6. Participant Selection and Recruitment

Key stakeholders involved in the baseline survey include direct and indirect project participants such adolescents and youth, especially girls and young women from targeted communities, their parents/caregivers, community leaders, TVET centres staff/ representatives, sports coaches, Sector and District level authorities in charge of social affairs, sports and youth (especially young women) empowerment. It will also include, LWD partner staff, teachers and representatives of potential employers from Private Sector operating in the survey area. A list of mobilized participants will be shared with consultant from which a randomized sample of respondents will be generated for the quantitative study. However, the consultant will determine the minimum numbers for well representative samples for both the quantitative and qualitative (FGDs, KIIs & IDIs) studies of this baseline. This list will include young people, TVET Centre staff (Teachers and Instructors), parents/caregivers, local leaders at different levels, and potential employers from private sector.

Furthermore, it will include representatives of the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF), the Ministry of Youth (MINIYOUTH), the Ministry of Sports (MINISPORTS), Rwanda Cycling Federation (FERWACY), the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR). The Business Development Fund (BDF) and Microfinance Institutions operating in the survey area.

Therefore, some tools that are expected but not exhaustive include:

• Survey with the youth
• Survey with parents and caregivers
• Survey with community members and leaders
• Survey with TVETs staff
• Survey, FGDs or Key Informant Interviews with Employers, Ministry Officials, etc.

7. Ethics and Child Protection

Plan International is committed to ensuring that the rights of those participating in data collection or analysis are respected and protected, in accordance with Framework for Ethical MERL and our Global Policy on Safeguarding Children and Young People as well as Preventing sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse (PSHEA). All applicants should include details in their proposal on how they will ensure ethics and child protection in the data collection process. Specifically, the consultant(s) shall explain how appropriate, safe, non-discriminatory participation of all stakeholders will be ensured and how special attention will be paid to the needs of children and other vulnerable groups. The consultant(s) shall also explain how confidentiality and anonymity of participants will be guaranteed.

The baseline process will consider ethical and child protection requirements. Ethical considerations should be clearly outlined and Enumerators must also sign Safeguarding Children and Young People policy as well as the Code of Conduct.  There should be informed, documented and voluntary consent of the participant and in addition, where the participants are under 18 years of age, the consent from their parents/guardians will be required.  Confidentiality should be ensured and an assessment of potential risks to participants before starting the baseline process and mitigation measures should be done and put in place

8. Key Deliverables

The Baseline evaluation will consist of four important steps: 1) Inception Report, 2) Data Collection, 3) Draft Report, 4) Final report.

Reports must conform to Plan International requirements and standards as further discussed in the reporting structure section; this standard will be assessed by Plan International Rwanda’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Manager and Plan International Belgium. The text in the reports should be illustrated, as appropriately as possible, with all relevant visualizations such as graphs, maps, tables, etc.

The consultant will submit the following reports with the required standards in English as below:

1. Inception report of maximum 12 pages to be produced after ten days from the start of the consultancy. In this report, the consultant (s) shall describe the desk review findings of the study, possible challenges collecting data, other encountered and/or foreseen difficulties in addition to his/her programme of work and staff mobilization. The report should also include a detailed action plan and budget including personnel and geographical areas to be covered, and proposals for regular activity reporting on progress to the management of Plan International Rwanda. The report should be submitted within 10 days after signature of the contract.
2. Draft report (of maximum 40 pages) using the structure set out below (please refer to the Reporting section). Besides answering the baseline questions, the draft final report should also synthesize all findings and conclusions into an overall baseline of the project.  The report should be presented within 10 working days from the conclusion of the data collection.
3. Final report (hard copies and an electronic copy in English) with the same specifications as the Draft report (also refer to the reporting structure), incorporating any comments received from Plan International Rwanda and implementing partner in a validation meeting and/or workshop on the draft report, to be presented within 5 days of the receipt of these comments.

The following outputs will be delivered:

1. Both soft and hard copy of the final inception report including final survey tools, sampling methodology and analytical framework;
2. Preliminary Presentation of finding for validation;
3. Both soft copy and hard copy of the final baseline survey report including clean survey datasets and transcripts, survey tools, sampling frame, methodology and analysis; and
4. Coded Questionnaires and Analysis script / code used in generating indicator values.

9. Reporting Structure 

Below is the suggested format for the reports:

• A standard cover sheet;
• Executive summary;
• Description of background and objectives;
• Methods and limitations;
• Description of findings (analysis and interpretation);
• Conclusions and recommendations.
  • Annexes-not limited to: Baseline Assessment TOR;
  • List of people consulted and their identifications (including age and sex);
  • List of documents consulted;
  • Final data collection tools/instruments (e.g. Key Informant Interview Guides, Observational Checklist, Identifying Household Information, adolescents and youth Survey, Caregiver Survey, Study Introduction, Permissions, Informed Consent Form, Study Introduction, Interviewer Training Schedule);
  • Cleaned data (including data files (e.g. Excel, SPSS), transcripts of qualitative data, syntax/ code books etc;
  • Coded questionnaires for surveys (Note: the consultant is required to use digital data collection platforms e.g., Kobo Collect, Survey CTO, etc., and they should provide finalized coded questionnaires with Plan International Rwanda team prior to data collection)
  • Data programming code or script (e.g., R, SPSS, Stata, etc) used in analysis.
  • Manuscript for journal publication;
  • Factsheet;
  • Completed and signed Consent Forms (including those from surveyed Adolescent and Young people (especially young women) and their parents/caregivers).

