TERMS OF REFERENCE TO HIRE A CONSULTANCY FIRM TO CARRY OUT AN END-LINE SURVEY OF THE GRADUATION PROJECT FOR THE 2023 COHORT

1. INTRODUCTION:

Caritas Rwanda is a non-governmental organization legally registered, with the mission to assist people in need and foster their integral human development. Caritas Rwanda has more than 60 years of working experience in building poor families’ resilience through development, social welfare, and health departments.

In collaboration with UNHCR and MINEMA, Caritas Rwanda has been implementing the Graduation Pilot project: “Pathways to Economic Inclusion and Self-reliance of the refugees along with their host communities in Rwanda’’. The program intends to promote the self-reliance and livelihoods of refugees and host community members in Kiziba, and Mahama refugee camps by providing them with integrated and multi-sectorial services including financial literacy, income-oriented agricultural and livestock promotion, market linkages, and seed capital provision to finance their income-generating activities.

2. BACKGROUND

In 2019, a Rapid Assessment of the Livelihood Situation of Refugees in Rwandan Camps and Cities was conducted to inform the revision and update of the Joint UNHCR-GoR livelihoods strategy 2016-2020, as well as the current (revised) strategy (2021-24). The government's refugee inclusion livelihood strategy is based on the vision that refugees and host communities will be able to "fulfill their productive potential" because they will be self-sufficient members of Rwandan society by 2030.

The graduation approach contributes to the achievement of that vision by building household capacity and empowering families to interact productively and positively with the local economy and community. Children begin to lead safe, secure, and stable lives and have hope for a better future as refugee households begin to rise out of poverty and rely less on humanitarian assistance rather become self-reliant.

The Graduation program follows a four-pillared approach:

1. Social protection provides preventive, protective, and promotive mechanisms to support basic income security such as consumption support, crisis relief, and access to health and education.
2. Livelihoods promotion secures regular and diverse income streams for households to support consumption, asset accumulation, and economic empowerment, especially for women. Interventions include asset or cash transfers for a viable livelihood or linkages to formal employment, technical and business skills training, and access to markets.
3. Financial inclusion provides improved income and risk management and financial empowerment. Interventions typically include access to formal or informal savings facilities, and credit and insurance mechanisms, accompanied by financial literacy training.
4. Social empowerment equips families with a confident mindset and promotes community inclusion and positive behavior change. Interventions include life skills training, social integration, and coaching that cut across all four pillars, underpinned by a commitment to gender equality.

Graduation must adopt rigorous targeting involving multiple steps and verification, that is transparent, gender-disaggregated, and gender-sensitive, to reach the most vulnerable households with vulnerable children.

Within this context, Caritas Rwanda is hiring a consultancy firm to conduct an end-line survey on 1,143 project beneficiary households located in Mahama (721) and Kiziba (422) refugee camps who have been receiving program support since January 2023.

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT

3.1 General objective

The overall objective of this survey is to establish the project beneficiaries’ socio-economic levels in comparison to the targets that were intended to be reached at the end of the project, because of graduation project implementation.

3.2 Specific objectives

• The end-line survey will serve to collect data (qualitative and quantitative) to be measured, compared, and analyzed against the baseline value overall objective indicators and expected result.
• The end-line survey will permit to understanding of the status/situation of beneficiaries vis-à-vis the graduation criteria of the MINEMA-UNHCR’s Joint Strategy on Economic Inclusion of Refugees and Host Communities in Rwanda 2021–2024.
• The report of this survey will provide both qualitative and quantitative information on participants to recommend to be graduated based on the graduation criteria.

4. DESCRIPTION AND COVERAGE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

Description of the assignment:

The survey will be carried out by the contractor with support from Caritas Rwanda at both headquarters and camp levels.

The contractor will perform the following key activities:

• Recruit and train enumerators who will collect both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Data collection by physically meeting the project beneficiaries; and
• Data analysis and producing the survey report.

