Terms of Reference (ToR) for Consultancy Service:
Save the Children international is the world’s leading independent organization for children, delivering programs and improving children’s lives in about 120 countries worldwide. Save the Children mission is to fight for children's rights and deliver immediate and lasting improvement to their lives worldwide. In Ethiopia Save the Children has been operating since 1973 providing both relief and development programs. It has operational presence almost in all the regions of the country implementing Programs in different thematic areas such as Resilience and Livelihoods, Health and HIV/AIDS, Education, Child Rights and Governance,
LI-WAY is a five-year programme implemented by a consortium of partners composed of SNV Netherlands Development Organisation (lead), Mercy Corps, Techno Serve and Save the Children with the financial support from Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The overall objective of the programme is to contribute to sustainable poverty reduction, improved gender relations and social stability in Addis Ababa. And the specific objective is to increase incomes of 200,000 poor people (50% women and 75% youth) through increased access to wage and/or self-employment opportunities. The programme uses Making Markets Work for the Poor (M4P) approach to guide the design and implementation of its interventions. It is an approach to developing market systems so that they function more effectively, sustainably and beneficially for poor people (in LI-WAY case, primarily for women and youth in Addis Ababa).
Currently LI-WAY identified four sectors which are implemented by each consortium partners. Accordingly, SNV leads on Micro Enterprise (ME), Mercy Corps leads on Labour Market, Techno Serve leads on Growth Sector and Save the Children leads on skill development Market Sector.
Recently, Save the Children International has got agreement and started working with four TVET partners (The partners are from private, civil society organization and public TVET colleges). With the partners, Save the Children International (SCI) agreed to pilot deliverables under various work streams which have their own learning outcomes. Now Save the Children under LI-WAY program would like to outsource research service that follow up, assess and produce learnings on each TVET post graduate start-up support package.
Rationale of Out Sourcing the research
LI-WAY program through Save the Children International has made agreement with four TVET partners to pilot TVET post-graduation support packages. This component of the supports is for those TVET graduates who opted self-employment pathway.
Under this broad workstream, there are mainly three components of supporting packages. These are; (a) providing start-up capital for those TVET graduated who would be demanding the cash in order to start their business and/or running their business in more effective manner. (b) Technical Assistance for the targets TVET graduates that the in house and business expert follow up and mentoring required to run and grow their business. And (c) providing short term and tailored training for targeted graduates on business administration and management. (d) one TVET partner has also planned to provide promotion and marking services to the targeted groups. Each graduate will receive just one of these packages of support.
For the purpose of having practical and biased free learning evidence of each components of support, the program team has decided to out-source the follow up and continues generation of learning by external research consultant. Furthermore, it has been also seen important for the service that because the existing LI-WAY team in Save the children could be busy with the support and follow up of other live interventions of and intervention designing supports. The service will be started after the TVET partners has started providing the support. The services of the external consultant start from conducting the baseline of those targets that just began benefiting the start up support package categories. The service provisions could be in two phases. The first phase of the services starts from conducting the baseline of the targeted beneficiaries and producing deliverables on the given tasks/assignments vis-à-vis the performance that demonstrated by the TVET partners for the first six months since they started agreement and commencement. And the second phase of services actually will be continued with the first consultant upon the performance of the first phase deliverables and submission. Deliverables and researches could be one or two months after the partners completed the provision of support packages to the targets. The tasks and deliverables will be listed below.
Objective of the Consultancy Assignment
General Objective: To assess, distinguish and share success, best practices, challenges, lessons, knowledge and experiences on the piloting TVET post graduate start up supports (Mentioned in Paragraph Six above) to professional service providers/enterprises. The specific research questions are:
• What package of support best enables TVET graduates to start successful micro-enterprises?
• What characteristics of graduates predict successful micro-enterprises?
• What are the results for TVET graduates from taking different packages, both quantitative and qualitative?
• What is the ability of TVETs to manage and provide this package of support?
