Terms of Reference for Consulting Services for Baseline Study
Job Description
Job description
Expression of Interest
(By the consulting firm in response to the REOI issued by the procuring entity)
For Baseline Study
REF: WB&W/RLRP/2024/010
Instructions to Consultants[1]
Assignment Title: Baseline Study
Reference No: WB&W/RLRP/2024/010
The Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation of Federal Government of Somalia has received financing from the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) towards the cost of Rural Livelihoods Resilience Program (RLRP) and intends to apply part of the proceeds for the recruitment of consulting services.
The use of any IFAD financing shall be subject to IFAD’s approval, pursuant to the terms and conditions of the financing agreement, as well as IFAD’s rules, policies and procedures. IFAD and its officials, agents and employees shall be held harmless from and against all suits, proceedings, claims, demands, losses and liability of any kind or nature brought by any party in connection with Rural Livelihoods Resilience Program (RLRP).
The consulting services (“the services”) include to develop the sample design, conduct the data collection and analysis and report writing of the Baseline survey to be used for the project targeting, monitoring and evaluation process.
This request for expressions of interest (REOI) follows the general procurement notice that appeared on the IFAD website on November 2nd, 2024, on UNDB on November 2nd, 2024 and on the ministry of agriculture and irrigation’s Website on November 2nd, 2024.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation of Federal Government of Somalia (“the client”) now invites eligible consulting firms (“consultants”) to indicate their interest in providing the services. Interested consultants should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the services. Interested firms should fill the template for expressions of interest and submit found at https://somalijobs.com/ and send it to the address indicated below.
The attention of interested consultants is drawn to IFAD’s Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Policy[2] and the Revised IFAD Policy on Preventing Fraud and Corruption its Activities and Operations[3]. The latter sets forth IFAD’s provisions on prohibited practices. IFAD further strives to ensure a safe working environment free of harassment, including sexual harassment, and free of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in its activities and operations as detailed in its IFAD Policy to Preventing and Responding to Sexual Harassment, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.[4] By entering in this document, you certify to have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Privacy Policy of IFAD.[5]
The consultant shall not have any actual, potential or reasonably perceived conflict of interest. A consultant with an actual, potential or reasonably perceived conflict of interest shall be disqualified unless otherwise explicitly approved by the Fund. A consultant including their respective personnel and affiliates are considered to have a conflict of interest if they a) have a relationship that provides them with undue or undisclosed information about or influence over the selection process and the execution of the contract, b) participate in more than one EOI under this procurement action, c) have a business or family relationship with a member of the Purchaser’s board of directors or its personnel, the Fund or its personnel, or any other individual that was, has been or might reasonably be directly or indirectly involved in any part of (i) the preparation of this REOI, (ii) the shortlisting or selection process for this procurement, or (iii) execution of the contract. The consultant has an ongoing obligation to disclose any situation of actual, potential or reasonably perceived conflict of interest during preparation of the EOI, the selection process or the contract execution. Failure to properly disclose any of said situations may lead to appropriate actions, including the disqualification of the consultant, the termination of the contract and any other as appropriate under the IFAD Policy on Preventing Fraud and Corruption in its Projects and Operations.
The following conflict of interest rules shall apply with respect to recruitment of government/client staff within the consultant’s proposed team:
(a) No member of the client’s board of directors or current employees of the client (whether part time, or full time, paid or unpaid, in leave status, etc.) shall be proposed or work as, or on behalf of, any consultant.
(b) No current employees of the government shall work as consultants or as personnel under their own ministries, departments or agencies.
(c) Recruiting former client or government employees to perform services for their former ministries, departments or agencies is acceptable provided no conflict of interest exists.
(d) If a consultant proposes any government employee as personnel in their technical proposal, such personnel must have written certification from the government confirming that: (i) they will be on leave without pay from the time of their official proposal submission and will remain on leave without pay until the end of their assignment with the consultant and they are allowed to work full-time outside of their previous official position; or (ii) they will resign or retire from government employment on or prior to the contract award date. Under no circumstances shall any individuals described in (i) and (ii) be responsible for approving the implementation of this contract. Such certification shall be provided to the client by the consultant as part of its technical proposal.
(e) In the case where a consultant seeks to engage the services of any person, who may have left the client within a period of less than twelve (12) months of the date of this RFP, it must obtain a written “no-objection” from the client for the inclusion of such a person, prior to the consultant’s submission of its proposal.
A consultant will be selected in accordance with the based on quality and cost based selection method (QCBS) set out in IFAD’ project procurement handbook that can be accessed via the IFAD website at www.ifad.org/project-procurement. The client will evaluate the EOIs using the criteria provided in Annex 2. The shortlisted consultant(s) will be provided with the detailed TORs and asked to submit a detailed technical and financial offer. The evaluation will include a review and verification of qualifications and past performance, including a reference check, prior to the contract award.
Consultants may associate with other firms to enhance their qualifications but should indicate clearly whether the association is in the form of a joint venture and/or a sub-consultancy. In the case of a joint venture, all the partners in the joint venture shall be jointly and severally liable for the entire contract, if selected.
[1] This document refers to legally constituted consulting firms as “consultant”.
[2] The policy is accessible at https://www.ifad.org/en/document-detail/asset/41942012.
