UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE OF BISHOPS

Title of the Tender: Tender for hiring consultant to conduct Mid-term evaluation of the Inclusive Nutrition Early Childhood Development (INECD) Activity Gikuriro Kuri Bose Program

Tender Reference Number: CRS-Rwanda 016- FY24-TN/2024 

TENDER NOTICE

CRS-Rwanda 016- FY24-TN/2024

Mid-term Evaluation of the Inclusive Nutrition Early Childhood Development (INECD) Activity Gikuriro Kuri Bose Program

Cooperative Agreement: AID – 720-696-21-CA-00004 

I. Evaluation Purpose

The purpose of this mid-term evaluation is to: (1) assess the program progress and performance to date, and adjust accordingly for greater impact, and (2) inform the remainder of this activity and the USAID Mission in Rwanda’s future INECD programming. 

II. Background

As part of the universal mission of the Catholic Church, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) works with local, national and international Catholic institutions and structures, as well as other organizations, to assist people on the basis of need, not creed, race or nationality. The primary goal of CRS/Rwanda programming is to ensure that vulnerable households in Rwanda achieve full, integral human development. 

The INECD is a 5-year (Oct, 2021- Sept, 2026) USAID-funded program on Strengthening coordination and capacity as well as Inclusive Nutrition and Early Childhood Development service delivery. INECD is leveraging the consortium expertise in nutrition, early childhood development (ECD), rehabilitation and assistive technology (Rehab & AT), disability inclusion, and capacity strengthening to support the Government of Rwanda (GoR) in helping every Rwandan child realize their full potential in line with GoR ECD policies, the mandates of the National Child Development Agency (NCDA), and USAID’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy.

The Inclusive Nutrition and Early Childhood Development (INECD) Activity is implemented through a consortium of three International Agencies and two National Agencies: Catholic Relief Services - USCCB (CRS) who is the prime, Humanity Inclusion (HI), Umuhuza, Three Stones International (TSI) Rwanda and the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE). INECD works through decentralized Government of Rwanda (GoR) systems and structures and four local civil society organizations (LCSOs): Caritas Rwanda, DUHAMIC-ADRI, Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) and the African Evangelist Enterprise (AEE) coordinate service delivery at decentralized levels covering ten target districts.

Operating in 10 districts, the program is working with 4,562 villages and around 45,000 frontline providers and has reached more than half a million women of reproductive age and almost 481,855 children under 5 (CU5) and their families. The team is working with GoR and civil society organizations (CSOs) to tackle bottlenecks and fulfill their NCDA Strategic Plan mandates. The consortium is strengthening nurturing care services from national-to-village-level by fostering a shared understanding of integrated nurturing care, reinforcing capacity and facilitating coordination. CRS and its partners are also enabling service providers to deliver community and facility-based services that support nurturing care, including parents’ groups, home visits, community-based health services, ECD centers, adolescent-focused groups, community-based rehab/AT services, and facility-based health services.

CRS and its partners are supporting the GoR to maximize the availability of quality nurturing care services by ensuring clear roles and standards, strengthening capacity, and ensuring needed resources.

CRS and its partners are expanding families’ adoption of additional nurturing care behaviors with an approach that generates demand, facilitates access to services and links families to needed resources. The program’s robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning (MEAL) system is enabling program stakeholders to review processes and contextualize data, verify assumptions, adjust strategies iteratively to drive results, and contribute to learning about what works to improve child development outcomes in Rwanda. To maximize the sustainability of USAID’s investment, the program is designed to work through existing systems, plan for exit, deliver targeted support, track progress and adapt early and often.

The program geographic coverage is in ten districts, namely: Burera, Kayonza, Kicukiro, Ngoma, Nyabihu, Nyamasheke, Nyanza, Nyarugenge, Rulindo, and Rwamagana. The program map below clearly indicates the spatial extent of the interventions how they have been spread across the country. The colors indicate the four clusters; districts in blue are implemented by CARITAS Rwanda, pink by AEE, green by YWCA and orange by DUHAMIC-ADRI.

Figure 1: Map of INECD Program Intervention Districts

III. Program Description 

The overall goal of INECD is to improve the health, functioning, nutritional status, and wellbeing of women of reproductive age and children under five years of age, with an emphasis on the 1,000-day window, strengthening inclusion of children and adults with disabilities, and improving positive parenting and child development.

INECD Activity has the following Strategic Objectives (SOs): (1) Strengthening Governance, Coordination, and Implementation of the National Strategic Plan for NCDA at National, District, Sector, Cell and Village level, (2) Improved access to and availability of quality services that promote inclusive nurturing care, (3) Increased household resources and skills to provide optimal nurturing care and promote healthy growth and development.

Below intermediate results (IRs) contribute directly to achieving these SOs:

• IR 1.1: Increased capacities for planning, budgeting, and supervision of inclusive multi-sectoral services
• IR 1.2: Improved coordination, monitoring and use of data for evidence-based decision-making.
• IR 1.3: Improved national level coordination between social cluster ministries responsible for promoting inclusive health, rehab/AT, nutrition, and ECD.
• IR 1.4: Increased capacity of local civil society to advocate and provide technical support to decentralized government institutions for inclusive integrated services.
• IR 1.5: Improved ownership of integrated ECD services in INECD supported Districts by GOR line institutions.
• IR 2.1: Strengthened quality of inclusive health, nutrition, rehab/AT and ECD services provided through community-based platforms (Technical capacity and essential ECD/PHC service packages-tools).
• IR 2.2: Improved capacity and supervision of facility and front-line workers for early identification, referral and follow up of child developmental delays, impairment, disability, malnutrition, and other signs of illness.
• IR 2.3: Increased capacity and improved attitudes and practices of service providers to effectively counsel and support families with young children about providing nurturing care.
• IR 2.4: Strengthened sustainable quality community and facility-based rehab/AT services, within the health system.
• IR 2.5: Strengthened community referral systems, linkages and follow up mechanisms between community and health facilities.
• IR 3.1: Increased capacity, including greater knowledge, skills, and problem-solving ability, of individuals and families to support healthy behaviors that contribute to nurturing care.
• IR 3.2: Improved community norms that support healthy behaviors, including male involvement in childcare practices and inclusive health and development.
• IR 3.3: Increased family resources to support healthy behaviors and provide nurturing care.
• IR 3.4: Increased demand for social services and adoption of improved behaviors including those within health and nutrition, sanitation, and hygiene, ECD, rehab/AT, child protection and social protection by families with young children.

Table 1: Table of key INECD indicators (considered at the baseline)

*Note that all these indicators should be disaggregated by Age groups, sex and disability 

IV. Period of Performance 

The expected timeframe of this evaluation is 14 to 16 weeks. Estimated period starting April 2, 2024 and ending on July 26, 2024. Final time frame to be determined after award.