Research Institute/Consultants to conduct a mixed-method evaluation and Randomized Controlled Trial of the Cocoa for Good & AflaYouth programme

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Research Institute / Consultants to conduct a mixed-method evaluation and Randomized Controlled Trial of the Cocoa for Good & AflaYouth programme in Ivory Coast

From: Aflatoun International, Amsterdam

When: March 2022 –December 2023 (22 months long)

The candidate should be available in May 2022 (Orientation, M&E Tool Development and Pilot Testing), May-June 2022 (Baseline), and Sep – Dec 2023 (Endline, Endline Reports and Final Report).

Deadline for submitting proposals: Friday 15 April 2022

Background

Aflatoun International is a non-profit organization, which offers social and financial education to children and young people worldwide, empowering them to make a positive change for a more equitable world. Aflatoun creates high-quality curricula, for different age groups, which are contextualized to local needs and specific circumstances. In 2019, Aflatoun reached 10.5 million children in 108 countries through over 345 partner organizations.

Aflatoun programs inspire children to discover their talents and put them to use, to stand up for their rights and those of their communities, to play games, and to solve problems. They learn how to save, how to budget, and how to set up social and financial enterprises that benefit themselves, their families, and their communities.

Aflatoun has been identified as a ‘best practice’ organisation by The Brookings Institution in the report, ‘Can We Leapfrog? The Potential of Education Innovations to Rapidly Accelerate Progress’. The report presents a forward path in global education by examining the possibility of using innovations to ‘leapfrog’, rapidly accelerating educational progress to ensure that all young people develop the skills they need to thrive in a fast-changing world. Additionally, in 2019, HundrED Connect officially recognized Aflatoun as one of top 5 Spotlight Innovators for its work on financial education. HundrED Connect is an initiative that aims to improve education and inspire a movement by encouraging pedagogically sound and ambitious innovations to spread across the world. Aflatoun was also selected as an official Vanguard Member of the Million Lives Club, which celebrates innovators and social entrepreneurs who are reaching new horizons of impact and improving the lives of those living on less than $5 a day, and who have already scaled to serve at least 1,000,000 people.

Project information

In 2018, Aflatoun International, in partnership with The Hershey Company and Inades-Formation, launched a pilot project under the TRECC (Transforming Education in Cocoa Communities) initiative that aims to address the key challenges related to youth unemployment, life skills and long-term quality education young people face in rural cocoa-growing communities in Ivory Coast, namely in the region of Mafere. The project’s goal was to unlock the potential of 300 young people in cocoa- growing communities to become agents of change in their own lives through a comprehensive Life Skills and Financial Education Programme. Throughout the project’s lifetime, a comprehensive cocoa and agriculture- based social and financial literacy program was developed and delivered to youth aged 15- 30 years old. Content varied from lessons on mixed cropping and micro- enterprising, to sourcing of capital, budgeting and saving. These lessons were delivered in school

facilities, or community centres, and were provided by the project’s implementing partner in Ivory Coast, Inades-Formation.

According to the mid-term evaluation of the pilot project, preliminary findings of the pilot showed that more and more of the project’s participants engaged in income-generating activities.

Throughout the program, participating youth also grew to better perceive the farming profession, as the program sought to highlight the importance of reviving the concept of farming and the importance of the agricultural sector. Additionally, as a result of the pilot, young people were able to identify and pilot income-generating activities using skills gained from the program.

For the scale up phase, Aflatoun International will build on the work and results of the pilot using the following two approaches:

1. Target the 300 (pilot) youth from the four initial Hershey-Barry Callebaut Cocoa Action communities who participated in the pilot project and deliver complementary lessons that are focused on building their technical entrepreneurship and business development skills, while continuing to support them with their IGAs and development of business plans. This

intervention’s success is bound to the availability of a start-up capital which can be either allocated through this project scale up budget or identification of other sources within Ivory Coast (e.g. Agence Emploi Jeunes). Youth will have the choice of 5 types of IGAs to decide from for which internal markets already exist. The 5 types will be determined based on a market assessment as part of the needs assessment. The project will further focus on financial inclusion, start-up capital provision for participants, and strengthening connection between farmers and cooperatives. The project team recognizes the importance of young participants to choose their income generating activity, provided that it meets the demands of the community.

