Consultant - Baseline Evaluation 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 persons on the basis of need, regardless of creed, ethnicity or nationality. CRS works through local church and nonchurch 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 has worked in Nigeria for more than 25 years.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultant - Baseline Evaluation for Water for Agriculture Project

Location: Abuja
Job Type: Short Term

Terms of Reference
This Terms of Reference (TOR) provides the description and work to be done by a Lead Consultant and Associate to conduct baseline evaluation for Water for Agriculture Project of Catholic Relief Services.

Background
USAID recently awarded a new project to Catholic Relief Services – Nigeria Program called WATER FOR AGRICULTURE. Award start date is 15th July 2019, and the current focus is on start-up activities including development of a comprehensive work plan, elaboration of a detailed MEAL plan, recruitment of staff, and the conduct of preliminary assessments.

The goal of this project is to develop and implement interventions that will sustainably increase water availability and management towards increasing agricultural productivity in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states of Nigeria. This effort will contribute to CRS’ new agency strategy, Vision 2030 “Catalysing Transformational Change at Scale”, and specifically to its strategic platform “Scaling Integrated Pathways out of Poverty: Transforming Lives and Landscapes”. It Will also contribute to ongoing efforts to promote resilience, recovery and development within North-East Nigeria.

Strategic objectives include: improve access to water for smallholder farmers and livestock herders and provide small-scale irrigation infrastructure; strengthen the capabilities of local government institutions and community structures to sustainably manage water resources; and strengthen agricultural productivity and production capabilities of smallholder farmers and livestock herders in selected communities.

Primary Purpose

• CRS’ Nigeria program is seeking an experienced Lead Consultant to collaborate with the Water for Agriculture Team to provide to conduct a baseline evaluation for Water for Agriculture Project. The successful applicant will collaborate directly with the WFA MEAL Specialist, Senior Agronomist and DCOP while COP coordinate the process.
• The overall objective of the baseline evaluation is to determine/review baseline values of indicators as listed in the project data and indicator performance data tables for the USAID Water for Agriculture Activity
• This will involve collection and review of both primary and secondary data for the purpose of the evaluation
• Secondary data will be collected from previous FTF evaluation reports and other related surveys while primary quantitative and qualitative data will be collected during baseline collection activity.

Key activities include:

• Work with COP and MEAL Specialist to review draft Water for Agriculture baseline
• evaluation protocol
• Conduct baseline evaluation activity;
• Analyse collected data and report findings of the activity;
• Share findings with the COP and MEAL Specialist
• Review and determine baseline figures for Water for Agriculture activity.

Main Tasks/Deliverables
The consultancy shall achieve these deliverables:

• Baseline evaluation protocol: the protocol will provide a clear description of how the baseline evaluation survey will be conducted. This includes objectives of the baseline evaluation questions, sample design, sample size determination, data quality assurance plan, ethical approval, and reporting. This will be in line with approved WFA Evaluation Plan. This should also be supported with detailed workplan and budget for the activity.
• Baseline evaluation activity: the consulting firm is expected to train enumerators and make other preparations for mobilization to the field to collect data for the baseline evaluation activity. Following the training, it is expected that a pilot test will be conducted. Afterwards, observations from the pilot will be used for revising the questionnaires based on the pilot findings. During the training it is expected activities that ensure data quality assurance should be conducted. This include method to confirm that data has been collected from location as selected by the sample design, daily reviews of data collected to check for consistency and revisit of sampled communities for triangulation and confirmation of data. In addition, data protection and privacy of respondent must be guaranteed stipulated in CRS MEAL Policies and procedures (MPPs). The trained field Enumerators are expected to collect data to form a dataset for baseline evaluation activity. The Field Enumerators will collect both quantitative and qualitative data as planned in the baseline evaluation protocol.
• Data cleaning, analyses and reporting: After completing the data collection activity, the consulting firm will ensure consistency and accuracy in data collected. The data will be analysed using appropriate statistical tools for both qualitative and quantitative data.
  • Analyses will be mostly descriptive showing percentages/proportion, averages, and sum of counts. It will also compare values across producer groups (smallholder farmers), gender, target age groups and states.
  • Level of disaggregation will include yield by type of crop, state, LGA, producer groups (smallholder farmers and herders), gender, age groups and persons with disabilities.
  • Also, results from baseline will be compared with midterm and final evaluation
• The results from the analyses will used for developing the baseline evaluation report.

Approach and Method
Desk research complemented by field studies in the Northeast and the Northwest. Field research must include interviews with key persons from government agencies and NGOs. Field studies must also include interviews with PSPs and members of SILC groups. Similarly, field research must include focused group discussions (FGDs) with SILC groups. This consultancy will be carried out in Abuja, the Northwest (any Feed the Future project States) and the Northeast States.

