Terms of Reference (ToR) for Data Collection Consulting Firm for Baseline Assessment

Project Title(s):

● Empowering Rural Youth for Resilient Economic Development

● Strengthening Farmers and SMEs Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production and accessing the structured markets in Nigeria project

Location: Bauchi, Benue, Kaduna, Niger, and Plateau States

Client: ThriveAgric

Contract Duration: 1 Month (To be completed September 2024)

Application Submission Deadline: 30th August 2024

Contracting: 2nd September 2024

Background:

Thrive Agric is an agri-tech company created to help smallholder farmers gain access to formal markets through a partnership with large agribusinesses that require high-quality cultivation of the cash crops they buy. Thrive Agric is undertaking a baseline assessment for its Empowering Rural Youth for Resilient Economic Development project in Bauchi, Benue, Kaduna, Niger, Plateau State and Strengthening Farmers and SMEs Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production and accessing the structured markets in Nigeria project in Niger State.

The Empowering Rural Youth for Resilient Economic Development project seeks to evaluate the status of youth and women employment/unemployment/underemployment within the project state across rural areas, to ensure the project intervention is well tailored to meet the community needs and impact while also working towards achieving our Theory of Change.

The Strengthening Farmers and SMEs Resilience through Climate Smart Grain Production and accessing the structured markets in Nigeria project seek to evaluate the current status of smallholder farmers and SMEs in Niger State, focusing on climate-smart agriculture, financial services, market access, women's inclusion, and climate change impacts. The objective is to gather comprehensive baseline data to inform project implementation and measure progress against key indicators.

Objective(s) of the Consultancy:

The primary objective of this consultancy is to provide professional data collection services to support the baseline assessment of the aforementioned projects. This will include the collection of quantitative and qualitative data to address the project's key indicators and to ensure a thorough understanding of the current challenges and opportunities within the communities.

Scope of Work

The consulting firm will be responsible for the following tasks:

● Oversee, manage, and report on all field data collection activities for the assessment

exercise.

● Establish data quality standards and perform quality checks to ensure that the data

collected is accurate, consistent, and reliable.

● Translate and reverse-translate surveys and protocols from English into the local

language.

● Program and pre-test surveys to ensure they are ready for field data collection.

● Secure the necessary local permits for community entry and manage exit procedures

once data collection is complete.

● Create field protocols to direct the fieldwork, including research ethics, data

collection procedures, training guidelines for the field team, quality control measures,

and troubleshooting procedures.

● Hire and assign roles to local, experienced field enumerators for the project.

● Facilitate focus group discussions and key informant interviews to gather qualitative

insights.

● Transcribe and clean qualitative data to prepare it for analysis.

● Aggregate quantitative data and submit well-organized, high-quality data for analysis.

● Document and report on lessons learned from the field.

● Develop a detailed work plan and timeline for data collection activities.

● Engage in regular meetings and field visits as coordinated with all project partners.

● Regular progress reports and a final consultancy report detailing the analysis, lessons learned and challenges encountered.

Deliverables:

1. Comprehensive Data Collection Plan and Field Protocols: A detailed work plan

and timeline for data collection activities, including field protocols covering research

ethics, data collection procedures, enumerator training, and quality control measures.

2. Cleaned and Organized Quantitative and Qualitative Data: High-quality,

well-organized datasets (both quantitative and qualitative) ready for analysis,

including transcriptions of focus group discussions and key informant interviews.

3. Progress Reports: Regular progress reports detailing the status of fieldwork,

challenges encountered, pictures, and any mitigation strategies implemented, along

with feedback from field visits and meetings with project partners.

4. Final Consultancy Report: A comprehensive final report summarizing the

consultancy’s activities, data analysis, lessons learned, challenges encountered, and

recommendations for future projects.

Qualifications:

Firms expressing interest in this assignment must demonstrate that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to undertake the assigned tasks. Shortlisting will be based on an analysis of the following information:

● Be officially registered in the country of operation with current and active

registration.

● Demonstrate prior experience in conducting data collection activities.

● Show proficiency in using electronic data collection tools such as KOBO COLLECT,

ODK, or SurveyCTO.

● Possess the ability to implement strong data quality assurance measures, ensuring the data collected is accurate, complete, and reliable, with expertise in data cleaning, error detection, and validation techniques.

● Have a thorough understanding of the local context, including cultural norms,

community dynamics, and geography, to effectively interact with and build rapport

with study participants and stakeholders.

● Maintain and enforce policies such as Code of Conduct, Safeguarding Principles,

Anti-Fraud, and Conflict of Interest.

Duration:

The consultancy is expected to commence on the 1st of September 2024 and be completed by the 31st of September 2024. The specific timeline for each phase of the work will be outlined in the data collection plan.

Reporting and Communication

● The consulting firm will report directly to the Impact Evaluation Manager and the

Head of Strategic Partnership at ThriveAgric.

● Regular meetings will be held to discuss progress and address any issues during data collection.

● Written progress reports should be submitted as agreed upon in the data collection plan.

Submission process:

Expression of interest (EOI) must include the following:

● Company profile, addressing all key competency areas identified above

● A detailed proposal outlining your approach to the consultancy, including a timeline

and methodology.

● A budget proposal for the consultancy job.

Please note that EOI which does not include all required documents will be disqualified.

Application:

Expressions of Interest should be submitted to samirah.bello@thriveagric.com

Subject: “EOI – Data collection firm (Name of Firm)” by 30th August 2024.

N.B: Firms who do not have the minimum requirements need not to apply

Only shortlisted firms will be contacted for the next stage of the recruitment. PLEASE NO PHONE CALLS