Research Institute / Consultants to conduct a mixed-method evaluation on the Social and Financial Education programmes in Benin, Senegal and the DRC

Research Institute / Consultants to conduct a mixed-method evaluation on the Social and Financial Education programmes in Benin, Senegal and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)

From: Aflatoun International, Amsterdam
When: April 2022 –July 2024 (26 months long)
Deadline for submitting proposals: Friday 8 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
Education opportunities are still not accessible to many adolescents. Over 600 million adolescent girls globally struggle with widespread poverty, limited access to education and health services, and persistent discrimination and violence, making adolescent girls one of the world’s most economically vulnerable groups. With a large and growing population of the Sub-Saharan African population under the age of 24, the socioeconomic development of sub-Saharan Africa is heavily reliant on the wellbeing of its youth, especially the young women and girls. Therefore, the need to address this problem and invest in vulnerable female youth is critical and timely. It is imperative that young people, especially young women and girls, are healthy, receive quality education, and have access to decent work. The recent study “Women’s Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa” found that young women who were provided with social and financial skills in combination with regular SRH interventions had much better outcomes than their peers.
In this context, using the Aflateen+ educational programme, Aflatoun International will equip 20,000 adolescent girls and boys with the necessary skills to transform them into agents of change in their lives and communities. The Aflateen+ programme is a powerful educational tool designed by Aflatoun International to transform the lives of girls and boys through gender sensitive life skills, finance, and entrepreneurship education.

The project’s overall objectives are:
To socially and economically empower 20,000 young girls and boys (ages of 10 – 19) in Benin, Senegal and DRC by providing them with the life skills and financial literacy necessary to make informed choices about their health, financial situation, and education.
The project approach in each country is two-fold and context-based, and includes:

(i) A coordinated civil society approach, which entails building the capacity of civil society actors on the delivery of the Aflateen+ programme (including creation of entrepreneurship and income-generating activities), and advocacy for more inclusive and gender sensitive educational programmes. Through utilising the Aflateen+ educational programme, Aflatoun aims to directly equip 20,000 adolescents (10,000 adolescents in DRC, 6,000 in Senegal, and 4,000 in Benin) through a network of local civil society partners with the necessary skills to transform them into agents of change in their lives and that of their communities. This will be accomplished by using a holistic approach to economic empowerment through our successful Aflatoun entrepreneurship club model.

(ii) A systems’ change approach, which entails working with government institutions on advocating for the inclusion of gender-sensitive life skills and financial literacy components in national curricula. In a strategic effort to provide low cost, quality, and scalable delivery of life skills and financial literacy to all girls and boys, Aflatoun International will engage with governmental institutions in the three countries. This systems’ change approach to scale entails working directly with different national institutions and agencies with the aim to ensure the integration of life skills and financial literacy components into the national formal and non-formal education systems in the three countries. Activities include advocacy, development of curricular materials and teacher guides, and capacity building of key staff in ministries of education, including inspectorates and teacher training institutes.
Evaluation
To assess the effectiveness of the Aflateen+ programme on adolescent girls and boys and young women in Benin, Senegal, and DRC, this research will use a mixed methods approach. Specifically, the evaluation will measure the following indicators as set out in the project log frame:

 Outcome 1: Improved knowledge and capacity of a network of CSOs in Benin, Senegal, and DRC to deliver, and advocate for gender-sensitive life skills and financial literacy education
o % of partners with improved capacity to deliver and advocate for gender-sensitive life skills and financial literacy education
 Outcome 2: Increased awareness of national authorities in Benin, Senegal, and DR Congo on the importance of including gender-sensitive life skills and citizenship
o % of national authorities with increased awareness on the importance of including gender-sensitive life skills and citizenship education in national formal and non-formal curricula*
o # of modules/sessions/themes integrated into the national curriculum/curricula*
 Outcome 3: Improved gender-sensitive life skills and financial literacy behaviors in adolescents aged 10 – 19 that contribute to individual and community socio-economic wellbeing Gender-sensitive life skills and financial literacy education

• % of participants with improved assertiveness*,
• % of participants with improved self-esteem*
• % of participants develop critical thinking related to gender*
• % of participants with improved knowledge on human rights*
• % of participants with improved knowledge and attitudes towards contraception*
• % of participants with improved knowledge and attitudes related to teen pregnancy*
• % of participants with improved HIV knowledge and attitudes*
• % of participants with improved financial knowledge and attitudes*
• % of participants who have started saving
• Average amount saved
• % of participants with improved entrepreneurial knowledge and attitudes*
• ### of savings groups created
• ### of business ideas and plans generated

• of IGAs created

  * Skills and indicators are to be defined in close coordination with the project team.