Within CRS, the consultant is expected to understand how SILC is incorporated and implemented in our emergency, agriculture and livelihoods and health programs. The consultant will be expected to interview past and current project managers (including Chiefs of Party and Project Directors), proposal design team members and technical specialists. The consultant is also expected to understand the value and commitment that CRS Nigeria places on SILC by interviewing members of the Leadership Team.

Within the non-profits, the consultant is expected to understand and articulate how other NGOs implement village savings and lending schemes within Nigeria. The consultant is similarly expected to understand and articulate the federal (national) and state governments’ savings and lending schemes regulatory frameworks.

Schedule of Deliverables

• Baseline evaluation protocol - A baseline evaluation protocol should be reviewed and finalized 1 week after contract agreement. The baseline evaluation protocol should follow the outline:
  • Introduction
  • Objectives of the evaluation
  • Baseline evaluation questions
  • Methodology
  • Sampling design
  • Data collection process
  • Data analysis and reporting
  • Data quality assurance plan (sampling GPS points from data collection points, daily reviews of data collected to check for consistency and revisit of sampled communities for triangulation and confirmation of data, preliminary analysis of data and cleaning of dataset)
  • Tools/data gathering data for each audience group:
    • Pre-test the tools and
    • Translate and back translate the tools into furfure, kanuri and hausa for participant groups as the case might be.
  • Detailed work plan for the evaluation activity
  • Budget for the baseline evaluation
  • Annexes will include the baseline evaluation datasets accompanying codebook/data dictionary (original paper and/or electronic as well as final, clean electronic data sets with syntax) and ask open source support (.txt,. csv, .doc…)
• Baseline evaluation report with a maximum of 30 pages in length (excluding Annexes). The Report will have the following structure:
  • Executive Summary (2 pages)
  • Introduction and background (2 pages)
  • Baseline evaluation questions (2 pages)
  • Methodology and methodological limitations (4 page)
  • Key research findings (15 pages)
  • Conclusions and recommendations (5 pages)
  • Annexes (research instruments, list of people interviewed, references to the documents reviewed, etc.)
• A final consultancy report and recommendation to CRS. The report should be in English.

Required Qualifications

• CRS places premium on selecting competent consultant consisting of a multi-disciplinary team with the requisite combination of skills, expertise and experience to carry out the baseline evaluation as the project components consist of water management for smallholder farmers and herders, capacity building for state and LG institutions for water management, improving productivity and income for smallholder farmers and herders, and conflict resolution amongst farmers and herders
• The Consultant must also be familiar with the USAID Feed the Future Indicator Guide and Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS)
• Ideally, the consulting firm should have an Associate with survey experience in water resource management, livestock and agronomy.

In addition, the Consultant should have:

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in evaluation of international development programming, preferably of recovery/resilience, infrastructure, livelihood and/or social cohesion programs;
• Evidence of having conducted similar USAID evaluation, especially in NE Nigeria on water resource management, agriculture and social cohesion programs.
• Experience in collection and analyses of large dataset using ICT4D platforms.
• Excellent data presentation skills using various data visualization tools PowerBI, Adobe Illustrator
• Use of statistical packages (SPSS, STATA, Excel) and mapping tools (qGIS, ArcGIS) and relevant ICT4D platforms (such as ODK, Kobo, SurveyCTO etc) for data collection, transmission and analyses.
• Also, must be able to transcribe qualitative data using Excel, Atlas MindMap, etc

Payment Schedule

• CRS will pay a consultancy fee based upon a mutually agreeable daily consultancy rate. Logistics for field trips will be arranged separately. CRS will reimburse operational and logistical costs if they are identified and approved by the Consultancy Manager in advance.
• Please note that CRS will deduct and remit to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) a 5% or 10%
• withholding Tax from the total consultancy fees for individuals or organizations in accordance with the Nigerian Tax Law.

Application Closing Date
COB; Thursday, 7th November, 2019.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send their Expression of Interest (EOI) along with a detailed Resume attached as one document in PDF indicating the Title of the Consultancy and the Consultancy Code: BAW251019 to: [email protected]

Click here for the complete Terms of Reference (ToR) (.docx)

Equal Employer Opportunity

• “CRS is an equal –opportunity employer, does not discriminate based on race, colour, religion and we are committed to gender sensitive programming and management’. etc.
• Qualified women are strongly encouraged to apply”

Safeguarding

• By applying to this job, I understand and acknowledge that CRS requires its staff to treat all people with dignity and respect and to actively prevent harassment, abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. Further, I understand that if I am a successful candidate, I will be subject to a comprehensive background check, and my personal/professional references will be asked to evaluate my behaviours related to the above safeguarding-related topics.

Statement of Commitment to Protection

• ‘’CRS’ recruitment and selection procedures reflect our commitment to protecting children and vulnerable adults from abuse and exploitation’’

Note: Only applicants who send in the required format will be considered and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.