10. Roles and Responsibilities 

In order to ensure quality support to the external consultancy firm (s), Plan International Rwanda will establish a small, internal core team led by the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Manager and the Bike4Future project Manager who will be assigned the responsibility of overseeing the survey.

The team of consultants will be required to follow Plan International policies and procedures in relation to children, adolescents and young people, safeguarding their protection at all times. In pursuance of this, Plan International Rwanda staff member will oversee all interviews with adolescent and youth in order to ensure safeguarding procedures are respected and complied with. The Consultant will be responsible for the management of the data collection team.

• Integrate feedback and share final report to Plan International Rwanda.
• Ensure the quality and timely delivery of all outputs below.
• Ensure Plan International Global Policies on Safeguarding Children and Young People as well as Preventing sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse (PSHEA) are adhered to at all times by all sub-contracted parties.

11. Timeline 

The timeframe for the baseline assessment, inclusive of submission of final report, should not exceed 30 working days. The baseline assessment is expected to be carried out in December 2023 and January 2024 with the final report submitted by 25th January 2024 as per the detailed tasks mentioned in the table below. With use of Gantt chart, the Consultant should provide a comprehensive work plan, inclusive of timeframe, during the onset of the baseline survey. If external enumerators are required, the Consultant will work on the recruitment and ensure cover all expenses corresponding to the costs of logistics, meals, and salaries by the consultancy fees etc. 

The table below illustrates the summary of key deliverables with the proposed timeline:

12. Expected Qualifications and expertise 

Interested bidders are required to clearly indicate the person who will be leading this baseline, hereby known as the Lead Consultant and also detail the specific tasks of the other members that they so wish to involve in this baseline survey. The lead Consultant will have the following key competencies:

• A Master’s degree in Community Economic Development, Development Studies, Economics, Public Policy, Social Sciences, Sociology, Gender studies and/ or other related field from a recognized university;
• Technical M&E skills including demonstrated knowledge and experience in undertaking baseline studies;
• Understanding and experience of household economic security programming, ideally with a focus on adolescents & young women’s social and economic empowerment;
• Superior understanding of statistical and applied data analysis using tools such as CSPro, Epi Info, SPSS, Stata, R, Python, INVIVO, MAXQDA, etc);
• Excellent report writing and data interpretation;
• At least five years of experience in related field of M&E;
• Familiarity with youth (especially young women) employment and entrepreneurship in Rwanda;
• Fluent in English, ideally with a good level of Kinyarwanda.
• Proven experience in carrying out evaluations;
• Proficiency in qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection;
• Thematic understanding in Child Protection, Protection from Violence and GBV is an added advantage;
• Experiences on Plan’s cross-cutting issues such as gender, inclusion as well as awareness on child protection and child rights issues;
• Capacity of the Lead consultant to train adequately enumerators to ensure adapted behaviours and practices towards children interviewed and in addressing sensitive topics.

The evaluation team will include:

• Balance of gender across evaluators and enumerators;
• Enumerators with excellent interpersonal and communication skills, time management skills and a strong attention to detail;
• Trained enumerators in Safeguarding and psychological first aid or equivalent to make sure they are equipped to handle sensitive disclosure by the respondents;

13. Submission of proposal 

The Consultant is expected to submit a detailed proposal with the following components:

1. Administrative documents:

Each bidder shall submit the following documents:

• Copy of Registration certificate (RDB Certificate);
• VAT certificate;
• RRA and RRSB clearances;

2. Technical proposal to include:

• A one-page Consultant’s understanding of the TOR;
• Two pages of the proposed methodology, activities and expected outcomes;
• A detailed activities schedule/work plan with time frame (including a Gantt chart);
• A profile of the consulting firm including the full names, physical addresses, telephone numbers and contact person of the form/company;
• Copy of CVs of all the consultants who will undertake the baseline survey;
• At least 3 good completion certificates of similar work entrusted by well recognized Organization/NGOs.

3. Financial proposal details:

• Itemized consultant’s fees;
• Itemized field data collection expenses;
• Itemized administration expenses.
• Note that the financial proposal indicates the all-inclusive total contract price, supported by a breakdown of all costs. The cost must be in RWF, taxes inclusive. 

14. Applications 

Interested bidders should submit their offers in sealed and separate Technical and Financial Proposals (1 original and 1 copy), clearly marked ‘BASELINE SURVEY FOR BIKE FOR FUTURE PROJECT” by hand not later than 2:00 PM of 18^th Dec, 2023 to the below address 

Done on 4^th Dec 2023 

The Chairperson -Tender Panel

Plan International Rwanda

Kacyiru- Golden Plaza Building, Floor # 4,

KG 546 St- Next to Rwanda Housing Authority,

P.O. Box 6211, Kigali, Rwanda

[i] SOYEE= Skills and Opportunities for Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship