Terms of Reference:
Consultancy for ICT4D Market Research Assessment and Stakeholder Mapping
Overview and Background
CARE International is a global humanitarian organization with physical presence in 104 countries worldwide. CARE’s vision is to seek a world of hope, inclusion, and social justice where poverty has been overcome and all people live in dignity and security. With the same vision, CARE International was established in Rwanda on September 4th, 1984. Ever since then, CARE played various roles in supporting and advancing development and humanitarian work in Rwanda. So far, CARE operates in all the 30 Districts of Rwanda. It impacts slightly above one million Rwandan population.

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In July 2020, CARE International launched its vision 2030 agenda. This vision outlines six program areas in which CARE seeks to achieve impact. These areas are gender equality, women economic justice, right to health; right to food, water & nutrition; climate justice, and humanitarian action. In alignment with the above vision and the Rwanda National Strategy for Transformation (NST1), CARE Rwanda revised its program strategy in April-June 2021. The new program strategy focuses on two main impact areas: “Women’s economic and climate justice” and "Gender justice and right to health”.
In order to operationalize this program strategy, 10 approaches have been defined. One of them is “Digitalization” which will serve as the catalyst across the program pillars to design and implement impactful cost-efficient interventions. The later calls for designing digital solutions that will be implemented through digital channels adapted and affordable to the needs and means of the program participants in terms of their digital literacy skills. CARE Rwanda committed to leverage advanced ICT infrastructure in Rwanda and initiate and strengthen a remote programming platform (Extranet) that will multiply impact at large scale.
Therefore, CARE Rwanda wishes to conduct an “ICT4D market research assessment” among its program participants to understand their digital literacy skills levels that will inform design of the digital literacy training and capacity building. The same consultancy will involve conducting a “stakeholder mapping” to understand and identify key stakeholders CARE needs to engage and partner with to implement different digital solutions. In this regard, CARE International in Rwanda is looking for competent and experienced consultants to conduct this market assessment and stakeholder mapping.

Objectives of the consultancy
The purpose of this consultancy is to:
• Conduct an ICT4D market assessment to establish baseline values of the program participants’ digital literacy levels and relevant digital tools available for them. As they do this assessment, consultants will consider three categories of program beneficiaries in Village Saving and Loan (VSLA) programs: those in urban, peri-urban and rural areas in their analysis and recommendations.
• Conduct a key stakeholder mapping to identify high potential partners, collaborators with affordable and appropriate digital tools that can help CARE effectively implementing its program pillars, despite major constraints such as Covid-19. These stakeholders could include government, CSOs, private companies and social enterprises.
• Identify or explore key incentives for the above potential partners (why would they be interested to work with CARE?); identify gaps in the existing digital solutions and what value add CARE would bring on the table?
• Make recommendations for CARE to leverage advanced ICT infrastructure in Rwanda and develop an extranet with interfaces to support implementation and monitoring of a CARE’s resilient and impactful remote programming.
Key areas of investigation
Market research/assessment
Access
• What level of appetite do VSLA members have to use digital tools in their day-to-day activities? For what purpose do VSLA members use digital tools?
• What ICT tools are available to the VSLA or community members in general in a radius of less than 2km?
• Given the fact that mobile phones are important tools for enhancing the lives of women in low quartile of the population, what is the telephone coverage among VSLA members? How many have access to feature phones? How many have access to android phones?
• What digital tools are available at the disposal of people in rural Districts? What digital tools are available at the disposal of people in peri-urban Districts? What digital tools are available at the disposal of people in urban Districts?
• How do VSLA members know or get information about the existing digital tools that are beneficial to them?

Affordability
• What are the barriers preventing women and girls from using digital tools including mobile phones? Is it the cost, network quality and coverage, security and harassment, operator or Agent trust, technical literacy and confidence, social norms, or lack of focus on women?
• What digital tools are available at the disposal of VSLA members and relevant for the two CARE program pillars? Are they affordable and appropriate to their needs? What devices are required to use these tools? Are these devices affordable to VSLA members?
• What digital tools/solutions are designed to be used by people in category 1 and 2 of poverty ranking?
• Who pays for the digital tools for vulnerable people? And for what do they pay: knowledge creation, skills, materials? How can we sustain access to and affordability of using digital tools? What sustainable approach can be used by organizations like CARE?
Digital literacy levels
• What levels of digital literacy do VSLA members practice (e.g. texting, IVR, social media, using irembo services, using other digital contents)? Disaggregating data by type of telephone (feature phone or smartphone); age groups (youth vs adult); gender, disability or other vulnerabilities?
• What value added can digital literacy skills bring in improving and sustaining household livelihoods?
• Does digital literacy and access to digital tools increase gender equality benefits for both men and women? Potential benefits to be tracked, but not limited to these: By offering additional freedom in deciding when and where to use them for learning? Providing on-demand access to voice- and text-based instructional materials? Improving smallholder farmers’ market access and income, staying in touch with friends and family, saves time, makes them feel safer (creating a sense of security), and making them feel more autonomous and independent in making decisions that affect their lives? etc.

Digital literacy capacity building opportunities
• What are the digital literacy capacity building opportunities available in a radius of 1km? How much does it cost to complete a digital literacy training/capacity building session?
• What motivates VSLA members to want to seize digital literacy capacity building opportunities?
• What training/capacity building approaches that are known to quickly increase digital literacy?
• What are the digital literacy training/capacity building needs? How are they distinct from different categories of the population?

Stakeholder mapping
• What existing digital tools designed to support financial inclusion, entrepreneurship and job creation, climate resilience, gender equality, GBV prevention, sexual and reproductive health and rights are available on the market in Rwanda?
• What are the existing and relevant digital solutions CARE should align to multiply impact in Rwanda?
• What digital companies/social enterprises operate or are working on designing technologies for development (T4D) in Rwanda, and that can be prioritized based on CARE’s program interventions?
• What INGOs, CSOs, government organs, private companies and social enterprises that deliver relevant digital solutions aligned with CARE Rwanda program focus areas? Who, among these, produce digital tools or contents with the principle of “Design with the user”?
• Who should CARE collaborate with (rationale) that are delivering digital solutions/digital literacy contents to the same program participants CARE targets?

The Methodology
For market assessment, the consultants will draw samples from VSLAs in urban, peri-urban and rural Districts, new and existing VSLAs and design appropriate survey tools for them. Both qualitative (e.g. in-depth interviews using focus group discussions (FGDs) and quantitative (Key Informant Interviews) methods will be used, but not limited to these. The final proposed methodology will be agreed on with the consultant/firm during the inception phase. Survey tools will be validated by CARE’s ICT4D technical committee.
For stakeholder mapping, consulting MINICT and using secondary data might be required plus any other approach that should be included in the inception report. For example, consulting members of the “Technology Hub” in Rwanda will be preferred.

Required Deliverables
The expected outputs and deliverables are listed below:
• An inception report and presentation demonstrating understanding of the assignment by the consultant/firm
• An assessment design methodology that satisfactorily demonstrates how the market assessment and stakeholder mapping will be done, including defined different assessment tools
• A clear market assessment and stakeholder mapping roadmap with clear and reasonable timelines
• A draft report and a summary presentation of the key preliminary findings for technical team inputs and comments
• The detailed market research and stakeholder mapping report incorporating comments from the technical team and signed by the “Senior Management Team”.

Responsibilities of CARE
• Ensure that all necessary documentation is availed to the consultants
• Facilitate introduction of the consultants to different stakeholders including local authorities and program participants/respondents
• Overall data quality control and technical review of the report and final signing off
• Provide any other technical or operational support to the consultant as needed for example respond to any questions by the consultants

Assignment duration
This market assessment and stakeholder mapping is expected to start mid-April 2022, for 35 working days.
Supervision and working conditions
The consultant will be reporting to the Country Director of CARE or her designee. The Consultant is also expected to liaise closely at the inception stage and subsequently with other key personnel in CARE Rwanda including the ICT4D technical committee, thematic technical advisors, Project implementation Coordinators and Impact Measurement team. Therefore, a mixture of face-to-face meetings and virtual interactions will be applied complying with covid-19 prevention measures in the country.

Consultant/firm Profile
To achieve efficiency and objectivity in quality research, CARE International seeks to engage a consultant/firm with the following profile:
1. Have an advanced degree in one of the following areas: ICT, gender and development, economics, business management, development studies and social sciences.
2. Proven understanding and experiences in conducting market researches and stakeholder mapping in ICT4D sector
3. Strong understanding of women economic empowerment, gender equality, life free from violence or GBV prevention programming, sexual and reproductive health and rights.
4. Ability to manage a potentially large-scale and research process, including remote data collection
5. Demonstrated 5 years’ experience in conducting evaluation/research (quantitative and qualitative)
6. Experience collaborating with both high and decentralized government stakeholders and/or private sector stakeholders.
7. Experience in working with INGOs/development agencies
8. Have excellent analytical and writing skills in English.
9. Have high interpersonal relations.

Submission Procedure
Interested consultant/firms are requested to submit their application files (Technical and financial offers) electronically to the following e-mail address: care.rwanda@care.org. not later than April 9th, 2022, at 5pm, Rwanda time. Subject: “ICT4D Market Assessment and Stakeholder Mapping”.
The application file should contain the following documents:
• A capacity statement demonstrating why the consultants understand the assignment and can carry out the assignment based on academic qualifications and relevant past professional experience (See Consultant profile section above).
• Detailed Curriculum Vitae of the proposed team to carry out the assignment with clear roles and functions
• A technical proposal, with a clear timeframe and a description of the proposed methodology detailing how the deliverables will be achieved.
• A financial offer detailing the various costs associated with the delivery of the above services.
NB: For more information, contact Aloys Mutera at aloys.mutera@care.org. Tel 0788 417 360.