Terms of Reference for Baseline consultant: Arua and Yumbe strengthening Children Resilience and Learning Continuity Project Amidst Covid-19 project

About us:

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is an Agency of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), a group of private, non-denominational development agencies that share a mission to improve the living conditions and opportunities for marginalized communities across some target countries in Africa and Asia. AKF was established by His Highness the Aga Khan in Switzerland in 1967 and AKF work in East Africa started in 1974. In Uganda, AKF operates a multi-sectoral portfolio that includes programming in Education, Economic Inclusion, Civil Society, Health and Early Childhood Development predominantly in the Central and West Nile Regions. AKF is implementing a one and a half year (18months) program and is seeking a qualified consultant(s) to lead design, field data collection, report writing and dissemination for the Baseline study.

Programme Background.

In 2020, AKF led a diverse consortium of partners to generate media content to elevate the importance of reading for enjoyment and learning through play. These included, but were not limited to, Night-Time Tales, Bena and Kena (both aired on NTV), and Play kits with videos and posters (See akflearninghub.org/). Based on the success and learning from these, AKF is looking to expand this partnership to increase the reach and impact of reading and play content across Uganda. In 2022, AKF will be developing and distributing “Community Listening Library Starter Kits” featuring storybooks, games, audio resources, and other related materials. Through this, AKF aims to:

• Enable children to access locally developed content that elevates the idea of reading for enjoyment, engaging children’s imaginations, and interests.
• Share games and playful activities to enable children to further their engagement with the content and the overall experience.
• Promote local stories, and iv) engage children and their parents to become active contributors through content creation opportunities.

Consultant scope of work

AKF is seeking to engage a consultant to carry out strengthening Children Resilience and Learning Continuity Project Amidst Covid-19 project baseline in Yumbe and Arua district. The data collection will be in implementation area. The study population will be the households, parents, and key stakeholders from the programme areas of implementation.

Objectives of the baseline study

• The baseline study is to help key project stakeholders focus on achievement related to a set of expected outcomes; and to empower them to collaboratively measure progress towards them, as well as review as needed and appropriate.
• The specific objectives are:
• To support a better understanding of the implementation contexts for the LEGO Project at the onset of the project.
• To establish project benchmark based on indicators in the PMF,
• To help validate the assumptions in the project’s Theory of Change (ToC) and an improved-on indicators in the project’s Performance Measurement Framework (PMF); and
• To provide recommendations for the development, updating and implementation of the results-based monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning (MERL) plan for the project.
• Baseline data is intended to inform the establishment of realistic and achievable targets, provide a point of reference against which progress on or towards the achievement of outcomes can be monitored and evaluated, and provide suggestions for the review of indicators if and where necessary.

Methodology

The Consultant will be responsible for preparatory meetings, review of documents including the project proposal, developing the project study design and methodology; development of data collection tools and pilot testing; field data collection; enumerators recruitment and training; quality assurance; data analysis; reporting and dissemination. He/she is expected to adopt a mixed method approach in conducting the evaluation to allow a comprehensive examination of all aspects of the Intervention and in addition also be expected to review primary and secondary data to inform the assessment.

Ethical Standards and Safeguarding:

The design and implementation of the study must be in line with the research ethical standards including protection of participants from potential research-related harm, confidentiality, informed consent, beneficence, respect for persons and safeguarding principles to protect respondents from sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, and bullying.

Deliverables

The main deliverables and activities for this project are as follows:

• Inception report: A detailed inception report per the requirements agreed with AKF.
• Baseline report: Completed Baseline study report (the report should have quantitative and qualitative findings, completed dummy tables, data visualizations, and analysis of findings. The reporting structure should follow the requirements established with AKF and will include the following data as annexes:
• Datasets: Raw data and complete, cleaned datasets in English de-identified and The Consultant will also be expected to provide a fully ‘cleaned-up’ dataset in an agreed file format (e.g., XLS, SPSS).
• Transcribed and translated transcripts:Complete, edited transcriptions and translations of all survey responses, focus group discussions and interviews conducted in English.

Key competencies

• Team lead should possess at least a master’s degree in Education, demography/ population studies, Statistics and with essential training in Monitoring and Evaluation (At least for lead consultant). Any training in public policy is an added advantage.
• Other team members should ideally possess multidisciplinary qualifications across social science, social work, clinical/ human medicine, and related qualifications.
• Strong experience carrying out surveys and associated qualitative data collection, particularly focusing on refugee settings.
• The lead should have experience of conducting similar evaluations
• Demonstrated experience in employing Open Data Kit (ODK) or other computer assisted personal interviewing software.
• Demonstrated experience in data management, including designing and managing ECD projects and capable of handling large datasets for study purposes.
• Country knowledge and experience in conducting research and impact evaluation studies Uganda specifically in West Nile.
• Demonstrated experience of safeguarding and respecting vulnerable populations.

Reporting channel and submission

The Baseline Survey will be led by AKF Uganda and supervised by MERL Coordinator. The team will work closely with all designated AKF stakeholders for all the programme related information and administrative procedures.