Girl Effect
Request for Proposal
Gavi 5.0 Programme Evaluation (Tanzania and Ethiopia)
December 2022
Request for proposals for a full-service research agency to design, run and deliver a quantitative evaluation for Girl Effect’s Gavi 5.0 programme.
Who We Are
Girl Effect (GE) works to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty for girls. We believe that if we stop viewing girls as part of the problem and see them as participants in new solutions, they can rewrite their future and their children’s – creating a better reality for all. However, social norms hold girls back. Even when the services they need are available, individual and societal barriers prevent girls from accessing them – these ‘invisible barriers effectively confine them.’ We want to reframe how girls are valued by changing how girls and the people around them think, feel, and act.
We do this by helping connect girls to the critical assets they need by harnessing the power of mass culture media brands to reframe the value of girls. Everything we do is driven by girls and accelerated by technology to deliver the biggest impact. Working with our partners, we reach millions of girls in more than 60 countries through the daily technology girls use.
At Girl Effect, we empower girls to navigate the pivotal time of adolescence, so they are enabled to make choices about their health, education, and economic future – no matter where in the world they live.
We use our in-depth understanding of the real needs of girls, along with innovative behaviour change science, to create branded media girls love; virtual and real-world spaces where they can be inspired, informed, and connected to services and others—ultimately, so they can take action to change their lives.
Background
Summary of the partnership with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
GE first partnered with Gavi between 2016 and 2021 on routine childhood immunization and HPV vaccine demand generation. The successful collaboration continues with a new phase starting in 2022 and will run until 2025.
The four-year programme will run in Tanzania and Ethiopia with the following objectives:
- Identify and action the key barriers and enablers to immunisation to contribute to an
- Increased uptake of HPV vaccine for eligible girls and Routine Immunisation (RI) in target populations in priority areas;
- Strengthen the capacity of the Ministries of Health in the use of tailored digital and mass communications to generate demand for vaccines;
- Contribute to the global knowledge of barriers to vaccination and solutions for reaching missed communities.
HPV Vaccines
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines prevent infection by certain types of human papillomavirus. Available HPV vaccines protect against either two, four, or nine types of HPV. All HPV vaccines protect against at least HPV types 16 and 18, which cause the most significant risk of cervical cancer.
The HPV vaccine is recognized as an essential prevention strategy, with the WHO recommending HPV vaccines to be included in routine national immunization programs as a public health priority (Perlman et al., 2014). HPV vaccines are most efficacious in females who have not been exposed to vaccine-related HPV types (WHO, 2012). Consequently, the primary target population will likely be girls between 9 and 10 years to 13 years. This cohort is selected based on the age of initiation of sexual activity and the feasibility of reaching young adolescent girls through schools, healthcare facilities, or community-based settings (WHO, 2012).
Routine Childhood Immunisation
Routine childhood immunization (RI) is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions and has been estimated to avert approximately 2 to 3 million deaths annually. Yet, vaccination rates in many African countries remain low. A child is considered fully immunized if they receive a BCG vaccine against tuberculosis, three doses of DPT to prevent diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus, at least three doses of the polio vaccine, and one dose of the measles vaccine.
The Scope
Girl Effect is looking to commission a research agency (or two agencies, one in Ethiopia and one in Tanzania) with experience in girl-centred quantitative research, to run an evaluation of their 4-year programme. The evaluation should deliver against the evaluation objectives below. The successful agency will be able to provide local expertise and apply their experience to design, run and report on the impact of Girl Effect’s 4-year programme for Gavi.
An important part of the programme is also to ensure we are reaching and impacting the lives of those hardest to reach, including those in zero dose locations, including out of school girls as well as school girls and mothers giving birth at home as well as in health centres, so these must also be included in evaluation sample.
Evaluation objectives
- To measure Girl Effect’s programme impact on the key barriers and enablers to immunisation,
- To measure Girl Effect’s programme impact on the uptake of HPV vaccine for eligible girls.
- To measure Girl Effect’s programme impact on the uptake of Routine Immunisation (RI) in target populations in priority areas;
- To identify insights contributing to the global knowledge of barriers to vaccination and solutions for reaching missed communities.
