REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL

 

Funded by:

Heifer International

 

RFP Release Date:	January15th 2024
Question/ Inquiry Submission Deadline:	January 23rd 2024
Proposal Submission Deadline:	February1st 2024
Performance Period:	March 25th –June 28th2024
Electronic submission to the attention of:	[email protected]
Contact information for inquiries about this RFP:	[email protected] [email protected]

 

Terms of Reference

 

I.General Information

This document is being issued to solicit applications from either an individual consultant or a consulting firm with key technical staff who have substantial experience in the implementation of annual surveys or similar studies/assessments. More specifically, the consultant or lead consultant should have a proven track record in the implementation of surveys/assessments/evaluations (baseline, midline and/or endline). The bidder is free to seek any clarification on the expected deliverables prior to the preparation and submission of the proposal. While Heifer understands that completing this assignment will require the experience of an individual or a single firm with all the requisite expertise, the successful candidate can sub-contract components of the assignment to appropriate qualified firms. However, Heifer Nigeria should be duly informed of the plan from the onset, and this should be clearly stated in the bid as appropriate. It should also be noted that Heifer will make payments to each of the contractors based on submission and Heifer’s approval of deliverables. The award agreement will include a payment schedule with specific deliverables; all payments require 15 business days for processing after approval of deliverables.

 

II. Background

About Heifer International

Heifer International (Heifer) is a global non-profit working to end hunger and poverty while caring for the Earth by using sustainable practices and engaging smallholder farmers in agricultural development. Since 1944, Heifer International through its work in 21 countries (in Africa, Asia, and the Americas) has supported more than 39 million people to end hunger and poverty in a sustainable way, and millions more now on a pathway to sustainable living income.

Working with rural communities across Africa for the past 48 years, Heifer International supports farmers and local food producers to strengthen local economies and build secured livelihoods that provide a sustainable living income through access to Values Based Holistic Community Development (VBHCD) training, appropriate technologies, and agricultural resources, which enable communities to lift themselves out of poverty and hunger on to a path of self-reliance and economic prosperity. Heifer’s foundation was built on the belief that ending hunger and poverty begins with giving people the means to feed themselves, generate income and achieve sustainable livelihoods for their households.

Heifer’s global vision for 2020 – 2030 is to close the living income gap for additional 10 million families. This vision is a focused approach for the African continent to support at least 6 million smallholder farmers in Africa reach sustainable living income. As a part of this commitment, Heifer has expanded its presence in Africa to include Nigeria, with a goal of supporting at least two million farming households to achieve sustainable living income through (a) strategic private and public sector partnerships, (b) unlocking demand and market opportunities, (c) investing in priority value chains, and (d) leveraging innovation and emerging agricultural technologies to reach transformational scale. More information about Heifer is available at: www.heifer.org

 

Heifer InternationalNigeria Country Program

Heifer International established its Nigeria Country Program in 2021, and its Signature Program for Nigeria, named “Naija Unlock”, was designed thereafter, and launched. Naija Unlock program’s aim is to support the unlocking of the potential in Nigeria’s agricultural sector to achieve food self-sufficiency by working with smallholder farmers and local value chain actors to increase their productivity to meet local demand for food and raw material while closing the living income gap for families in the rice, tomato, and poultry value chains, with plans to add cattle, sheep, and goat value chains in the near future..

Heifer partners with communities to achieve five key outcomes aligning with the PASTA 4’s priorities.

Food Security & Nutrition – Heifer trains and supports smallholder farmers to enable them to diversify farm production and increase productivity to boost nutrition and to provide for food year-around, filling what used to be lean dietary months.

Income and Asset Building—Heifer International works with farmers to ensure they have the tools and resources to grow more and better crops and raise more and better animals, to develop and connect them to competitive value chains.

Environment-Heifer promotes the use of Climate Smart Agricultural (CSA) practices in all its operational areas in Nigeria. To stabilize output and income, Heifer works with smallholder farmers in the management of natural resources and train them to increase efficiency in the use of these resources and inputs for production.

Women’s Empowerment -Women are encouraged to take leadership roles and positions, enabling them to gain greater access to project resources and benefits. Women are also trained to initiate savings and credit activities to generate internal resources for economic and other social activities in their communities. Literacy classes are also provided to women to help empower them to gain necessary education and life skills.

Social Capital -Heifer’s Values-Based Holistic Community Development (VBHCD) model is a package of practices that creates social capital and builds an enabling environment for sustainable development work. Heifer Nigeria also provides a series of training in Entrepreneurship skills, Group Formation techniques, Cooperative Awareness methods, Record Keeping skills, Finance Welfare (Savings and Credits) know how, and Heifer 12 Cornerstones skills.