1. Recruit 800 new participants (at least 30% female) in newly selected Barry Callebaut Cocoa For Good communities to join the program from the start (i.e. Life Skills, Financial Education, Employability & Entrepreneurship, IGAs). It was decided not to recruit any new youth in the 4 pilot communities as the project team identified that it reached about the maximum of youth volunteering to join the program in these communities. The scale-up phase intends to continue to target youth between the ages of 15-30 as direct beneficiaries. Indirect beneficiaries (up to 4000) include: parents, children and peers of young people in the project, cooperatives and cocoa communities, teachers, trainers of teachers and staff members at the Ministry of Education.

Youth in this context are in urgent need of basic life skills and financial literacy, technical vocational agricultural skills, and a safe support system to fall back on for guidance and advice. This includes coaches and youth peers, access to financial products and services, identification and access to (self) employment opportunities in cocoa growing communities and the supply chain. They are also in need of mediation with village representatives and elders to show that youth can indeed be entrusted with farmland or other opportunities. This is particularly the case for young women. Strict criteria have been created for the selection of these beneficiaries as this would not just be a training but an intensive project with continuation through support structures (clubs, mentors and coaches).

The Hershey project’s overall objective is:

To address gainful self-employment challenges faced by youth in cocoa-growing communities by providing them with the social and financial skills that will allow them to create their own income- generating opportunities and improve their livelihoods.

This will be ensured through the following interventions:

Needs Assessment: A needs assessment was conducted in the new target communities to collect relevant information needed to finalise programme design (target group, major stakeholders, cooperatives, child labour needs based on Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS), etc.). The needs assessments would also build on Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA)’s feedback and results and other findings from similar TRECC projects. The project team will leverage the information from the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI) collected per community e.g., data on Child Labour needs. Questions the needs assessment will address can be found in section B2 point 2 of this proposal.

Curriculum Development: Aflatoun developed a dedicated agriculture (Cocoa for Good) curriculum in French during the pilot, which will be improved based on learnings from the pilot phase, local partner recommendations and the performed needs assessment. Depending on the findings of the (IPA) evaluation, core additional components will include:

• Gender related issues, such as family planning and sexual and reproductive health and rights;

• Entrepreneurship content that focuses on transition to work and economic independence through employment or enterprise.

The improved curriculum will consist of the original 23 sessions, plus catered content on business planning and entrepreneurship that will better equip young people with the skills to create decent work and make better decisions regarding income streams.

In addition, the AflaYouth curriculum will be delivered to both groups of beneficiaries, in the three project zones . AflaYouth curriculum is an education tool designed by Aflatoun International in respond to the growing need of programmes that facilitate school to work transition designed especially for youth. This need is urgent given the growth of the youth population, increasing poverty rates, and limited access to job opportunities. The AflaYouth educational programme was designed with the aim to support young people through providing them with relevant skills required to facilitate their transition into the job market. In addition to financial components (saving, budgeting, digital finance), the programme further supports youth in strengthening their employability skills (job research, interviewing, developing CVs) as well as their entrepreneurship skills (market research, ideation, and business model development).

Training of Trainers and Coaches: Aflatoun is responsible for the training of trainers and coaches. Aflatoun’s cascade training model ensures that its active learning methods and facilitation skills are easily transferred to facilitators, trainees and coaches. The two pilot facilitators will also play a key role in the trainings as their experiences during the pilot phase are extremely informative for newly trained facilitators.

Communities Orientation and Youth Scoping: Aflatoun and partners will hold orientation meetings in the new target communities to inform its leaders and members about the project, its rationale and importance, as well as clarifying the roles and responsibilities of all parties. Aflatoun will also hold a stakeholder meeting with the local authorities for both the aim of information and collaboration, as Aflatoun will seek to work closely with the Ivorian national authorities in the scale phase of the project.