There are three main components to this assignment:

1. To measure Outcome 1 and Outcome 2 in the three countries (Benin, DRC and Senegal), the study should include qualitative assessment (key informant interviews) with key target groups at the end of the project (trained partners/NGOs to assess the capacity of both trained partners/NGOs in delivering Aflateen+ programme), as well as to assess the awareness of national authorities regarding the importance of including Aflateen+ curriculum in the national curricula.
2. For Outcome 3 in Senegal and DRC, the study should collect and analyse quantitative data through pre-post surveys (or Case Control).
3. For Outcome 3 in Benin, the study should collect and analyse quantitative data through a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) that measures the outcomes linked to the programme.
   Specifically for the RCT in Benin, while Aflatoun International is interested in measuring the improvement in gender-sensitive life skills and financial literacy education, consultants are strongly encouraged to come up with new/innovative component that examines a strong hypothesis from a scope and/or with a specific focus (examples: digital finance, or teacher/facilitators level, or difference between tracks, etc.). Exact hypothesis and question to be discussed and set in close cooperation with the project team.
4. Lastly, the study will also collect and analyse qualitative data through yearly Case Studies of adolescents partaking in the programme at the end of each cycle of the programme. The main objective of the qualitative component is to collect best practices from the clubs that will be formed in public schools and in the Aflateen+ clubs. This data should provide richer analysis to assess outcome 3.

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. RCTs, Surveys, Case Studies, Most Significant Change or Focus Group Discussions;
3. Extensive experience with leading a team of researchers and data enumerators incl. training of data enumerators on the use of evaluation tools;
4. Experience with statistical analyses using statistical software such as STATA or R;
5. 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 DRC, Benin, and Senegal
5. Experience of conducting research and data collection in DRC, Benin, and/or Senegal
6. Presence physically on the grounds on the three locations – Benin, Senegal and DRC

Scope of the assignment
Research institute/consultants agrees to:

1. Liaise with implementing partner and Aflatoun International to understand the implementation design and participate in meetings and workshops throughout the process including attending the training of teachers to understand programme methodologies and content;

2. Procure ethical approvals for Independent Review Boards before commencing data collection activities

3. 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 Tool: Pre-Post Studies and 1 RCT
   i. Survey for adolescents (Pre-Post Studies in Senegal + DRC)
   ii. Survey for adolescent (RCT in Benin). The tool should be developed to answer new innovative research questions developed
   b. Qualitative:
   i. Tools to assess capacity of trained partners
   ii. Tools to assess awareness of national authorities
   iii. Tool(s) for 6 yearly Case Studies (one case study taken from the Aflateen+ clubs at the end of each year, for each country), to be validated by Aflatoun International before deployment. The case studies will target the beneficiaries of the programme to highlight the success stories, challenges, and opportunities that arise as a result of the trainings

4. Write an inception report with the proposed research design, sample size, effect size calculation, randomization (for Benin), and work plan with clear proposed timeline. The required sample size for the pre-post surveys and RCT should be based on total outreach to Aflateen+ clubs and public schools provided by the implementing partner.

5. Execute the randomisation based on list of clubs provided by implementing partners

6. Recruit and train data enumerators on the use of the contextualised evaluation tools;

7. Collect quantitative and qualitative data as detailed above and share datasets with Aflatoun International;

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

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

10. Write yearly Case Studies for each Track in English and French;

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

Timeline
The timeline described below is subject to further discussion with the implementing partner in each country. Selected consultant will coordinate closely with the implementing partner in developing strong research plan with clear timeline.

1. The contracted should be available to prepare for the job starting April 2022
   a. Tools Development
   b. Coordination/meetings, Preparation visits/meetings, inception phase and delivery of inception report
   c. Research permit (IRB) application
2. Throughout the rest of the time the contracted Research Partner will work on piloting and finalizing the tools, collecting quantitative and qualitative data, analyses and report writing for each country (3 in total)
   a. Baseline data collection and Endline data collection (for Pre-Post Study in DRC and Senegal)
   i. Baseline data collection for the Aflateen+ clubs: May-June 2022
   ii. Endline for the Aflateen+ clubs: Oct-November 2023
   b. Baseline data collection and Endline data collection (RCT in Benin): To be discussed based on the proposed design.
   c. A Case Study for each country at the end of each year (2022-2023, 2023-2004) (total of 6 case studies)
   d. Qualitative assessment (trained partners and national authorities) takes place at the end of project in May-June 2024
3. Final Report (July 2024)
   Final report should encompass all components of the study (Outcomes 1, 2 and 3)
   Payment
   The payment of the research institute/consultants will be linked to the following deliverables:
4. 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
5. 20% upon approval of the baseline reports in the 3 countries, and 3 Case Studies (one Case Study for each country) for the first year
6. 30% upon approval of the of the endline reports in the 3 countries, and 3 Case Studies (one Case Study for each country)
7. 20% upon approval of the final report and all data set to Aflatoun
   The indicative budget for this research is 140.000 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 Vitaes of all team members who will be involved, clearly stating their role;
d. At least three references.