Tasks
The successful agency will be responsible for the following:
Design:
- Design the evaluation to meet Girl Effect’s requirements. We anticipate this is likely to be baseline, midline, and endline cross-sectional study but are open to other recommendations that deliver on objectives.
- Including working with the Girl Effect programmes team to identify the required locations for evaluation
- Agreeing on the final design with Girl Effect’s evidence and insight team
- Design sample specification to be representative of target audiences and to include zero dose locations and individuals
- Achieve required ethical approvals and obtain approval district level public entities
- Translate (and back translate) and contextualising the data collection tools into local languages
Setup
- Recruit a suitable team of quantitative researchers and field enumerators
- Recruit a suitable team of female quantitative researchers and field enumerators for gender-matched interviews with young women and girls
- Facilitate training for all researchers, including a pre-testing exercise under real-field conditions
- Complete survey testing and scripting
- A post-pilot debrief and working sessions to refine and adapt the data collection following the pre-testing
- Sample and recruit communities and participants according to the provided purposive sampling criteria
- Obtain informed consent from all participants as well as consent from parents/caregivers of participants and assent from minors
- Conduct quantitative data collection in the selected districts, following strict quality assurance procedures and ensuring high data management standards. All field worker management, logistics etc, shall be the agency’s responsibility.
Fieldwork
- Capture and store all survey data using digital devices.
- Compile and submit field summaries with a breakdown per locality on agreed-upon frequency
- Ensure all work is conducted according to the Girl Effect Girl Safeguarding Policy and an agreed safeguarding agreement
Analysis and reporting
- Provision of raw and clean data sets
- Conduct analysis
- Deliver draft reports for Girl Effect’s feedback and input
- Deliver final reports for Girl Effect and Gavi, along with video-call debrief
- Additional, the final report delivered to ethical approval boards as required
The agency will coordinate closely with Girl Effect to deliver work that delivers on all Girl Effect ad Gavi reporting requirements. The Girl Effect Teams will conduct quality assurance during the fieldwork implementation. And review and agree on all major stages of the design and delivery.
Deliverables
- Evaluation Design (with GE’s support and input)
- Participant sampling
- Survey tool
- Consent and Assent forms
- Translations of survey tools into relevant languages and formats
- Risk assessment
- Ethical approval certificates
- Training plan
- Raw data files for each stage (baseline, midline, endline)
- Clean data files for each stage (baseline, midline, endline)
- Data tables as per GE specification, including sig testing for each stage (baseline, midline, endline)
- Baseline report
- Midline report
- Endline report
- Ethical approvals final report
Procurement Timeframe
- Terms of reference published: Dec 23, 2022
- Deadline for Questions/Clarifications Jan 9, 2023
- Deadline for responses: Jan 13, 2023
- Supplier selection, contracting, and briefing: End of January 2022
- Project commencement: February 2023
Questions/Clarifications
If you have questions about this RFP, please email [email protected] copying [email protected] by Monday, 9th January 2023. All questions will be answered and shared through an FAQ on our website.
Location
The consultant will be remote and must be conducive to working with teams in the UK, USA, Sub-Saharan Africa & India.
Reporting
The agency will have a primary point of contact in our Global Evidence and Insights Senior Manager but will work closely with the local managers and senior managers, especially for tool translation and fieldwork components.
Project Timelines:
- Agency procurement completed – End Jan 2023
- Ethical approval submitted – March 2023
- Ethical approval achieved – End April 2023
- Baseline fieldwork – June 2023
- Baseline reporting – August 2023
- Midline fieldwork – April 2024
- Midline reporting – June 2024
- Endline fieldwork – March 2026
- All final reporting – July 2026
Who You Are
Skills and expertise:
- Extensive experience in designing and conducting quantitative research
- Capacity to deliver all areas expected of this research from design, through recruiting and training researchers, to leading the data collection process in target field locations, ensuring quality assurance and working in line with research ethics principles and delivering high-quality reporting.
- Experience designing and conducting quantitative studies in Tanzania and/or Ethiopia, especially with children/girls, preferably in multiple regions.
