Consultant at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is an International non-governmental organization supporting relief and development work in over 99 countries around the world. CRS programs assist person on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality works through local church and non-church partners to implement its programs, therefore, strengthening and building the capacity of these partner organizations is fundamental to programs in every country in which CRS operates. CRS re-established presence in Nigeria m 2000 and currently focuses on agriculture, HIV and health extractives and governance, and peace building programming.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultant (Request For Proposal Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project)

Location: Abuja

To Conduct

• A Project Household Graduation Survey in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Sokoto and Kebbi states for Catholic Relief Services, Nigeria  Plot 477, 41 Crescent, Sa’adu Zungur Avenue (4th Avenue), Gwarinpa, FCT Abuja, Nigeria

Background
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Nigeria is leading an exciting and innovative project designed to develop sustainable approaches to lift some of the most vulnerable households in Nigeria out of poverty. This USAID-supported project called Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project is implemented by a consortium of non-governmental organizations.

The project is based in rural communities in Northern Nigeria of Sokoto and Kebbi states and the Bwari Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory and has expanded to Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa States in FY17. The project consortium works closely with multiple stakeholders within government at state and local levels, and amongst private sector.

The project partners with eight local civil society organizations and incorporates a focus on local capacity building for sustained service delivery in project locations.
In the NW and FCT, the project engages communities in agricultural-led growth interventions, using a multi-sector approach to help 42,000 very poor households grow their agriculture production, incomes and improve nutrition.

The project seeks to improve agricultural practices with a focus on post-harvest storage for nutrient rich crops already being produced, and promotes a market-oriented approach to diversification of production through ensuring that all agricultural activities are adapted to specific agro-ecological and cultural contexts.

The project also assists vulnerable families through income diversification and provision of participatory comprehensive nutrition activities at the community level. To help vulnerable families move along the Pathway to Prosperity, the project utilizes cash transfers to help meet nutritional needs, recover assets and overcome barriers to income-generating activities.

To support sustainability, the project strengthens the institutional capacity of government systems to implement poverty reduction programs and reinforce accountability between the government and citizens. Therefore, in the NW and FCT, the project has four key results areas of increased agricultural production and productivity, increased income, improved nutrition status and stronger social safety net for households. The project adopts a cohort approach to household interventions.

The project randomized the households benefiting in the project into three classes: A, B, and C. Although the intervention with each class overlapped with another, the intervention began with Class A, then Class B and later Class C. At this stage in the project, the interventions are targeting Class C.  
  
CRS Nigeria requires the services of a qualified consultant to evaluate and implement a process for graduating benefiting households in the project. This activity will focus on a total of 33,653 households from Class B (14,517 households) and Class C (19,136 households).  The graduation tools will be administered to project households located in communities in the following locations: 1. FCT: Bwari Area Council – 4,471 households 2. Sokoto: Dange Shuni, Rabbah, Kebbe and Tangaza LGAs – 17,332 households 3. Kebbi: Birnin Kebbi and Danko Wasagu LGAs – 11,850 households

Objective of the Consultancy

• The overall objective of this consultancy is to design and administer the graduation tools to project households to evaluate their readiness for graduation; rank households based on performance on the project indicators, and determine the appropriate project services necessary for household still receiving interventions to be eligible for graduation.

Main Tasks

• Finalize tools and develop protocol
• Review relevant literature and materials developed and used in the project.
• Review and finalize the criteria for graduation developed by CRS
• Review the tools for graduation using these criteria
• Present the tools to CRS project management team.
• Finalize preliminary protocol and tools after receiving feedback. 
• Administer the graduation tools
• Orient and train the teams to collect data.
• Initiate and supervise the data collection.
• Analyze data and share the initial findings with CRS project team. 
• Report writing and data dissemination
• Write-up data findings and initial draft report.
• Share findings with CRS project team.

Final report.-This must at a minimum contain:

• Title page
• Table of contents
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Objectives of the graduation process
• Methodology (how the graduation was conducted)
• Summary of Findings
• Project implications/Lessons learned  Limitations
• Conclusion and recommendations for the project

Annexes:

• Develop a database of beneficiaries
• General HH information of beneficiaries
• HH Wealth ranking
• Graduation ranking (status)
• Livelihood activities
• Current intervention accessed by every member of the HH

Main Deliverables

• Detailed workplan after engagement and debriefing Revised data collection tool
• Graduation Ranking protocol Report of activity after field data collection
• Detailed database of beneficiaries showing the graduation ranking by state, by class
• Detailed database of beneficiaries showing interventions received by HHs by state, by class
• Draft report of study for review and comments Final report of the study

Timeline

• The survey is expected to take place within a period of not more than 35 days, commencing July 24 to September 15, 2017.

Requirements
To be determined responsive, an offer must meet the below requirements:
General Requirements:

• Applications will be accepted from individual consultants or organizations with experience in household surveys, monitoring and evaluation of agriculture and livelihoods programs.

The consultants should possess the following combination of skills and expertise:

• Post Graduate Degree in Agriculture, Agricultural Economics, Social Science, Development Studies, etc., and with formal research skills.
• At least 5 years of advanced experience in conducting surveys for point estimates of performance indicators with a clear understanding of various social research methodologies.
• Demonstrated research and analytical report writing skills with sound experience in measuring agriculture production, income generation and nutrition and hygiene indicators.
• Experience in multi-sector and multi-partnership approach to poverty reduction and livelihoods programming.
• Ability to clean, analyze and synthesize data using survey data management packages such as CSPro and Excel as well as SPSS and Epi-Info to analyze and report large dataset.
• Good eye for detail, adherence to logic, and capacity for inductive reasoning
• Strong presentation, facilitating, communication and team working skills.
• Strong computer skills and knowledge of ICT4D.
• Demonstrated familiarity with and experience in NW Nigeria.
• Ability to strictly adhere to ethical standards of research and CRS’ protection policy.

Application Closing Date
18th July, 2017.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified consultants must submit the proposal (Expression of Interest) and resume electronically compatible with MS Word, MS Excel, readable format, or Adobe Portable Document (PDF) format in a Microsoft XP environment to: [email protected] The title of the consultancy should be stated as the subject of your email quoting HGS040717 e.g. Household Graduation Survey - HGS040717.