Caritas Rwanda will provide the contractor with a list of 1,143 households to be included in the survey and a questionnaire (already developed) to be used by the consultant. The assignment should be completed in 30 calendar days.

Coverage of the assignment:

The survey will be carried out to 1,143 beneficiary households served since 2023 from Kiziba and Mahama camps as per the table below.

5. EXPECTED OUTPUTS - DELIVERABLES
   • Adetailed Inception report showing the methodology and approach to conduct the assignment. The inception report should also include ethical considerations, and a literature review showing existing findings on livelihoods and economic inclusion. The inception report will also include a detailed action plan with a timeline to accomplish all assigned tasks. The approved inception report should be submitted within 5 calendar days after signing the contract.
   • Data collection, analysis, and Draft quantitative report include the research findings. Caritas Rwanda will review the report and provide comments and inputs to be addressed by the consultant. The draft report should be submitted 20 calendar days after the inception report.
   • The final end-line survey report should be submitted in English and should cover:
   • Research findings from qualitative and quantitative data collected during the survey
   • Aset of actionable recommendations that can be incorporated into activity design and implementation to ensure effective implementation of the Graduation project.
   • The approved final survey report will be submitted with the final raw dataset and final cleaned dataset with documentation in 5 calendar days after the draft report.

6. QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS OF THE CONSULTANCY FIRM

General qualifications

• Demonstrating experience of at least 5 years in conducting large-scale household surveys in Rwanda is essential.
• Having access to experienced interviewers and data collection supervisors is essential.
• Fluency in written and spoken English and Kinyarwanda is essential.
• Experience in conducting surveys on refugees in particular is essential.
• Prior experience working with Caritas Rwanda is essential.

Specific team qualifications

1. Assessment team leader

• Minimum master’s degree in social sciences or international humanitarian organization(s), participated in large-scale surveys evidenced by published reports (at least 1 link).
• Proven experience in successfully leading an evaluation team and managing fieldwork in complex environments. Demonstrated team leader role for a minimum of five accepted studies
• Experience in generating useful and action-oriented recommendations to management and programming staff.
• Trained M&E expert with certificates from recognized institutions.

2. Assessment Team Member – Statistician/Quantitative Expert

• Holder of a Master’s degree in statistics or econometrics, data and information management, or mathematics, preferably holder of a Master’s degree in Data Science.
• With a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in data analysis for migrations & resettlement programs; socio-economic programs and evaluation.
• Proven experience in statical systems and statistical software including STATA, and R software Deep understanding and experience of quantitative survey design methodologies, sampling design procedures, sampling size calculations, variance estimation, compound weights, and simulation studies.
• Having worked in any survey with UNHCR / CARITAS RWANDA which involved use of R codes language, and R Scripts in data analysis
• Experience with data quality assurance protocols and data collection in the domains of sampling and measurement error, nonresponse, and coverage bias to ensure reliable data collection.
• Experience in “CATI” surveys is required

3. Assessment Team Member –Qualitative Expert

• Advanced degree in sociology/anthropology, development studies, migration; or relevant discipline with a minimum of 5 years of relevant experience to the assessment
• Position of /or experience in working with humanitarian mandate is a good mix of sociological understanding of vulnerability of migrants
• Proven experience with qualitative methods, development, testing, implementation and analysis of qualitative surveys and interviews, including FGDs, KIIs, participatory assessments etc.
• Experience with integrating qualitative data with quantitative findings

7. ABOUT THE PROPOSAL PREPARATION

• Technical proposal

The applicant should prepare a technical proposal for carrying out the described survey, which should include both the general approach to carrying out the survey and specific ways of dealing with anticipated challenges for the proposed survey. The proposal will outline the methodology, as well as data collection methods and analysis tools. The proposal should also describe how the approach to ensuring the high quality of the collected data, which is critical to the survey's success, will be described. The proposal should include a detailed description of the firm's staffing and organizational structure, as well as proposed activity timelines. Plans for piloting data generation tools and training enumerators will also be included in the proposal. A summary of relevant qualifications and experience, as well as at least three good completion certificates of a similar nature.