- Experience conducting sensitive research with hard-to-reach, most vulnerable populations
- Experience in interviewing minors and adolescents and of safeguarding policies and procedures
- Excellent and demonstrated understanding of Child Protection/ Safeguarding and ethical issues in research
- Excellent fieldwork supervision and data quality control strategies
- Ability to conduct a risk assessment and mitigation plans for research
- A fieldwork team of interviewers
- A fieldwork team of female interviewers for girls and young women interviews
- Proven record of effectively managing relationships with research partners
- Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstration of effectively managing relationships with research partners
- Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstration of effectively managing relationships with research partners
- Exceptional communication and organisation skills
- Ability to respond to comments and questions in a timely, appropriate manner
- Experience in delivering outputs on time and on budget
- Ability to write clearly and concisely in English
- The reputation of the responding agencies and any previous experience in similar survey/research will also be considered.
Proposal Submission
Interested consultants are asked to submit the following to support their candidature (Max 10 pages):
Technical Proposal
- Your understanding of the brief and why you feel you are well-placed to advise us on this
- Credentials – Please showcase any previous work that you consider relevant to what we are trying to achieve, how we approach our work and the audience we cater to. Describe the qualifications, experience, and capabilities of the firm or consultant in providing the requested services (CV/Profile).
- An initial proposal for design
- Workplan with Clear Timelines
- Reference – Provide at least three references for similar contracts with a description of the service provided, the value of the contract, and the contract periods of performance.
In their technical proposal, the bidder must demonstrate an understanding of the requirements described in the RFP and demonstrate how the bidder will meet the requirements of the evaluation criteria. The technical proposal must be at most ten pages.
Financial Proposal
- A breakdown of the financial proposal in USD indicating the daily rate for each of the proposed experts, time input and all applicable reimbursable expenses
- All applicable taxes should be quoted separately;
Technical and Financial proposals will need to be submitted as separate documents. Financial bids will not be opened until the technical evaluation and then only for those proposals deemed qualified and responsive.
GE is not liable for any cost incurred during the award/contract preparation, submission, or negotiation of the award/contract. All submitted documentation and/or materials shall become and remain the property of GE.
The proposal’s VALIDITY shall be 90 days from the bid closure date.
Evaluation Criteria
The criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are listed below.
Technical Evaluation
- A well-written capability statement clearly outlines your experience in delivering the Scope of Work and how you meet the ‘Who You Are’ requirements above – 20%
- An initial proposal for design (to be finessed with the GE team upon contracting) – 20%
- Ability to achieve project goals/deliverables, i.e. does the proposal clearly have strong feasibility to move forward the critical deliverables on schedule? -10%
- Demonstrate geographic experience in Tanzania and/or Ethiopia – 10%
- Clear and Concise CV demonstrating relevant expertise – 10%
- Evidence of a minimum of three contactable references – 10%
Financial Evaluation
- Value for money/proposed budget breakdown – 20%
Tax
When developing their proposals, applicants are advised to ensure that they clearly understand their tax position regarding local jurisdiction tax legislation provisions.
Disclaimer
GE reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice and reserves the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party. GE shall inform ONLY successful applicant(s). The process of negotiation and signing of the contract with the successful applicant(s) will follow.
Safeguarding
You may be required to undertake safeguarding checks. Shortlisted consultants will be assessed on our organisational values at the interview stage. The successful consultant will be expected to adhere to our safeguarding policy. We encourage you to read and understand our safeguarding policy, the executive summary of which can be found here. We have zero tolerance for violence against children, beneficiaries, and staff.
Equal Opportunities
Girl Effect Services is committed to equal opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity, or expression. We are proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace.
We are committed to building an increasingly representative organization that works extensively with the communities we serve. To this end, due regard will be paid to procuring consultancy service organizations and individuals with diverse professional, academic and cultural backgrounds.
How to apply
How to Apply
Please submit proposals, as described above, to Girl Effect’s procurement team ([email protected]) cc’ing our lead researcher ([email protected]) by the 16th January 2023, at midnight latest. Please mark your email with the subject line, ‘‘Proposal – GAVI 5.0 Evaluation.’