Term of References for AMIR and CARE to Hire a Consultancy Firm for Conducting VSLAs-MFI Linkage Performance Assessment
Care International In Rwanda
P.O Box 550 Kigali, 541ST
Career Center Building 8th floor
Tel: +250 788 306 241, 250 788 304 454
E mail: care.rw@care.org
www.care.org

Background and Rationale
The Association of Microfinance Institution in Rwanda/AMIR and Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere/ CARE Rwanda signed a cooperation agreement to jointly contribute to the National Financial Inclusion strategy. In line with the MOU, AMIR provides support to Microfinance Institutions and Umurenge SACCOs (U-SACCOs) to operate professionally and sustainably through the promotion of transparent management systems among Financial Services providers’, innovative and market-led financial services, and products development.
CARE Rwanda offers financial management capacity building to saving groups members and together with AMIR advocate for and support the development of appropriate and affordable financial services for women and girls to access and use formal financial services, including digital.

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CARE promotes savings and loan schemes by facilitating creation of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs), targeting poor and vulnerable people, financially excluded from financial services. VSLAs are self-managed groups; zero/low tolerance to loans default; and periodic action audits. So far CARE supported creation of over 39,000 with 1,080,154 members of whom 74% are women and girls. A financial literacy/education training package, coupled with VSL methodology, is delivered to people with low income in rural areas to prepare them as potential client to access both informal and formal financial services. The process starts with informal financial services through saving groups operations to formal financial services through the linkage of saving groups and members to formal financial services providers.

In this context, AMIR works in close collaboration with CARE Rwanda to analyze and define solutions to the issues that may negatively affect the performance and image of its member U-SACCOs and MFIs CARE partners with: Urwego Bank; VISION Fund Rwanda; Umutanguha Finance; Clecam; Inkunga Coopec And Duterimbere, and the microfinance sector in general in services to saving groups and its members. AMIR assists its members to develop appropriate and affordable financial products, adoption of technology and innovation social performance management and compliance client protection principles. Capacity building is AMIR’s major area of interventions in the face of increased competition and new client demands.

Objective of the assessment
CARE Rwanda together with AMIR would like to carry out an assessment to understand how the VSLA-MFI linkage has performed. The assessment will look at how VSLAs and members access and use the financial products offered by the U-SACCOs and MFIs. In turn, CARE and AMIR would like to understand what has worked, what has not worked and what challenges U-SACCOS, MFIS, VSLAs and its members faced in using and accessing the financial products offered.

Specific Objectives
Through a SWOT analysis:
• Assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and trends of VSLAs (including Youth VSLAs) members access and usage of MFIs and U-SACCOs financial services
• Assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and trends of MFIS and U-SACCOs financial services delivery model to VSLAs (including Youth VSLAs) members
• Assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and trends of Village Agents and its network linkage facilitation of VSLAs (including Youth VSLAs) members
• Formulate recommendations to CARE; AMIR; MFIs and U-SACCOs for a review of financial products offered to VSLAs (including Youth VSLAs) its delivery mechanism
• Recommendations to CARE to consider when amending the Financial Service Providers partnership for effective and impactful formal financial inclusion of VSLAs (including Youth VSLAs) members.

The Methodology
It is expected that the assessment will adopt a mix of qualitative and quantitative approach. Qualitative approaches might include in-depth interviews using focus group discussions (FGDs), document review, documenting case studies and Key Informant Interviews; while the quantitative approach includes Surveys and secondary information including Reports from the Information management System known as SAVIX MIS; FSPs and CARE’s reports. The final proposed methodology will be agreed on with the consultant/firm.

Required Deliverables
The expected outputs and deliverables are listed below:
1. An inception report demonstrating understanding of the assignment from the consultancy firm. This should include the methodology and workplan among others
2. Draft report
3. Presentation of the findings at a national level meeting bringing together CARE, MFIS, AMIR, VSLAs (including Youth VSLAs); and its members
4. Final report considering inputs from the national level meeting and the comments provided by CARE Rwanda and AMIR into the draft report.
5. Datasets and interview records used for analysis
6. VSLAs- YVSLAs-MFI/SACCOs linkage learning brief

Responsibility of the Consultant/firm and CARE & AMIR
Responsibility and accountability of the consultancy firm
• The consultant will be liable to secure any prior approvals that might be required to conduct this assessment
• The consultant shall be liable for ethical procedures including getting informed consent from respondents (adults as well as children).
• All documents and data collected will be treated as confidential and use solely to facilitate analysis. All data should be stored and transferred securely.
• The production of the inception report and linkage assessment report with lesson learned will be the liability of the consultant covering all the aspects as outlined in these ToRs.
• All training administrative and logistics cost for the enumerators including transport, per diems and data collection materials during data collection will be covered by the consultant.
• Take care of any costs related to COVID-19 that may be required
• Make the presentation in the national stakeholder meeting

Responsibility of CARE and AMIR
• Assume all the responsibilities pertaining to the consultant hiring process
• Ensure that all necessary documentation is availed to the consultant
• Facilitate initial connections of the consultant with MFIs; USACCOs; Village Agents and different stakeholders including government authorities and respondents
• Overall data quality control and technical review of the SWOT analysis report and documentation of lessons learned and final signing off (including participation in the consultation session with the consultant about the draft research findings)
• Provide any other technical or operational support to the consultant as needed for example review of the questionnaires; list of the KIIs and participating in the selection and training of enumerators
• Prepare inception report review and dissemination meetings with different key stakeholders

Timeline
The assessment is expected to take place September and October 2022 for 33 working days.

Consultant Profile and Reporting
Profile
To achieve efficiency and objectivity in this process, CARE International and AMIR seeks to engage a consultant/firm with the following profile:
1. A degree in business administration, financial, enterprise management, cooperative management, or any related field
2. Experience in carrying out needs assessments and evaluations in the financial sector
3. Demonstrated knowledge and experiences in assessing and reviewing financial services and financial literacy programs. Prior experience with saving groups program will be an add-value
4. Demonstrated experience in and understanding of women and youth financial inclusion programs including understanding of financial sector development strategy
5. Experience working with Financial Service Providers (FSPs) to review financial products.
6. A minimum of 5 years carrying out evaluations and research in the areas of financial sector and development programs, including carrying out evaluations of INGOs’ programs.
7. Excellent oral and written communication skills in English
8. Demonstrate excellent interpersonal relations

Reporting and Liaison
The Task Manager for this work will be the Impact Measurement Team leader. The Consultant is also expected to liaise closely at the design stage and subsequently with other key personnel in CARE and AMIR including the project implementation Coordinator, Financial Inclusion Technical Advisor, and quality assurance specialist.

Submission Procedure
The proposals should indicate the following:
• A technical proposal, detailing how deliverables will be achieved with a clear time frame; showing evidence of the consultant’s experience in the similar assignments (at least 3 references with contacts or email address of referees);
• Financial offer detailing various costs associated with the delivery of all the deliverables mentioned under section 3 above. This must be in PDF format and must be a separate document from the technical proposal;
• Minimum 3 certificates of similar work done in the past;
• Company profile; VAT registration certificate; RRA tax clearance certificate; RSSB clearance certificate must be part of the proposal where applicable.

Interested consultants or consultancy firms are requested to submit their offer not later than September 6th ,2022 at 5:30 pm local time to the following e-mail address: rwa.procurement@care.org, with the mention “VSLAs-MFI Linkage Performance assessment”.
August 29, 2022
Procurement unit
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