• Financial proposal

The financial proposal should include a breakdown of the proposed budget by major activities, as well as a narrative describing the rationale for the proposed activities, as well as the corresponding timeline and budget breakdown. It is critical that the financial proposal includes a detailed description of the proposed fieldwork model, including team size and composition, modes of transportation, and any assumptions upon which the budget is based. The budget should clearly identify unit costs and quantities for each activity.

N.B: The financial proposal should be precise if all taxes are included or excluded.

8. MILESTONES PAYMENT

• Submission of the approved inception report– 30%
• Submission of the draft quantitative report including the research findings – 40%, assuming data quality and analysis are satisfactory and the whole targeted population was achieved (this payment is only made when Caritas Rwanda is satisfied that the data is to the standard expected)
• Validation meeting conducted and the final report with all deliverables submitted – 30%

8. Evaluation criteria

Applications will be assessed based on cost reasonableness (30%) and technical competence (70%).

The Application file must be comprised of:

• Letter expressing interest in carrying out the consultancy service required;
• CV (s) of the consultant(s);
• A technical proposal written in English describing the background, methodology, and timeline;
• Notarized copies of Academic and Professional qualifications of the Consultant(s);
• A copy of RDB registration certificates;
• A copy of the RRA (VAT) Registration certificate;
• A copy of Proof of EBM Possession;
• A copy of a valid RRA Tax clearance certificate;
• A copy of Valid RSSB clearance certificate;
• A certificate of good standing delivered by RDB
• Good completion certificates from the previous surveys conducted in the area of socio-economic (at least 3 certificates of successful similar work in the last 5 years);
• Financial proposal (Price quotations)

N.B: Submission of all administrative documents listed above is mandatory and non-submission of one of the said documents may cause a rejection of the offer.

• Evaluation of technical proposal

The submitted technical proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

 OVERALL RESPONSE 10 pts

• Understanding of the terms of reference and responsiveness to Caritas Rwanda requirements
• Understanding of scope, objectives, and completeness of response
• Overall concord between Caritas Rwanda's requirements and the proposal

METHODOLOGY AND APPROACH 30 pts

• Quality of the proposed approach and methodology
• Suitability: To what extent the methodology is designed in response to the needs of the TOR
• Quality of proposed implementation plan, i.e. how will the applicant undertake each task to meet the deadline?

RISK MANAGEMENT 20 pts

Risk assessment and risk management plan - recognition of the risks/peripheral problems and methods to prevent and manage risks/peripheral problems and troubleshoot issues in the field. 

ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY and PROPOSED TEAM 40 pts

• Professional expertise of the consultancy firm, knowledge and experience with similar projects, list of clients served, and consulting assignments
• Organization of the team and roles & responsibilities:
• Team leader: Relevant experience, qualifications, and position with the firm;
• Key Team members (see their required qualifications and distribute marks accordingly);
• Timelines proposed must be detailed and be based on the ToRs;

The Technical Proposal has a total score of 100 points. Applicants must score a minimum of 60 points to be considered technically compliant and in order, for the Financial Proposals to be opened.

• Evaluation of financial proposal

A financial proposal has a total score of 30 points. The financial proposal will be judged against the overall proposed budget, but also on the basis of the proposed unit costs and feasibility of underlying similar surveys conducted before. The final selection of the applicant will be based on a quality and cost basis.

How to apply

Interested applicants with the required skills and competencies are required to submit their technical and financial proposals in separate sealed envelopes (1 original and 2 copies) at the reception of Caritas Rwanda office located at KN 16 Av 30 (Nyarugenge-Kiyovu) no later than Thursday 20^th June, 2024 (by 14:00). The public opening will be the same day at 15:00 in the conference room of Caritas Rwanda located at KN 16 Av 30. Late applications will be rejected.

Done at Kigali on June 12, 2024

Prepared by Approved by

Aimable Wilson MBARIMOMBAZI Father Emmanuel BAMPORINEZA

Graduation Project Manager Deputy Secretary General