Specific Objective of the outsourcing assignment
· To Produce and submit baseline reports of the targets in each treatment support packages and their contexts
· To collect and analyse the evidences separately for the three treatment packages with their comparisons
· To produce and sharing learning periodically to LI-WAY team that shows the status of the targets in each support categories
· To facilitate and arrange learning workshops for the four targets TVETs on the learning development from the three treatment packages and comparisons
· To organize and conduct validation workshop in the presence of the four TVETs and LI-WAY team and concerned government stakeholders on the final findings of the learnings.
· Produce and submit report and recommendation to LI-WAY program team
Methodology
This research is assessing and producing a learning among the different post-graduation support packages that being implemented by four TVET partners in collaboration with the LI-WAY program through Save the Children. It will employ quantitative and qualitative data collection methods such as Focus Group Discussion (FGD), surveys, and Key Informant Interview. Interviews should cover both the target group as well as TVET staff, relevant government officials, teachers, etc. The study population (program target groups) and inclusion and exclusion criteria will be developed by the consultant. The sample size data will be also determined by the consultant based on the given targets of the four TVET partners. The consultant will submit the detailed methodology plan (study design, target size, sampling procedure, data collection procedure, data collection tool, data analysis procedure and operational definitions etc) and work-plan for Save the Children LI-WAY program prior starting implementation of the exercise. The desk review, data collection, analysis and report writing will be conducted by the consultant with strong oversight and feedback by Save the Children throughout the consultancy.
Geographical location of the assignment
LI-WAY program is operational in Addis Ababa. Four TVET partners that made agreement with Save the Children and started implementation in Addis Ababa. Even if the TVET partners are located in three sub-cities, the LI-WAY program targets could be in different places in Addis Ababa where they are making businesses. The research consultant will discuss and agree with the LI-WAY program team to determine the location and the number of targets in each support treatment for TVET graduates that chose to have their own enterprise.
Deliverables of the consultancy assignment;
ü Workshop report: Save the Children and the research consultant hold a workshop with TVET relevant partners before the tools and implementation plan are created to ensure that they have a good understanding of the progress, context, needs and suggestions for the implantation plan.
ü A detailed implementation plan and approaches for the consultancy assignment, approved by Save the Children.
ü Report on the desk review of relevant supports experiences for micro enterprises and other relevant and available external literature and research sources
ü Baseline report
ü Collecting, analysing and presenting ongoing learning information on each of the three supporting package
ü Facilitate learning for the four TVET partners on the development and evolving evidences
ü Provide follow up supports as needed to the specific TVET partners together with LI-WAY team
ü Facilitate validation workshop on the final findings of the learning of each treatment and their comparison
ü Prepare and submit soft and hard copy reports of the action research.
Save the Children International (SCI) shall be responsible to;
ü Provide all relevant information to the consultant about the overall program objectives, principles and framework of the approach.
ü Facilitate agreements with the consultant through the SC logistics unit/HRD.
ü Provide oversight of the assignment from beginning to the end
ü Provide comments/ feedback and approve the Plan of Action and documents produced
ü Ensure that the comments/feedback given on the draft report are fully incorporated in the final report
ü Link the consultant with the four TVET partners that carrying out the agreed project activities
ü Provide guidance for the research design and selecting appropriate methodologies, questionnaires, number of targets in each treatment start up support package
ü Facilitate payments for the consultant as per the agreement and SC logistics unit/HRD and Finance disbursement policy.
Ethics, safeguarding and code of conduct
As the consultant(s)/firm will be working on behalf of Save the children, they will be required to adhere to the Child Safeguarding Policy and ethical guidelines.
The consultant will make clear to all participating stakeholders especially children of all ages that they are under no obligation to participate in the action research. All participants will be assured that there will be no negative consequences if they choose not to participate. The consultant must obtain informed consent from all participants, including children and their care-giver if a child is to be interviewed. He/ She must receive prior permission for taking and use of visual still/ or moving images for specific purposes during data collection, document preparation and presentation. The consultant will assure the participants the anonymity, confidentiality and will protect the visual data and its use for agreed purpose only.