Launch of Agricultural Entrepreneurship: INADES will continue working with formed clubs (pilot communities) and will create new clubs in the newly selected communities:

• Technical training related to the project, life skills and financial education (newly selected communities);

• Entrepreneurship and employability training and support for IGAs throughout duration of project (pilot + newly selected communities);

• Inspiration and discovery visits to MFI/banks, technical workshops, cooperatives, agro- enterprises (newly selected communities).

The groups will be taught how to save and set-up their own savings/VSLA groups. Inades will provide technical training and specific entrepreneurship activities, as well as ongoing coaching of youth in their IGAs conditional on the availability of a starting capital.

Evaluation

To assess the effectiveness of the Cocoa for Good and AflaYouth programmes on adolescent girls and boys and young women in Ivory Coast, this research will use a mixed methods approach for the pilot group of 300 youths in the Mafere region and a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) for the group of 800 youths (at least 30% female) in the Abengorou & Soubre regions.

o For the pilot group of 300 youths in the Mafere region, the study will collect and analyze quantitative data through a pre-post survey that measures the outcomes linked to the AflaYouth programme, considering they already covered the Cocoa for Good content in 2018. The study will also collect and analyze qualitative data through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with adolescents partaking in the programme at the end of the programme to capture their feedback and test whether their skills and knowledge have improved.

o For the group of 800 new youth participants in the Abengorou & Soubre regions, the study will collect and analyze quantitative data through a RCT that measures the impact of the Cocoa for Good and later on the AflaYouth programme on the participants.

The main questions of the evaluations are:

• What is the impact of the programme among participants in the Abengorou & Soubre regions?

• What is the effect of the programme among pilot participants in the Mafere region?

We aim to not only measure knowledge, awareness and attitudes of adolescent girls and boys, but also SDG outcomes like school retention/attendance/drop-out, teenage pregnancy, gender-based violence, and HIV-risk behavior, as well as indicators related to employment and entrepreneurship. Specifically, the evaluation will measure the following indicators as set out in the project log frame:

• % of youth who save (through VSLA or individual savings)

• % of youth who improved their knowledge of the cocoa supply chain

• % of youth who improved their entrepreneurial knowledge and attitudes

• % of youth who reported diversifying their income streams (assuming this yields higher income)

• % of youth who have increased income compared to last year

• % of youth who perform hazardous activities (following definition of ICI, child labor measure for participants below age 18)

• % of youth who express satisfaction for the programme

Experience requirements

Research institute/consultants should have:

1. Experience conducting quantitative and qualitative evaluations;

2. Extensive experience in developing quantitative and qualitative tool: e.g. Surveys, Case Studies, Most Significant Change or Focus Group Discussions;

3. Extensive experience in designing and conducting RCTs;

4. Extensive experience with leading a team of researchers and data enumerators incl. training of data enumerators on the use of evaluation tools;

5. Experience with statistical analyses using statistical software such as STATA or R;

6. Experience with collecting qualitative data and qualitative analyses.

Skill requirements

1. Fluency in English;

2. Fluency in French;

3. Master’s degree or PhD in a relevant field (e.g. Development Economics, Social Sciences, M&E);

4. Contextual knowledge of Ivory Coast;

5. Experience of conducting research and data collection in Ivory Coast.

Scope of the assignment

Research institute/consultants agrees to:

1. Liaise with implementing partner and Aflatoun International to understand implementation design and participate in meetings and workshops throughout the research process;

2. Attend the training of teachers to understand programme methodologies and content;

3. Procure ethical approvals from Independent Review Boards before commencing data collection activities;

4. Develop and pilot quantitative and qualitative tools: draft tools and get them validated by Aflatoun International, test the internal validity of the developed evaluation tools in a pilot phase, report results and provide recommendations and integrate those for tool improvement;

a. Quantitative:

i. Pre/Post Surveys

Group: Pilot beneficiaries Region: in Mafere

Program: Refresher of Cocoa for Good & AflaYouth (Social and Financial Education with entrepreneurial and employability skills, focused on agribusiness)

