insecure land tenure.
• Encourage dialogue among communities, civil society organizations, youth and policymakers on women's land rights.

Key Messages

• Women Have Equal Rights to Own and Inherit Land: Women and men have equal rights under Timor-Leste's legal framework to own, inherit and register land.
• Equal Land Rights Benefit Everyone: When women have secure land rights, families become more resilient, livelihoods improve and communities become stronger.
• Culture and Equality Can Coexist: Traditional practices remain important, but they should respect and uphold women's legal rights and dignity.
• Women's Land Rights Strengthen Climate Resilience: Secure land ownership enables women to invest in sustainable agriculture, environmental conservation and climate adaptation.
• Women's Voices Matter: Women should actively participate in community discussions, land governance and decision-making processes that affect their lives.
• Inclusive Land Governance Creates Fairer Communities: Communities thrive when women and men have equal opportunities to participate in land-related decisions.

Target Audience

Primary Audience:

• Rural women
• Youth groups
• University students
• Civil society organizations
• Women's rights organizations
• Community leaders
• Government representatives

Secondary Audience:

• General public
• Media organizations
• Development partners
• National policymakers
• Traditional leaders

Campaign Duration

1 September – 31 October 2025 (2 Months)

Expected Outputs (September–October)

• 8 Reel videos with subtitles in English on women's land rights (4 in September and 4 in October).
• 2 Community Storytelling videos with subtitles in English (Maximum of 1–3 minutes each) featuring women beneficiaries and their experiences with land rights.
• 2 Live Podcast Episodes hosted at the Oxfam Centre using Oxfam podcast equipment.
• 12 Social Media leaflets in both Tetum and English (6 leaflets in September and 6 leaflets in October).
• 2 Women's Land Rights Workshops:
  • Workshop 1: Youth Groups
  • Workshop 2: General Public
• Ongoing Social Media Content across Facebook and LinkedIn throughout the campaign.
• Campaign Summary Report documenting activities, achievements, lessons learned and recommendations.
• Social Media Analytics Report summarizing reach, engagement, impressions and video performance.
• Photography and Documentation Package covering all campaign activities, workshops, podcasts and community engagement events.
• Final campaign report summarizing achievements, lessons learned and recommendations.

Monitoring and Evaluation

• Social media reach, impressions, engagement and video views.
• Workshop attendance list and participant feedback.
• Number of campaign materials produced and published.
• Photography and video documentation.
• Public engagement during podcasts and street interviews.
• Final campaign report summarizing achievements, lessons learned and recommendations.

Sustainability & Risk Considerations

• Ensure ethical storytelling principles (dignity and use of Oxfam's informed consent forms for photos, videos or story gathering).
• Address potential backlash from conservative actors through inclusive dialogue.
• Link campaign outcomes to ongoing advocacy and policy reform initiatives.
• The key messages should be based solely on the findings of research report and evidence presented in the Endline Survey Report by Oxfam in Timor-Leste.

Submission Requirements

Consultants or firms interested in applying for the assignment will need to submit the following:

1. Curriculum vitae of all people that will work on the assignment with at least two references for each of the team members.
2. A technical proposal with detailed proposed approach, methodology and workplan for the assignment.
3. A financial proposal (in USD) inclusive of daily rate and all costs in relation to travel (international and/or domestic), meals, accommodation and other expenses related to the consultancy, and availability to undertake the consultancy.
4. An example of a similar piece of written work from previous assignments that the Consultant has undertaken within the last 5 years.

How to Apply

Expressions of Interest, technical and financial proposal are due 11 August 2025 by 17:00 Timor-Leste Time.

Submission of expression of interest with stipulated documents should be emailed to Benigna Martins ([email protected]) copying Zeka Nunes ([email protected]) and Aderito Mambares ([email protected]).