Time frame
The specific and detailed timeframe will be discussed and agreed later. But more specifically, the timeline includes:
· Meeting with program staffs and the four TVET partners (5days)
· Prepare the action research plan (including sampling, tools for da collection) and drafting the conceptual structure and outline/ template of the strategy/guideline (5 days)
· Report on the desk review of relevant supports experiences for micro enterprises and other relevant and available external literature and research sources (10 days)
· Baseline report (six weeks)
· Collecting, analysing and presenting ongoing learning information on each of the three supporting package. This activity is the heart of the assignment. It may take more than six months. The consultant will do assignment intermittently as guided by the program team.
· Facilitate learning workshop for the four TVET partners on the development of the learning (2 workshops: 4 days) while doing the assignment
· Final draft summary report (2 weeks)
· Facilitate validation workshop on the final findings of the learning of each treatment and their comparison (2 days)
· Prepare and submit soft and hard copy reports of the action research (five days)
Term of payment
Term of payment will be determined later
Qualification and experiences of the consultant;
In general, the consultant or the consultancy firm should have practical experiences at least in the following competency areas;
· Post graduate level qualification in related subjects (business administration, food security, economics, development studies, or other related discipline).
· At least 5 years of relevant experience in implementing this kind of assignments
· Experience in managing quantitative and qualitative research.
· Experience in different research designs and approaches, including experimental and quasi-experimental designs.
· Experience in the TVET or skills sector is a bonus.
· Experience in urban women and youth livelihood programming
· Experiences in communication and facilitating learning workshops
· Experience surveying youth in Addis Ababa, ideally in the skills market.
· Experience with data analysis and report writing.
Evaluation criteria
The evaluation criteria are based on technical and financial responsiveness. The technical and financial proposal will be evaluated out of 60% and 40% respectively. The bench mark for the technical; proposal shortlisting will be 50% and above out of 100% technical evaluation or simply 40% and above out of 60% score after 100% technical evaluation converted to 60% technical score.
Finally, technical evaluation score out of 60% and financial evaluation score out of the 40% will be summed and the highest scorer of the combined evaluation will be awarded the consultancy service.
The key technical evaluation criteria are:
Rating Criteria | Consultancy Firm Scores | |||||||||||
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1 | Understanding of the TOR (10 points) |
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a | It is clear from the application that the TOR and tasks are clearly understood by the applicant |
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2 | Experience of the consultant(s) in related work (15 points) |
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a | Three examples of completion of similar consulting work with INGOs and UN agencies over the past and the sample provided strongly demonstrates quality of work (5 points) |
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c | Relevance of thematic excellence /expertise (eg. food security, economics, development studies, nutrition or related (5 points) |
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d | Experience in youth livelihoods and development of resource materials manuals/guidelines (5 points) |
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3 | Composition of Professional Team(10 Points) |
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a | Team leader has experience conducting same or similar studies (5 Points) |
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b | Composition of the team (number and qualification vis a vis the approach and methodology proposed / requirement indicated in the TOR) (5 points) |
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4 | Methodology (25 Points) |
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a | Demonstrates clear understanding of tasks and combination of proposed methods (15 points) |
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b | Presents clear logical work plan that demonstrates how proposed activities will meet the consultancy objectives (10 points) |
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5 | Time frame-schedule (10 Points) |
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a | Can complete task within proposed timeframe /within reasonable time period i.e one month |
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6 | Financial (30 Points) | |||||||||||
| Detailed consultancy budget provided (10 points) |
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| Consultancy budget falls below the maximum budget (10 points) |
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| Budget allows for timely and high quality submission of deliverables (10 points) |
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Total Evaluation Score (100%) |
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