Target: 200-300 youths of pilot group (to be reached and mobilized)

ii. Randomized Controle Trial (RCT) – Survey to youths

Group: New group of beneficiaries Region: in Abengorou & Soubre regions

Program: Cocoa for Good & AflaYouth (Social and Financial Education with entrepreneurial and employability skills, focus on agribusiness)

Target: 800 youths (at least 30% female) of the treatment group in addition to the control group in the Abengorou & Soubre regions

b. Qualitative: Tool(s) for 3 FGDs (at the end of the programme for the pilot group and the two new groups), to be validated by Aflatoun International before deployment. The FGDs will target the beneficiaries of the program to highlight the feedback, success stories, challenges, and opportunities that arise as a result of the trainings, with a focus on Outcome 3 (national integration).

1. Calculate required sample size for the pre-post survey and RCT based on the total outreach to the clubs formed by the implementing partner. The sample size should allow for significant conclusions to be drawn. The sample size should be included in an inception report, along with the work plan and the final tools following the pilot (point 4);

2. Write inception report, including the evaluation methodology, tools, workplan and sample size.

3. Recruit and train data enumerators on the use of the contextualised evaluation tools in French;

4. Collect quantitative and qualitative data from both schools and vocational centres and share datasets with Aflatoun International;

5. Import all the quantitative data into statistical software and analyse the quantitative and qualitative data;

6. Write high quality baseline and endline reports with the assessment results and recommendations in English and French;

7. Write a final report in English and French and share all final datasets with Aflatoun International.

Timeline

Research institute/consultants agree to work within the following timeline:

1. The contracted should be available to prepare for the job starting in March – April 2022 in Ivory Coast

a. Tools Development

b. Coordination/meetings, Preparation visits/meetings, inception phase

1. Throughout the rest of the time, the contracted will work on piloting and finalizing the tools, collecting quantitative and qualitative data, analyses and report writing.

a. Pilot (Testing of qualitative and quantitative tools) and delivery of inception report: May 2022

b. The baseline will consist of deployment of pre-survey (quantitative)

i. Baseline data collection for Group 1 (pilot group): May 2022

ii. Baseline data collection for Group 2 (800 youths and control/comparison groups): May 2022

iii. Baseline report (should include results from (i) and (ii))

c. The endline will consist of deployment of post-survey (quantitative) and FGDs

i. Endline survey and FGD for Group 1 (pilot group): Sept- Dec 2023

ii. Endline survey and FGD for Group 2 (800 youths and control/comparison groups): Sept – Dec 2023

iii. Endline report (should include results from (i) and (ii))

1. Final Report (December 2023).

Payment

The payment of the research institute/consultants will be linked to the following deliverables:

• 30% upon approval of the inception report which includes results of the pilot, the final quantitative and qualitative tools, the sample size calculation, and the work plan

• 30% upon approval of the baseline reports

• 20% upon approval of the endline reports

• 20% upon approval of the final report

The indicative budget for this research is 60.000 EUR.

Bid for research institute / consultant services Interested candidates must include the following:

a. Technical proposal including a detailed evaluation methodology and information

on experience conducting quantitative and qualitative programme evaluations;

b. Detailed financial proposal including daily rates of all team members and activities (incl. VAT);

c. Curriculum Vitae of all team members who will be involved, clearly stating their role;

d. At least three recent references of similar projects.

Hiring details

The position is for a Research Consultancy.

Due to the nature of Aflatoun’s work with children around the world, specific attention is drawn towards Aflatoun’s Child Protection Policy and its Policy on the Protection of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA). These two policies are required to be signed by consultants and forms part of the consultancy contract. The applicant commits to zero tolerance towards sexual exploitation and abuse. An additional written test may be required.