IM Qualitative Research & Learning Partner at BRAC International

BRAC International

IM Qualitative Research & Learning Partner
IM Qualitative Research & Learning Partner at  BRAC International May 2024
Contract Duration: July 2024 to October 2024
Location: Tanzania
Overview of AIM:
Mastercard Foundation Accelerating Impact for Young Women in Partnership with BRAC,
or AIM, is a multi-faceted, seven-country program designed to equip 1.2
million adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Africa with
age-appropriate entrepreneurship, employability, and life skills
training, along with the tools to start and scale their own businesses.
From 2022 to 2027, the five-year, $267 million program will integrate
several of BRAC’s globally recognized, evidence-based approaches,
drawing from Empowerment and Livelihood for Adolescents (ELA),
Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG), microfinance and other programs.

Implemented
in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Kenya,
AIM is part of the Mastercard Foundation’s Young Africa Works strategy,
which seeks to enable access to dignified and fulfilling work for 30
million young Africans, 70 percent of whom will be young women, by 2030.
AIM applies a “best-of-BRAC” approach, achieving social and economic
development for AGYW by drawing from several programmatic models already
shown through rigorous research to achieve positive impact in a way
that is both scalable and cost-effective. The
goals of AIM are to: foster the agency and voice of AGYW to act on
their aspirations, enable AGYW to engage in sustainable livelihoods,
create an enabling environment for AGYW, including support for their
engagement in advocacy.

Objectives:
BRAC
International seeks a qualitative research and learning partner in
Tanzania to execute a small-scale study of AIM’s first cohort, which
went through the program in 2023. Applicants must have a physical
presence in the country they propose working in.

The AIM Learning Agenda
is a working document that serves as a roadmap for generating evidence
and filling knowledge gaps to improve the effectiveness of the AIM
program. The Learning Agenda is intended to help BRAC and its external
learning partners design and plan appropriate research, monitoring, and
evaluation activities to answer prioritized learning questions. More
specifically, the Learning Agenda identifies knowns and unknowns,
including evidence gaps in the existing literature related to the
programme’s theory of change (ToC); establishes links between this ToC
and the existing evidence base, while identifying key assumptions to be
tested; proposes learning activities best suited to testing these
assumptions and answering the prioritized questions; and identifies ways
to assess the implementation fidelity, generalizability, and efficiency
of the AIM model and its various components. Potential research
partners should review the Learning Agenda thoroughly to acquaint
themselves with the AIM program and our learning objectives.

Methodology:
The
qualitative research partner will use in-depth interviews and focus
group discussions to answer questions including but not limited to:
Among
young women who have already completed the program in cohort #1, how do
they perceive their experience in the programme? What changes in their
lives and livelihoods do they attribute to the programme participation?
How do participants describe the transition to microfinance (e.g.,
barriers and opportunities)? How do AIM cohort #1 mentors perceive their
experience in the programme? After completing their role as a mentor,
has their status in their community changed?

Core responsibilities

• Co-develop
  a research protocol and qualitative data collection tools with the BRAC
  International Research & Learning team and respond to comments
  received from relevant programme teams.
• Apply for and receive
  Institutional Review Board (IRB) and any other necessary local and/or
  national research permissions to conduct the qualitative research.
• Actively communicate and coordinate with BRAC International research and implementation teams.
• Collect data, manage, and store data according to the highest ethical standards.
• Submit clear and well-articulated reports on research findings.

Contract deliverables and timeline:

• Inception report – Brief report that details the key project
  milestones, an updated timeline, and mitigation strategies for any
  challenges that may arise – 10 days after contract signing with Payment
  schedule of 10%
• Ethics approval – For any research involving
  human participants, and/or data relating to identifiable human subjects,
  researchers are required to complete a research ethics review and
  provide proof of the approval and/or exemption from the IRB that
  conducted the review. Documentation of approval(s)/exemption must be
  submitted to BRAC International to satisfy this requirement – August
  2024 with a Payment schedule of 40%
• Data – Qualitative data
  shared with BRAC International. All audio recordings must be transcribed
  verbatim and if not already conducted in English transcribed to English
  – September 2024 with a Payment schedule of30%
• Final report– High-level report (20 pages in length). With – October 2024 with a Payment schedule of 20%

Changes to this deliverables timeline must be discussed and agreed upon by both parties.

