Alliance for Financial Inclusion
1. Background:
The Alliance for Financial Inclusion
The Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) is the world’s leading organization on financial inclusion policy and regulation. Currently, 84 member institutions make up the AFI network including central banks, ministries of finance and other financial policymaking or regulatory institutions from over 76 developing countries and emerging markets. AFI empowers policymakers to increase the access and usage of quality financial services for the underserved through sustainable and inclusive policies and an effective use of digital technologies.
Policies developed and implemented by AFI members contribute to a range of the Sustainable Development Goals. By Setting their own agenda, AFI members harness the power of peer learning to develop practical and tested policy reforms that enhance financial inclusion with strategic support from both public and private sector partners.
AFI has 7 Working Groups (WG): Consumer Empowerment and Market Conduct Working Group (CEMCWG), Digital Financial Services Working Group (DFSWG), Financial Inclusion Data Working Group (FIDWG), Financial Inclusion Strategy Peer Learning Group (FISPLG), Global Standards Proportionality Working Group (GSPWG), Inclusive Green Finance Working Group (IGFWG) and SME Finance Working Group (SMEFWG),
As the key source of policy developments and trends in financial inclusion and as the primary mechanism for generating and incubating technical content in the network, the Working Groups serve as “communities of practice”. Providing a platform for knowledge exchange and peer learning among policymakers to share, deliberate and deepen their understanding, the working groups offer leadership and expertise in their respective policy fields and support the network to monitor new developments in emerging fields.
The knowledge generated via the working groups is disseminated for implementation by a range of capacity building activities such as Joint Learning Programs, Member Trainings, Trainings by Private Sector Partners. The practical experience members garner from engaging in peer learning based capacity building is then applied by members as in country implementation projects which are supported by the provision of financial or technical support to AFI member institutions in conducting activities that aim to deliver financial inclusion policies, regulations, supervisory tools or enablers for the development of policies, such as national financial inclusion strategies.
The working groups receive strategic guidance and insight from the High-Level Global Standards & Policy Committee, while the Gender Inclusive Finance Committee, supports WGs in integrating gender considerations into all aspects of their work and support members in fulfilling their Denarau Action Plan (updated 2022) commitment to promote women’s financial inclusion.
AFI members have made further commitments in a range of other accords which can be read here.
The AFI’s five regional initiatives complete the AFI platform of services by supporting policy implementation in Africa (AfPI), Latin America and the Caribbean (FILAC), the Pacific Islands (PIRI), Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECAPI) and the Arab Region (FIARI).
2. Project Background:
As a member-driven organization, AFI continuously builds its customer orientation, being responsive and flexible to best cater to its members needs and expectations. To do so, AFI conducts an annual Member Needs Assessment (MNA) survey to assess its members’ awareness, usage, and satisfaction of its services. The MNA is also used to gauge members’ future priorities and guides AFI’s decisions about services and thematic areas to focus on.
The 2024 Member Needs Assessment will build upon and be compared against the results of previous surveys from 2014 to 2023. Specifically, the 2024 edition will draw patterns and trends regarding member’s needs and AFI’s performance by comparing data from the previous two (2) editions of the Member Needs Assessment.
The MNA will cover up to 90 developing and emerging member countries worldwide, with up to 500 potential respondents. The survey will have 2 separate questionnaires, one for heads of institutions and another for technical level staff.
The assessment will be an online self-administered survey in three languages: English, Spanish and French, questionnaires to be provided by AFI. AFI will be responsible for contacting members to participate in the MNA.
AFI is seeking the services of a market research organization (MRO) or consultant to provide technical support in undertaking the MNA survey.
3. Scope of Work:
The primary objective of the assignment is to provide technical support in data collection, analysis and report writing of the MNA. Specifically, the tasks include:
- Provide input to the primary questionnaires – for both Technical and High-Level
- Upload the questionnaires (English, Spanish and French) to a web platform and generate unique links for both questionnaires for distribution by AFI
- Undertake data analysis including year-on-year comparison (from 2021 onwards)
- Develop reports and provide key recommendations against assessment’s objective
4. Key Deliverables:
The following are the key deliverables of this assignment:
- Technical research proposal outlining survey design and methodology (including workplan and timeline);
- An online survey platform for the MNA questionnaires;
- Raw data set in ExcelTM archiving all response entry points;
- Draft Report with key findings and recommendations in WordTM / PowerPointTM for AFI’s review;
- Final Report in WordTM / PowerPointTM .
5. Timeline & Resources:
The assignment is expected to commence in mid-April and end by early-August 2024. Below is a tentative timeline:
Consultancy assignment kick-off – Mid-April 2024
MNA Survey Online Platform developed – Mid-May 2024
Data Collection – May 2024 (3 weeks)
Draft report, raw and formatted data set – End-June 2024
Final report – Mid-July 2024
6. Travel:
No Travel is expected for this assignment. The consultant(s) will work remotely and undertake virtual meetings to complete the tasks.
