Request for Proposals

Job Description

             Request for Proposals            

Irish Aid Development Stream Baseline: Christian Aid Sierra Leone

Contents

1. Programme Information 1
2. Baseline Purpose & Scope 2
3. Baseline Roles & Responsibilities & Key Skills 2
4. Methodologies 4
5. Responsible data management 5
6. Safeguarding and protection 5
7. Baseline Outputs 6
8. Budget and Resourcing 6

1. Programme Information

Promoting Accountability and Citizens Engagement (PACE) to enhance a peaceful, inclusive and resilient Sierra Leone where citizens claim and enjoy rights is a five years (Jan 2023-Dec 2027) funded by Irish Aid through the Ireland Civil Society Partnership for a Better World, Development Stream Programme. It builds on a previous six years Programme Grant on improving accountable governance especially enhancing public financial management, transparent land tenure system, enhancing gender equality and women’s empowerment and promoting peaceful co-existence.  The PACE project is implemented by Christian Aid in partnership with four main Sierra Leonian organisations: Budget Advocacy Network (BAN); Green Scenery Sierra Leone in collaboration with Women’s Network for Environmental Sustainability; Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD); and Social Enterprise Development (SEND) Sierra Leone. The programme is implemented in 6 districts across Sierra Leone and works at community, district and national level.  Key elements of work will be focused on working with right holders and duty bearers at the micro, meso and macro levels, to bring greater accountability, voice and influence on policy discourse and decisions at the national level, through community level engagements.  In depth, PACE intends to:

• promote peaceful co-existence between cattle rearers and crop farmers to national scale;
• increasing advocacy for improved access to and control over land by local communities for livelihoods;
• build national network of women in governance to increase the space of women in governance and decision making;
• strengthen relationships with key public financial management institutions and CSOs at the national level to ensure effective allocations and accountability of resources for social services delivery (especially in health and education)
• enhance gender and climate change awareness and capacity support in target communities including mitigation and adaptation actions

The programme is implemented by a consortium of organisations, led by Christian Aid Sierra Leone:

2. Baseline Purpose & Scope

The purpose of the baseline is to generate baseline data corresponding to key Results Framework indicators; mainly at objective level. This data will describe the status of the relevant populations at the start of the programme.

The baseline will also be used as an opportunity to gather additional non-indicator data as needed by programme and partner staff, including gathering data needed for power analysis at micro and meso levels.

In addition to gathering data, the baseline will also provide an opportunity for the programme to reflect on and internalise information.

3. Baseline Roles & Responsibilities & Key Skills 

We seek a consultant who has a team of enumerators who can gather data.

The baseline team includes CA staff, partner staff, CAI and a consultant. The main phases and activities are listed below, with the consultants’ responsibilities outlined. Due to the complex nature of this programme and baseline, CASL seeks a consultant who will have flexibility to adapt to tasks as needed, of course within the scope and budget of work provided for and in discussion with CA.

4. Methodologies

The design of the programme Results Framework means that a certain set of methodologies are pre-defined and desired. A consultant will not have to develop these and should be able to work collaboratively to build on what is already identified. Top-line methodologies are outlined briefly below.

In the case of individual surveys, where feasible and appropriate, data should be disaggregated by:

• Sex/ gender
• Age: please use Christian Aid standard categories
• Disability: please use Washington group short set of questions to establish whether the respondent has a disability
• Other categories: it might be further relevant to disaggregate data by further categories, in discussion with each partner organisations.

If it’s not safe and appropriate to ask, don’t ask it.

All methodologies should have an appropriate introduction, informed consent should be sought, and provide respondents with an opportunity to share feedback that has not been requested.

5. Responsible data management

Ensuring data quality and management is a primary responsibility of the consultant ranging from data collection, storage, and disposal. We require a participatory approach where the consultant engages relevant key stakeholders.

As part of the data cleaning process for quantitative data, consistency and validity checks are required and frequency runs on all variables to check for any existing inconsistencies and outliers. All the necessary data corrections must be done accordingly, and data analysis done following an analysis plan. Data analysis basically will involve univariate and bivariate analysis of selected variables of interest with graphs and tables.

The successful consultant will be asked to submit a data management plan as part of their detailed methodology. Please see Annex 1  for an outlined data life cycle stages.

6. Safeguarding and protection

Christian Aid has a Safeguarding Framework that includes a Safeguarding and Accountability policy, a Staff Code of Conduct, and a Child Protection Policy which has been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants and to clarify the responsibilities of CA staff, visitors to the programme and partner organization, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. We have the responsibility to ensure that any persons hired, used, or consulted during the process are made familiar with the policies and commit to abide by them during the execution of this work. Consultants and teams (including enumerators) offered a contract with Christian Aid will be expected to sign the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policies as an appendix to their contract. By doing so, consultants acknowledge that they have understood the contents of policies and agree to conduct themselves by the provisions of these documents.

All team members should be clear on the code of conduct during the data collection training. The baseline should treat all people with respect and kindness.

Christian Aid is committed to complying with privacy and data protection laws including the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Christian Aid’s Data Protection Policy sets out the principles that Christian Aid applies when handling individual personal information. Any consultant offered a contract with Christian Aid is expected to be GDPR compliant when handling individuals’ personal information as well. Ethical data collection including confidentiality, consent, thinking about gender and power relations (who is collecting data from whom), respectful work, health, and safety/security is a requirement.

7. Baseline Outputs

• Baseline report that meets requirements of template shared by CAI as agreed at inception
• Sharing of all data/evidence in a format readable by MS Excel/ word
• Results Framework with baseline values

8. Budget and Resourcing

Financial: The Consultant is required to provide a detailed financial breakdown to cover fees and expenses for the baseline exercise.

CASL and partners will cover: Workshop costs, venue and light refreshments for the meetings with the KIIs and the FGD groups within their locations.

Time Period: The final baseline report should be complete by 22^nd June. A more detailed plan with intermediate deadlines will be articulated in the inception phase.

9. Application Processes

Content of proposals

The proposal should include:

• A brief outline of the overall approach and proposed methodology
• A statement of availability to meet required deadlines
• A profile of the proposed evaluation team, including key roles and responsibilities
• Costed proposal in Euro, with breakdowns by key deliverables and estimated number of days, and include fees and VAT.
• With the proposal please also submit two pieces of work completed by the proposed team, and the Curriculum Vitae for each team member

Submission of proposals

We invite interested and qualified firms/ individuals to submit an application and financial proposal/ fees with any other relevant documents to sierra-leone-info@christian-aid.org with the subject line, ‘CASL PGIII Baseline’ and copy in the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Coordinator, Christian Aid Sierra Leone Email: MVandy@christian-aid.org

Deadline for submissions is end of day Monday 29^th May 2023.  However, applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Please direct any questions or clarifications to the same address. Selection Process

Applications will be assessed based on the quality of the proposal, ability to meet requirements above, and overall budget.  A shortlist of applicants will be interviewed by  Wednesday 31^st May 2023.

The selected Evaluation Team will be asked to sign and abide by Christian Aid’s Code of Conduct and a non-disclosure agreement (as personal information will be handled during the evaluation).

Payment Plan

Payment will be made in two (2) tranches:

• First instalment of 80% upon signing of contract and submission of complete inception report.
• Second and final payment 20% upon submission and acceptance of the final report.