Application timeline:

• RFP published – May 6, 2024
• Proposals due to BRAC International – June 3, 2024
• Short-listed candidates invited to screener interview – June 14, 2024
• Finalists invited to panel interview – June 30, 2024
• Fully executed contract is delivered to both parties. – 15, 2024

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Eligibility:
The
research and learning partner must have a permanent, physical presence
in the country where the work will be completed and experience
collaborating with NGO programmes on research activities. In addition,
candidates must be available for virtual interviews in June 2024 and
must have existing capacity to meet the deadlines specified above.
Institutions that cannot meet these eligibility requirements are
discouraged from submitting an application.

Proposal guidelines:
Your proposal package must consist of only two items:

• a single .pdf and
• a completed budget using the provided Excel attachment.

The .pdf must contain:

• Your technical proposal using the template provided.
• There
  are five brief sections of the proposal. You must follow these
  guidelines carefully. Please do not submit a proposal in another format.
• CVs of key team members
• After you’ve completed the technical proposal template, please save it as a .pdf and attach the CVs of key project members.

Budget assumptions:

• # of communities – 15 communities will be included in the qualitative sample
• # of days of data collection – 15 (one day of data collection per community)
• # of FGDs – 60 (four focus group discussions per community)
• # of interviews – 15 (one in-depth interview per community)
• Data collection locations – Interviews and FGDs will be conducted near AIM clubhouses.

Please
note that finalists will be expected to produce the following documents
for due diligence. These documents do not need to be submitted at this
time, but if you feel that it will be difficult to obtain them, please
mention this in your application packet.

A cover letter illustrating the supporting documents you are submitting. In the letter, please include:

• A declaration that your organization agrees to BRAC International’s vetting and due diligence procedures.
• A
  declaration that your organization (including its agents, employees,
  sub-contractors, sub-consultants and suppliers) does not contravene with
  all applicable AML/CFT laws and does not engage in or conspire to
  engage in any transaction that evades or avoids, or has the purpose of
  evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate, any of the prohibitions set
  forth in any AML/CFT laws.
• Please include contact information
  for at least three references that you can speak to your ability to
  carry out similar scopes of work. If you plan to outsource any major
  component of the project (e.g., data collection, analysis, etc.) to
  another firm, please also provide at least three professional references
  for each partner. You may also include letters of reference, but these
  references should be able to be reached by phone or email.

Demonstration of financial capacity:

• Please provide appropriate statements from bankers of the firm’s financial resources.
• Please
  provide firm’s balance sheets or extracts from them, where publication
  of a balance sheet is required under company law in the country in which
  the supplier is established, where applicable.

Demonstration of legal capacity:

• Legal capacity shall be confirmed by a power of attorney. This document
  shall also state that there is no judicial prohibition in place
  preventing the person, firm or employees from signing a contract with
  any potential customer or client.

Demonstration of taxation obligations:

• Copy of trade license or equivalent
• Copy of VAT Registration certificate or equivalent
• Up-to-date copy of tax payment receipt or equivalent

A
copy of your organization’s safeguarding policy. If no such policy
exists, please include a description of the actions you take to ensure
safeguarding.

How to apply
Application instructions:
Applications must be submitted as a single PDF accompanied by an Excel budget proposal to Bi.procurements@brac.net by June 3, 2024 11:59 PM East Africa Time (EAT).
Please include the RFP title and the country where you are proposing
the research in the subject line (e.g., “AIM Qualitative Research &
Learning Partner Tanzania”).
Go to our Homepage To Get Relevant Information.
For questions, please contact Jenna Grzeslo (Head, Research & Learning, BRAC International): jenna.grzeslo@brac.net.