Consultancy Service: Undertaking a Mid-term Review using Women’s Empowerment In Agriculture Index (WEAI) Survey

Terms of Reference
Consultancy service: undertaking a mid-term review using Women’s Empowerment In Agriculture Index (WEAI) survey

Background

SNV is a not-for-profit international development organisation. Founded in the Netherlands more than 50 years ago, we have built a long-term, local presence in 39 of the poorest countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Our global team of local and international advisors work with local partners to equip communities, businesses and organisations with the tools, knowledge and connections they need to increase their incomes and gain access to basic services – empowering them to break the cycle of poverty and guide their own development.

In pursuit of its mission and purpose, SNV is implementing programmes in Agriculture, Water sanitation and hygiene and Renewable energy.

“Enhancing Opportunities for Women’s Enterprises” (EOWE) is a 5 year programme (2016-2020) funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The Netherlands as part of the Funding Leadership and Opportunities for Women (FLOW) funding stream. The programme is implemented in collaboration with local partners in four central provinces of Vietnam (Quang Binh, Binh Dinh, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan), and 12 Arid and Semi-Arid Counties in Kenya.

The programme aims to advance women’s economic participation and self-reliance in Kenya and Vietnam by creating a conducive environment for female entrepreneurship as a vehicle for change. The programme focuses on enhancing the implementation of gender-sensitive policies, while tackling socio-economic and gender barriers at local levels to improve the enabling environment for Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE). In addition, the programme supports women to enter business, as well as those already in businesses, to increase their profitability and viability so as to address inequalities in the economic arena. The FLOW/EOWE programme will build the capacity of local actors to be central pillars of this change.

In the inception phase (mid-2016), the FLOW/EOWE programme collected baseline data for key women’s empowerment indicators using the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) tool. A Lead researcher/WEAI baseline Team leader for the WEAI baseline survey was recruited for both countries, Kenya and Vietnam, to design the baseline survey, train enumerators, lead the analysis of the data from WEAI baseline survey and develop a report. In addition, data collection firms have been recruited for each country to collect and process the data according to the established design. The outcomes of the survey has been used to establish baseline indicators and develop the programme’s M&E plan.

Assignment

In the summer of 2018, halfway through the implementation of the programme, SNV will review the progress of the EOWE programme. To be able to report to the indicators agreed upon with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, the mid-term review survey will consist of a representative sample of women members of enterprises and cooperatives in Vietnam that participate in the programme. The mid-term review survey will use the abbreviated-Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (a-WEAI) questionnaire. SNV is looking for a reliable, trustworthy and experienced agency to conduct the data collection for the mid-term review of the EOWE programme in Vietnam. NOTE: data analysis is not part of the assignment and will be done by the SNV M&E staff.

The Baseline report of the EOWE programme is available online here:

Baseline report - Vietnam

CONSULTANCY SERVICE DESCRIPTION

Methodology

IFPRI’s Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index

According to IFPRI, empowerment is not only about individual choice, but also about someone’s ability to act on those choices, which necessitates access to and control over material, human and social resources.[1] In 2011, IFPRI and USAID created an index to measure women’s empowerment, encompassing choice and control, aimed specifically at women working in the agricultural sector: the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI). [2] This index focuses on 5 Domains of Empowerment:

1. Decision-making power over agricultural production: This dimension concerns decisions about agricultural production and refers to sole or joint decision-making about food and cash crop farming, and livestock and fisheries;
2. Access to and decision-making power over productive resources: This dimension concerns ownership of and access to productive resources such as land, livestock, agricultural equipment, consumer durables, and credit;
3. Control over use of income: This dimension concerns sole or joint control over the use of income and expenditures;
4. Leadership in the community: This dimension concerns leadership in the community, measured by membership in formal or informal economic or social groups;
5. Time -use: This dimension concerns the allocation of time to productive and reproductive (domestic) tasks.

The EOWE programme uses the a-WEAI questionnaire to track progress on its M&E framework.

Sampling and Questionnaire

The sample will be taken from a list of members of enterprises and cooperatives taking part in EOWE activities. The sampling will be done by SNV’s M&E advisor and will be provided to the successful agency. The agency would therefore not have to do any sampling, but is asked to review and feedback on the sampling. Procedures and documents detailing the sampling process will be shared with the agency for transparency on how SNV got to the sample.