 

Overview of Naija Unlock Signature Program

NAIJA UNLOCK is an evidence-based signature program designed with the objective of unlocking Nigeria’s potential for food self-sufficiency, working with smallholder farmers and local value chain actors to fill local demand while closing the living income gap for families in selected value chains with permanence of impact. The program has a target of supporting two million smallholder farmers (50% female and 30% youth) to achieve a sustainable living income by 2030.The program currently focuses on the rice, tomato, and poultry value chains. The program is working towards extending its value chains of focus to include cattle, and small ruminants (goat and sheep), as it recently conducted a value chain analysis to understand the landscape, underlying constraints and entry points.The program work through strategic private and public sector partnerships to (a) build the social capital of smallholder farmers, (b) unlock farmers access to innovative financing, (c) unlock demand and market opportunities, (d) increase farmers access to mechanization and emerging agricultural innovations, and (e) increase farmers knowledge and adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices. Naija Unlock program activities are being implemented currently in four (4) states in Nigeria (Edo, Nasarawa, Benue, and Lagos States), and recently added Ogun state. However, Naija Unlock is also implementing program activities through working with strategic private sector partners in twelve additional states that have the potential for impact at a transformational scale.

The program supports smallholder farmers with access to market at a premium price, access to innovative finance, building smallholder social capital through VBHCD training, climate-smart agriculture (Access to Crop insurance services, daily weather forecast advisory, and weekly climate-smart agricultural extension messages)to build smallholder farmers’ resilience.The program is also providing farmers with access to mechanization services, and cold storage services for farm produce preservation to prevent post-harvest losses, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and extension training, among others.

 

The program uses the market system approaches in the implementation of its projects, therefore works with the market actors toaddress the underlying causes of poor performance inthe agricultural sector where the smallholder farmers are working to create lasting changes that have a large-scale impact.The program has a high potential for growth and scale-up based on various market actors that Heifer Nigeria is working with.

 

1. Objectives of the Assignment

Heifer Nigeria seeks to hire an individual or consulting firm to conduct an outcome monitoring survey for the Naija Unlock program through which the findings will establish the status of the signature program key performance indicators at the end of FY24 (July 2023 to June 2024).

The survey will show the current picture with respect to Heifer International global and project-specific indicators. It is expected that the report of the survey will provide the status of the outcomes and impact indicators of the signature program. The data collected will be both qualitative and quantitative in nature and will include information gathered on the outcome indicators.

The outcome monitoring survey will also provide information to be used in subsequent assessments of how efficiently the project activities are being implemented and the eventual results of the project activities for ensuring accountability to partners and other stakeholders but also how the project interventions are impacting the lives of beneficiaries.

This is the first time a Global Indicator Monitoring (GIM)/Outcome monitoring survey is being conducted by Heifer Nigeria. Naija Unlock will want to use this opportunity to measure the status of all the program indicators to establish the status of the Global indicators as well as the project specific indicators (PSIs)

Therefore, the FY24 Naija Unlock Outcome monitoring survey will be conducted on the fifteen (15) Heifer’s Global indicators and the project specific indicators both at the state and project level, as described in the table below: Heifer International’s Global indicators, details and calculation methods will be shared with the selected consultant.

 

S/N	GI Indicator
1	Heifer Household Transformation Model (HHTM) Number of Months of Adequate Household Food Provisioning (MAHFP) – GI-03-SDG2 (HHTM)
2	Women making Household decisions jointly (HHTM)
3	Actual income at household level (BTM 06)
4	Number of households adopting climate smart agriculture practices and technologies (CSA) – GI – 11 – SDG13 (HHTM)
5	Household demonstrating solidarity and cooperation among community members (HHTM)
6	Heifer Business/Enterprise Transformation Model (BTM/ETM) Women in Leadership Positions (BTM 3.2)
7	Number of elements of integrated waste management adopted at the entity level (BTM 07-SDG8)
8	BTM-01 Proportion of Active Members in Farmer Producer Organizations
9	Net Returns in Relevant Currency at the Entity Level- BTM-06-SDG
10	BTM-05 (GI-05) Percentage of Leadership Positions at the Organization Level Occupied by Women
	Project Specific Indicators
11	Yield of target commodities
12	Number of households adopting new income generating activities
13	Proportion of participants reporting increased knowledge about dietary diversity and good diets
14	Number of climate smart agriculture practices integrated with Heifer program initiatives
15	Value of commodity produced, marketed, or processed (GI 09 SDG 8)
16	Value in USD of new public sector commitments and investment leveraged (GI-14-SDG17)
17	Value in USD of new private sector commitments and investment leveraged (GI-15-SDG17
18	Average number of meals consumed per household per day
19	Average value addition in USD as a result of Heifer activities
20	KG of target resource wasted or lost at the FPO level
21	Ratio of products and services delivered to quantity of consumer demand
22	Household dietary diversity score
23	Number of Heifer-assisted FOABs on the pathway to achieving economic sustainability
24	Number of Heifer-assisted FOABs achieving economic sustainability
25	Number of households on the pathway to a sustainable living income
26	Number of households reaching a Sustainable Living Income
27	Number of Farmer-Owned Agribusiness’ (FOAB) Strengthened
	Heifer Impact Capital Indicators
28	Number of entities/individuals accessing financial products and services (disaggregated by gender)
29	Number of entities/FOABs accessing financial products and services
30	Proportion of needed capital accessible at the FPO level

