Conducting a Citizen Survey on Food and Agriculture Policy System Reform

Background

USAID/Ghana’s Feed the Future (FTF) Ghana Policy LINK Buy-In Activity aims to foster behavior change to strengthen the capacity and ability of Ghanaian stakeholders to participate in a more transparent, inclusive, and evidence-based agriculture and food security policy process—which, in turn, will lead to improved food and nutrition outcomes and broad-based economic growth.

In support of this Buy-In Activity, the Policy LINK team is mapping the landscape of institutional actors currently involved in the food and agricultural policy system and engage these actors—as well as additional Ghanaian stakeholders who potentially have not previously participated in the policy process (i.e., smallholder farmers, civil society, media), Ghanaian citizenry)—to better understand the challenges and opportunities associated with five priority policy areas in order to design future Policy LINK’s interventions. USAID’s five priority areas include (1) agricultural inputs/seeds; (2) agricultural inputs/fertilizer; (3) agricultural trade/facilitation; (4) enabling environment for private sector investment/credit; and (5) resilience and risk management policy/climate-smart agriculture.

This landscape exercise has several benefits for Policy LINK. First, the work will provide the Activity with a solid overview of the actors (government, academics/researchers, civil society, private sector, donors/implementing partners [IPs], media) currently engaged in policy formulation and implementation for food systems in Ghana at both the national and subnational levels, as well as additional stakeholder groups and multi-sectorial actors (i.e., climate change, nutrition) with potential for more principled engagement in food systems policy. Second, the landscape exercise will present an initial stock take of key stakeholders’ (Government of Ghana [GoG], civil society, private sector, and citizens) priorities and willingness to engage on specific issues, which USAID and the GoG can use to inform future programing and focus limited resources. Finally, this exercise will inform Policy LINK workplan activities, including specific sector/issue-based reform efforts.

Description of this Assignment/Scope of Work

Policy LINK is seeking an international, regional, or local firm to support this landscape exercise by providing short-term technical assistance to design and undertake quantitative and qualitative data collection through mobile phone surveys and live calls to monitor citizen perception of and demand for food and agriculture policy system reform as well as to identify citizen priorities regarding reform.

We anticipate using Likert scale and short response questions to explore some or all of the following themes:

• Citizens’ awareness of existing or planned policies regarding agricultural inputs; trade facilitation (such as tariff and non-tariff barriers and sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures); agricultural lending; ease of doing business; land and natural resource tenure rights; nutrition; and climate risk management.
• Citizens’ perspectives on who is engaged in the policy development process (i.e., political parties, donors, regional organizations; business, professional and trade associations; media, research organizations, NGOs, women’s groups; and other).
• Citizens’ opinions on the effectiveness of these policies.
• Citizens’ opinions on the effectiveness of government and other institutions engaged in agriculture and food systems policy
• Citizens’ opinions on priority policy areas (such as seeds, fertilizer, other inputs; agricultural trade; climate risk management; nutrition, agricultural lending; land and natural resource tenure rights; etc.)
• Citizen’s perception on the role of subnational structures for effective service delivery
• Citizens’ perspectives on what needs to change regarding agriculture and food systems policies

In response to this scope of work, the firm will be expected to implement the following activities:

• Develop questionnaire, with guidance from DAI, to deployed via mobile phone survey and live calls.
• Design a sampling frame to ensure completion of a total of 1000 surveys from respondents, representing small holder farmers, women, youth, persons with disabilities and other populations in the FTF Zones of Influence (ZOI)—namely the northern, upper east, north-east, and upper west regions—in addition to Accra.
• Train enumerators and conduct survey.
• Compile and analyze findings.

Deliverables

• Inception report detailing updated work plan • Questionnaire designed and finalized • Data collectors recruited and trained • Data collection implementation • Clean dataset and analysis of results • Draft report and preliminary findings shared with Policy LINK team • Other operational and technical reports, to be determined

Expected Timeframe

8 weeks

Proposal Instructions

In response to this Description of the Assignment/Scope of Work, please provide a narrative response (not to exceed 5 pages) containing the following: Proposed methodology for designing and implementing the citizen survey/poll as described above (including the sampling methodology and approach to reaching citizens through mobile phone and other technologies); Institutional capabilities and experience designing and implementing citizen surveys/polls of a similar size and complexity, including experience with such surveys/polls in Ghana or the region; Demonstrated capacity to synthesize and summarize research findings in a succinct manner; and Key qualifications of the proposed Team Leader and any other personnel deemed critical to the successful completion of this assignment. In addition, please provide a budget, outlining the anticipated costs associated with completing the proposed scope of work.

Evaluation Criteria

Policy LINK will evaluate interested Offerors based on the following criteria, in descending order of importance: • Soundness of proposed methodology, including sampling methodology • Experience conducting opinion and perception polls and related field especially with USAID • Capacity to synthesize and summarize research findings in a report • Qualifications of the Team Leader and any other critical personnel • Cost reasonableness

NOTE: Consulting firm must seek and receive prior approval from the USAID Ghana FtF Policy LINK team (supervisor) before sharing any written information with USAID and other partners.

Position Supervisor

The consultant will work under direct supervision of Program Lead who will provide the overall supervision of this assignment. In ensuring the quality of the work is undertaken, the consultant will continuously consult with the Policy LINK team to agree on expectations, scope of the work, and an updated work plan based on the activity goals and approach. A debrief meeting will be held after each deliverable to discuss any further issues which require further follow-up and reporting.

Submission of Proposals

Separate financial and technical proposals should be submitted to [email protected] and include the reference “LINK-RFP-GHANA-2022/00010- Company’s name” in the subject line, no later than 28th September 2022. Before submission of proposals, please read through Policy LINK’s standard RFP document which provides guidance on the procedures to follow in sending proposals/bids requested by the Project. Please download the full RFP template from this link policylinkglobal.org/ghanacitizensurvey.

Evaluation of Proposals

• 20 points- Proposed methodology for designing and implementing the citizen survey/poll as described above (including the sampling methodology and approach to reaching citizens through mobile phone and other technologies)
• 30 points-Institutional capabilities and experience designing and implementing citizen surveys/polls of a similar size and complexity, including past experience with such surveys/polls in Ghana or the region
• 30 points-Demonstrated capacity to synthesize and summarize research findings in a succinct manner
• 20 points- Key qualifications of the proposed Team Leader and any other personnel deemed critical to the successful completion of this assignment

Payment Schedule

• 20% Inception report detailing updated work plan.
• 30% Upon submission of finalized questionnaire, trained data collectors, data collection implementation.
• 25% Upon submission of clean dataset, draft report and preliminary findings shared with Policy LINK team.
• 25% Final report.