A finalised questionnaire will be provided to the successful agency by SNV. The successful agency is asked to review the questionnaire and provide feedback and input. SNV will ensure to put the questionnaire in our mobile data collection app (Akvo Flow) to ensure that is ready to use by the selected agency. Akvo Flow is the preferred tool if the selected agency is using Android phones. The agency can suggest a different data collection tool if they do not have access to Android phones. In those cases:

1. The agency is responsible for inserting the questionnaire in the tool to be used and to make it available to enumerators. The questionnaire and the tool should be checked by a member of the SNV M&E team;
2. The agency clearly states in their proposal how this data collection tool and how their data processing systems are compliant with the new EU law on the protection of personal data (GDPR), effective 25th May 2018.

Enumerators and supervisory field staff will be trained on the questionnaire and the use of the app (in case of Akvo Flow) by SNV. The successful data agency is expected to ensure that smart phones or tablets are made available to enumerators.

Data collection

Data collection will take place among women who are members of enterprises and cooperatives that are taking part in activities organised by EOWE and their husbands (where relevant). This means that 2 questionnaires are taken per household in the case of male-headed households and 1 questionnaire per household in female-headed households (where there is no husband present). These women live in the following 4 provinces in Vietnam: Binh Dinh, Binh Thuan, Ninh Thuan and Quang Binh. Data collection will take place in all 4 provinces.

We expect a total number of 500 respondents, coming from roughly 250-300 households, depending on the number of female-headed households that will be sampled.

Data quality assurance

SNV values high quality data gathered in an effective and efficient manner. To support this, SNV works with the Akvo Flow data collection tool. This is a mobile data collection app, which facilitates offline data collection in the field and is connected to an online cloud where data can be monitored and checked remotely. SNV would like to use this tool or a similar e-based tool for the EOWE mid-term review survey in Vietnam. The agency and its enumerators will receive access to the tool.

Pen and paper data collection can only be used as a backup in case of possible technological malfunctions.

To ensure high quality data and minimise data collection errors, SNV includes a data stop of 3 days during fieldwork. The agency will collect data from the first 50 respondents of the sample and will share this data with SNV staff. SNV staff will then take a maximum of three days to inspect the data and feedback issues they encounter to the agency supervisor. Together with the agency, solutions will be found to these issues. During data inspection, no additional data will be collected. Green light from the SNV M&E advisor is necessary to resume fieldwork. A data stop allows for the quick detection of problems and prevents the collection of unusable data. As the a-WEAI is a complicated survey, such a data stop is considered necessary. The agency should feel comfortable with the level of engagement of SNV M&E staff in the data collection process. The proposal should also include how the agency incorporates the data stop in their fieldwork.

Other data quality assurance measures the agency will take before, during and after data collection should be outlined in the proposal.

Tasks and deliverables

Within the current assignment, the successful agency will perform the following tasks, resulting in the outlined deliverables.

• Tasks to be completed by the agency:
• Feedback on the questionnaire
• Feedback on the sampling
• Active attendance of enumerators and field supervisory staff in training
• Ensure a sufficient number of qualified enumerators to collect the data
• Field supervision of enumerators to oversee data collection
• Data quality assurance during data collection
• Data collection within time, according to sampling and questionnaire guidelines – ensure high quality data and actively work with SNV M&E staff

SNV will receive the following deliverables from the agency:

• High quality data collected in line with sampling and the questionnaire guidance
• A report on the data collection process, including but not limited to issues encountered during field work, how these were resolved and possible effects on data analysis
• Raw data in Excel, ready to be imported to SPSS and STATA – uncleaned

Data cleaning and data analysis will be done by the SNV M&E staff.

Overview duties and responsibilities

Scoring

Scoring of proposals will be done by a dedicated selection committee that will take into account the technical (maximum score 70%) as well as the financial proposal (maximum score 30%).

Interview

The short list of service providers will be interviewed in the last week of May.

Proposal submission:

Technical and financial proposals should be sent to: [email protected]

The deadline for proposals is May 20th, 2018

Proposals received after this date will not be considered.

Proposed Timelines

The data collection has two options to go into field:

• 2nd July – 13 July (preferred option)
• 30th July – 10th August

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[1] Alkire et al., The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index, IFPRI Discussion Paper, 01240, 2012.
[2] USAID, INTERVENTION GUIDE: FOR THE WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN AGRICULTURE INDEX (WEAI) - Practitioners’ Guide to Selecting and Designing WEAI Interventions, 2016, https://agrilinks.org/library/intervention-guide-womens-empowerment-agri... (accessed February 20, 2017).