[3] The policy is accessible at www.ifad.org/anticorruption_policy.
[4] The policy is accessible at https://www.ifad.org/en/document-detail/asset/40738506.
[5] The policy is accessible at https://www.ifad.org/en/privacy.
Skills and qualifications
1 Firm expertise and required qualifications
The selected firm shall possess the following qualifications:
– 10 years of experience in planning and organizing survey logistics in the Horn of Africa or Sub-Saharan Africa.
– Core business of the firm and 10 years in business
– Experience and Knowledge and demonstrated experience of designing and leading baseline and mid-line surveys and project evaluations
– General experience in successfully implementing similar assignments .
– Strong knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods and sampling strategies of relevant services in an environment similar to that of Somalia in a field related to Baseline survey, assessments, studies and research.
6.2 Key Staff
The proposed team should consist of reasonable number of qualified and experienced professionals having proven track record in designing and implementing socio-economic and baseline studies and/ or evaluation studies and having good depth of understanding of rural development as well as of and
gender and social inclusion. The bidders are expected to propose a study coordinator/Team Leader and
appropriate number of experts, field supervisors, enumerators and support staff.
Minimum key professional staff positions are:
– One study coordinator/team leader: Advanced degree in economics, statistics, agricultural economics or related field. At least five years relevant experiences in conducting impact evaluations,
large quantitative survey implementation and analysis, experience in household and agricultural data
collection and analysis required, ability to coordinate teams and ensure timely reporting. The study coordinator/Team Leader will be in charge of coordinating the planning, implementation of the studies and ensuring that the work is conducted following the highest professional standards. The individual will be in charge of ensuring that the quality control and supervision mechanism in place for the survey is effective, manage the data collection team and ensure that each member performs their specific scope of work.
– One expert in survey implementation and field supervision: Minimum five years’ experience
with large survey implementation, experience in implementing household and agricultural surveys
required. Preferably with previous experiences in conducting surveys in Sudan.
– One socio-economic researcher: Advanced degree in economics, agricultural economics or
related fields, at least five years’ experience in analysing survey data using STATA or equivalent
software. Strong background and experience in statistics and econometrics is required. Ability to write
clearly and concisely in English. Previous experience in impact evaluation is preferred.
– One computer specialist in data entry and data bases: Minimum experience of three years
with large survey data sets and data entry software / CAPI (computer assistance programme interface) required. The data specialist will develop appropriate data management system with adequate quality controls, and finalize the data management system before the data collection team moves to the field. The data management system would also be organized in such a way as to deliver partial datasets on a regular basis to the Project Team.
Minimum key support staff positions are:
– Field supervisors: Minimum of 2-3 field supervisors should be hired (best ratio would be 1
supervisor every 4 enumerators). They should be chosen based on the firm’s best practices. Some
degree of knowledge of local languages is expected at least from a sufficient number of the supervisors. At least two years’ experience in conducting or managing household surveys is required.
– Survey enumerators: Minimum of 8-10 enumerators should be hired. Minimum qualifications
include knowledge of local language. Preference should be given to candidates with experience in
quantitative data collection in rural Sudan, namely, on the themes of the questionnaire.
– Data entry technicians: Minimum qualifications include knowledge of local language and
advanced computer skills. Preference should be given to candidates with experience in quantitative data entry and/or previous experience in survey work. Data entry won’t be required if the firm is experienced in CAPI software.
1. Future use of the data
The clean dataset as well as the resulting reports will be property of the RLRP, the Federal Government of Somalia and IFAD. The data will be used to inform the SNRLP monitoring and evaluation and the project targeting strategy.
2. Services and facilities to be provided by client
The Client will provide the following inputs, project data, reports, etc. to facilitate the preparation of the Proposals:
– Relevant and available programme documents and reports and other information necessary to the successful completion of the assignment at the disposal of the Consultant.
– Administrative approvals for the survey from the necessary authorities and the Client will also ensure close support to the survey work by the provincial and district authorities.
3. Services and facilities to be provided by the consultant
The Consultant will provide the following items while carrying out the assignment:
– Office space,
– Office equipment,
– Vehicles,
– Any other equipments materials and/or tools.
Attachments
REOI Baseline Study
.docx
REOI_Procurement Officer _HCDP_Education – – Copy
.docx
How to apply
Any request for clarification on this REOI should be sent via e-mail to the address below no later than 10:00 AM November 19th, 2024 Somalia local time. The client will provide responses to all clarification requests by 12:00 PM November 23th, 2024 Somalia local time.
Expressions of interest must be delivered in written form using the forms provided for this purpose. EOIs shall be submitted to the address below no later than 12:00 PM December 4th, 2024 Somalia local time. For Expressions of Interest that will be delivered in (hard copy), the packages should be clearly marked: REF: WB&W/RLRP/2024/010: Baseline Study for Rural Livelihoods Resilience Program (RLRP) addressed to:
Attention: National Program Coordination Unit
Rural Livelihoods Resilience Program (RLRP)
Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation MOAI
Federal Government of Somalia
KM4 Street, Hodan, Mogadishu Somalia.
Email Address: aabyan@rlrp.gov.so
Cc: amuhumad@rlrp.gov.so