7. Consultant Experience:
- Relevant academic qualifications: Advanced degree in statistics, market research and analysis, data science, behavioural economics or other related field
- Experience in undertaking market research: More than 8 years of professional experience in undertaking market research at global and/or regional level; demonstrated familiarity member/consumer satisfaction survey, human behavioral, organization branding, etc. are desired.
- Experience in quantitative research methods: Experience in undertaking quantitative research is required; knowledge in statistical software (e.g. SPSS) and/or Microsoft Excel is necessary; qualitative research skills are desired.
- Experience with global and/or regional membership-based organization: Prior experience working with membership-based organization on their satisfaction and/or needs survey is desired; engagement with financial regulatory entities particularly in developing countries would be an advantage.
- Ease of use of survey portal: Data collection tool with user-friendly user interface, customizable for organization branding, and multi-lingual capability
- Language and report writing skills: Fluency in English (oral and written)
8. Reporting:
The MRO will report to AFI Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Department. The consultant will be expected to provide regular reports and updates to AFI during the assignment.
9. Payment Terms:
The payment terms/schedule proposed for this consultancy are as following:
Deliverables – Percentage
Upon signing of contract and submission of technical research proposal (Key deliverables 4.1) – 10%
Upon development and acceptance of MNA Survey Online Platform (Key deliverables 4.2) – 30%
Upon submission and acceptance of draft report, raw and formatted data set (Key deliverables 4.3 and 4.4) – 40%
Upon submission and acceptance of final report (Key deliverables 4.5) – 20%
TOTAL: 100%
10. Administrative Information:
10.1 Disclaimer
The final decision on selection of a firm for this project rests with AFI management team and with the Inquiry. Only shortlisted and successful firms will be contacted.
10.2 Proposal Submission Information:
Proposals will be due with the following requirements for submission:
Submission Deadline:
19 March 2024
Documents to be submitted with Annexure 1 and 2:
Firm
· Company Registration;
· Company Profile;
· List of previous or current clientele on similar work;
· References with email contact;
· Joint-Agreement (if any);
· Conflict of Interest Disclosure form;
· At least one (1) sample work (link or attachments) if any
Individual
· Full CVs with list of previous similar work;
· Disclosure if individual have a full time or part time employment contract with any organization or government official or indirect involvement in this tender;
· Conflict of Interest Disclosure form;
· Reference letter (if any);
· References with email contact;
- At least one (1) sample work (link or attachments) if any
Method of Submission:
By email to AFI’s Procurement & Contracts Office at
Submission of Technical and Financial:
Kindly submit the followings:
1. Using the template/format given in Annexure 1 (Technical) and Annexure 2 (Financial) and/or additional technical proposal for more information.
2. Technical and Financial proposal must be separated in different pdf.
3. Financial proposals must be USD only. Whereas for Malaysian applicants with Business Registration under Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM), please submit your financial proposals in MYR.
4. Proposal to be submitted to the designated email address.
5. AFI does not tolerate copyright infringement, including but not limited to infringement, in the form of plagiarism. Consultant or Consulting entity awarded a contract by AFI shall take responsibility to ensure that the authored works, produced in parts or as an entirety of the deliverables stated in this RFP does not infringe on copyrights.
AFI reserve the right to disqualify incomplete submission, overlapping submission, non-compliance to the above requirements. Notification of results will only be sent to shortlisted candidates upon completion.
10.3 Retention of Proposals
All proposals submitted become the property of AFI. AFI will make all reasonable efforts to maintain proposals in confidence and will release proposals only to personnel involved with the evaluation of the project. Proprietary information should be identified in each proposal.
11. Criteria of Evaluation:
The proposals submitted will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
Technical Scoring Criteria
1. Profile and Overall Qualification – 30%
Profile of individual and/or firm – 5%
Demonstrated understanding of the scope of work – 10%
Demonstrated ability to write quality report. Sample of previous work should be submitted by consultant – 15%
2. Technical Experience – 50%
Experience in conducting market research; research skills, especially qualitative research and data analysis – 20%
Survey portal – user-friendliness of user interface, customizable for organization branding, multi-lingual capability, etc. – 30%
3. Adequacy of proposed workplan and methodology – 20%
· Technical approach and research methodology – 10%
· Workplan – 10%
Total: 100%
Evaluation of technical and financial proposals
The evaluation and decision on the best proposal will be made based on the combined criterion, where companies are qualified by means of a score that takes into account the combined valuation of the technical and financial proposals, with the following weights:
i) Technical Proposal: 70% (Seventy percent)
ii) Financial Proposal: 30% (Thirty percent)
How to apply
Interested applicants are expected to submit a proposal with an updated CV and using the template given by email to AFI’s Procurement & Contracts Office at [email protected] by 19th March 2024.
Note: AFI does not tolerate copyright infringement, including and not limited to infringement, in the form of plagiarism. Consultant or consulting entity awarded a contract by AFI shall take responsibility to ensure that the authored works, produced in parts or as an entirety of the deliverables stated in this RFP does not infringe on copyrights.
The final decision on the selection of a consultant/consulting firm for this project rests with AFI management team and with the Inquiry. Only shortlisted and successful consultants will be contacted.
Deadline: 19 Mar 2024