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Existing project documents Purpose

The following are available documents in addition to any other document which will be used during the FY24 outcome monitoring survey for reference:

1. Project documents (detailed design reports)

2. Program theory of Change

3. Program semi-annual, and annual reports

4. Program baseline reports

5. Group and participant profiles

6. Heifer International’s Global Indicators and corresponding questionnaire

7. Heifer International’s performance Indicators Reference Sheet (PIRS)

8. Any additional resources deemed necessary by the consultant team which should be

used as reference that are not project specific.

 

1. Scope of Work and Key responsibilities of the Consultant

The Consultant will be responsible for the quality and timely submission of specific deliverables, as specified below. All documents should be well written (reader friendly and communicative), inclusive and have a clear analysis process.

Based on these Terms of Reference, key responsibilities of the Consultant include:

1. Review of program documents for clearer understanding of the project

2. Familiarize with Heifer Global Indicators

3. Adopt and apply Heifer existing questionnaires available on SCTO, only review options to reflect project specific deliveries.

4. The Consultant will design questionnaires for project specific indicators, share with project team for review, finalize and upload into the SurveyCTO system

5. Familiarize with Heifer performance indicator reference sheet

6. Develop other survey tools such as focus group discussion and key informants’ guides.

7. Develop an inception report outlining the outcome monitoring survey framework, methodology, data collection methods and tools, sampling design, implementation timeline, team assignment, and implementation management.

8. Provide a Power Point presentation of the inception report for finalizing the survey tools and techniques.

9. Recruit enumerators for data collection (enumerators should be agreed upon between the consultant and Heifer International Nigeria).

10. In collaboration with Heifer team, train the survey team on Heifer Global Indicators and on data collection tools; questionnaire and mobile/tablet platform.

11. Lead in the field data collection, lead focus group discussion and key informant’s data collection.

12. Clean up data collected in the Survey CTO and prepare the data for analysis using SPSS.

13. Analyze data using SPSS.

14. Submit and present the first draft outcome monitoring survey report.

15. Incorporate essential feedback and submit a final report (electronic and signed hard copy).

16. Present the report including base values to the project team and to the country program management team for validation.

17. Attend relevant meetings including presentation of inception report, draft reports, weekly check ins and others that may be required from time to time.

18. Submit the final report considering inputs from various reviewers.

19. Submit a summary of the final report (not more than two pages). Please note that this brief report will be used for external audience.

 

 

1. Consultant Tasks and Deliverables

 

Consultant tasks and key deliverables are the following:

 

Task/ activity	Expected deliverable/output
Finalize methodology that would yield a representative sample of community respondents. The sampling design shall include the selection of informants/respondents	Inception report including detailed methodology and sampling design
Pre-test assessment tools to assess the Mastering of Heifer International Global Indicators by Enumerators Develop other interview tools (FGD and Key Informant guides)	Pre-tested assessment tools to be used for the Outcome monitoring survey
Gather data and present/discuss draft Report	Soft and hard copies of database and interview recordings Discussion session on preliminary findings Report with data disaggregated by Heifer Domains of change and value chains
Submission of two final survey reports and household transformational model data to Heifer Team and partners	Final report presentation session (PowerPoint) Full survey report (soft and hard copies) List of references used. List/directory of all project indicators Survey data set and SPSS syntax Household transformational model data

 

1. Sample Size

 

Following Heifer Internationals sample size calculation standard and using the Actual Income and the baseline assessment study, Heifer International has determined the following sample size for each of the value chains. The sample size is based on, 90% confidence level, confidence interval of 5, response distribution of 50% and margin of error of 5%:

 

Value Chain	Sample Size	States/LGAs
Rice	266 {+ } =529 263	Benue: Agatu, Guma, Kwande, Logo, Gwer West, and Makurdi Nasarawa:Awe, Doma, Lafia, and Obi
Tomato	257	Lagos: Badagry
Poultry	267	Edo:Oredo, Ikpoba, Okha, Ovia Northeast, Egon, Owan East, Esan Southeast, and Orhionmwon

 

 

To ensure that the sample is most representative of the beneficiary population, the selected consultant would ensure deployment of appropriate sampling procedures that takes into consideration the different aspects of variability, including sex and age categories of participants, location (State/LGAs), scale of operation of the businesses of the entities, value chain activities, etc.

Note that no household outside the project intervention areas would be interviewed, the consultant is expected to use participants-based survey design.

 

Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs)

In addition to participants’ face to face interviews using survey questionnaire to interview between 257 and 529 farmers depending on the value chain (see sample size above). Complementary data are to be collected from farmers using focus group discussions (FGDs) and key informants’ interviews (KIIs). Consultant shall conduct FGDs to be held with male and female farmers separately including youths in each of the states. The client is recommending a minimum of six FGD sessions (3 women’s groups and 3 men’s groups) across the states. The consultant shall also organize key informant interviews with at least ten (10) entities in each of the three value chains. The entities (including farmers cooperatives, SMEs, input suppliers, service providers, etc.) should be selected across the states.

 

Consideration of Household Transformation model

Heifer International understands that a holistic development approach is the key to supporting households transitioning and then staying out of poverty. A Sustainable Living Income, as defined by Heifer International, is a consistent level of income that allows households to access nutritious food, comprehensive education, quality housing, and other essential needs but also includes correlated social and environmental outcomes. Whereas a Living Income is a monetary benchmark, a Sustainable Living Income is measured utilizing the Heifer’s Household Transformation Model through three progress levels (A, B, and C) and across a potential five outcome domains, including: income, food, women’s empowerment, climate smart agriculture, and social capital.

The Transformation Model indicators are tracked throughout the life of a project so they can assess household progress toward achieving a Sustainable Living Income. All these data are captured at the household level through a household survey and corresponding questionnaire is the same as for GIM, the GIM is the process of measuring both the HHTM and ETM indicators.

 

Note that the Household Transformation Model is an individual household assessment tool. Each household’s overall score is governed by its scores for each domain.

 

Data Collection and Analysis Methods

The consultant will adopt the standard data collection method for Heifer International Global Indicators. Heifer Nigeria recommends that direct data collection using the standard tool (Heifer’s standard questionnaire on survey CTO) be used to collect data, the consultant should also consider other data collection methods such as direct observation, interviews, and the use of the best judgment to collect data from the best applicable member of the household. The consultant should also indicate which of the methods will be considered as methods for triangulation of the data collected. Consultant’s enumerators will collect data at least in the above-mentioned beneficiary households in each of the states of project interventions. Enumerators will be trained on Heifer International Global Indicators and the Project specific Indicators (PSIs). The consultant shall also conduct focus group discussions and key informant interviews; at least six FGD sessions (3 women’s groups and 3 men’s groups including youths) and key informant interviews with at least 10 entities across the three value chains/states.

 

The outcome monitoring survey report should contain strong quantitative analysis, within data limitations, that clearly respond to Heifer International Global indicators. The methodology will be comprised of a mix of tools appropriate to the Global indicators’ questions. These tools may include a combination of the following:

1.Literature Review

2. Household, SHG and FOAB Questionnaires

3. Focus Group Discussions

4. Key Informant Interview guide

5. Focus Groups discussion guide.

6. Quantitative analyses

 

It should be noted that Heifer International standard data collection tool/system is the Survey CTO while the data analysis system is SPSS. These will be the data collection and analysis solutions to be used in this assignment.

 

Prior to the start of data collection, the consultant will develop and present to Heifer International Nigeria team an inception report for review and approval, a data analysis plan that details what procedures will be used to analyze quantitative data, how focus group interviews will be transcribed and analyzed; what procedures will be used to analyze qualitative data from key informants and other stakeholder interviews; and how the survey will weigh and integrate qualitative data from these sources with quantitative data.

 

 

1. Competencies of the Lead consultant

 

• A minimum of a master’s degree in social sciences preferably in rural development studies, Economics, Agricultural economics or related field (lead consultant);

 

• Familiarity with quantitative data analysis packages such as SPSS and qualitative data analysis methods.

 

• Extensive knowledge and at least 10 years of experience, particularly in agriculture/livestock, food security and market system development and involving M&E related