Request for Proposals for Data Collection services

Project Background

Social Impact (SI) is a Washington, DC-area international development management consulting firm. SI’s mission is to improve the effectiveness of international development programs to improve people’s lives. SI provides a full range of management consulting, technical assistance, and training services to strengthen international development programs, organizations, and policies. SI provides services globally in the areas of monitoring and evaluation, strategic planning, project, and program design, organizational capacity building, and gender and social analysis. SI services crosscut all development sectors including democracy and governance, health and education, the environment, and economic growth. SI’s clients include US government agencies such as USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the US Department of State; bilateral donors; multilateral development banks; foundations; and non-profits.

SI’s official home page is: http://www.socialimpact.com/

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) /Mali Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Platform is a five-year activity awarded to Social Impact, Inc. (SI) to provide technical and advisory services to design and carry out various monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities for USAID/Mali. The contract has 3 major components.

1. Third-Party Monitoring (TPM);
2. Evaluation Services and Surveys; and
3. Collaborating, Learning, and Adaptive Management and Communication Services.

Click here to download the full terms of reference

Click here to download the Annexe A

Scope of work

Activity Background

As part of the TPM, the SI team has been tasked to develop an Assumptions and Risk Tracking System (ARTS) to provide USAID with a contextual understanding of Mali’s ever-changing trajectory to adapt to the U.S. Government’s development and humanitarian assistance in Mali. This requires examining data from the national to the commune level, using indicators that measure the state of wellbeing and reporting when communes are getting better or worse under each prioritized scenario. With this information, USAID/Mali will review its preparation and mitigation efforts taken to date through its programs and adjust and adapt efforts to better position activities to the changing situation and needs. As part of this effort, the activity will monitor trigger indicators based on three possible scenarios: 1) Mali’s political transition, 2) Crisis and resilience, and 3) Pandemic and socio-economic conditions.

To accomplish this,  the ARTS survey is  administered quarterly and asks respondents the same questions every three months, thereby providing USAID staff with a quick sense of public sentiments on key issues of interest to the Mission.

Firm Request

SI seeks to engage a data collection firm for the ARTS surveys (hereinafter referred to as « subcontractor »). The resulting subcontract will be a firm fixed-price contract with an expected period of performance of November 2024 to March 2025. The initial contract will cover one round of the survey in late 2024 or early 2025 , with the expectation of extending the contract to include additional surveys on a quarterly basis based on performance. To economize on costs and provide rapid results, all surveys will be phone surveys. These specifications describe the technical requirements for data collection for the ARTS survey.

The budget ceiling for all four rounds of data collection (one per quarter) is $125,000.

Data Collection Activities

The SI team will lead the design of the survey. SI is looking for a firm capable of conducting a telephone survey using a pre-identified list of phone numbers, random digit dialing, or a similar method. The subcontractor will be responsible for identifying and training call center supervisors and interviewers, planning and executing all tasks required for data collection, and operationalizing various quality assurance processes before, during and after data collection.

Sample Design

The target population is the adult population of Mali. The target sample size for each round of data collection is 1200 individuals, though Offeror may propose a smaller sample size per round if needed to fit within the budget ceiling.  (Because the survey contains approximately 75 questions, SI anticipates needing to split the survey into two modules, with each module being administered to half the sample).

The Subcontractor should propose a sampling approach that comes as close as possible to national representativeness, with coverage in all regions of Mali. If possible, the Subcontractor will design and implement a sampling approach that covers the 19 regions + Bamako implemented as of 2023[1].The SI team expects to use post-stratification weighting to ameliorate any remaining sample imbalances.

Instrumentation

The SI team will provide the telephone questionnaire in English and French, though the subcontractor may be asked to translate a small number of new survey questions from English to French. The subcontractor should also provide enumerators who are fluent in Bambara and can administer the survey in Bambara.  The time estimated for the survey is 20 minutes. Offeror will advise on whether remunerating respondents with a small amount of phone credit is necessary, appropriate, and feasible.

The SI data collection team will program the survey into SurveyCTO and provide access to the server for the Subcontractor’s use. If the Subcontractor prefers an alternative platform or arrangement, this should be explicitly noted and budgeted for in the quotation, along with a detailed explanation of the proposed alternative. Any deviations from the use of SurveyCTO will be subject to SI’s review and approval to ensure compatibility with project requirements and data quality and security standards.

Planning Tasks

The data collection firm will be responsible for the following planning tasks prior to fieldwork:

1. Workplan: Subcontractor shall develop a detailed work plan and schedule within one week of finalization of this SOW. The document will detail key aspects of technical and managerial approaches, including the expected duration and sequencing of tasks, logistics, staffing/team composition, team roles/responsibilities, respondent sampling, data collection, data quality assurance protocols, data analysis and reporting. The workplan will include quotation for the entire components of the survey. Finally, the document shall outline any areas for which subcontractor requires support from the SI team.
2. Sampling: The subcontractor shall develop a detailed sampling plan within two weeks of finalization of this SOW for the SI team’s review and approval. The Subcontractor should also outline this plan in their response to this proposal. The sampling plan should clearly explain how the Subcontractor will obtain a list of working phone numbers from which to sample respondents, or conversely, if proposing random digit dialing, how the random digit dialing approach will be implemented.

The Subcontractor will begin all interviews with a set of eligibility questions including region, gender, age, place of residence (urban, peri-urban, rural)  and other relevant variables.

The subcontractor will use a quota system to ensure that the sample required for the telephone survey is distributed among the regions in proportion to their population size.

3. Planning: Subcontractor is responsible for all aspects of data collection planning, including identifying and organizing validated cellphone numbers. Data collection activities must be compliant with policies regarding local ethics. Any changes to the administration of the survey need to be communicated with the SI Team.
4. Comment on survey questionnaire : Subcontractor shall review and provide feedback on the SI Team’s data collection protocols, to ensure that they are properly contextualized, and to ensure that SI Team has properly considered likely eventualities.
5. Translation of survey questionnaire : The survey is already translated into French, though the subcontractor may be asked to translate a small number of new survey questions from English to French. The subcontractor should also provide enumerators who are fluent in Bambara and can administer the survey in Bambara.
6. Survey Programming: The SI team will be responsible for programming the survey into SurveyCTO. Subcontractor will be responsible for ensuring the use of SurveyCTO compatible smartphones equipped with phone audio available for audio audits. SI will include various automated data quality assurance checks, such as survey timestamps, GPS location checks, and audio audits. As requested, Subcontractor will test the programmed survey instruments to ensure survey fidelity and adherence to required skip-patterns.
7. Pre-testing: Because the survey is already finalized and translated, the objective of pre-testing is to ensure the suitability of the survey to the phone-survey format. Subcontractor shall conduct pre-testing for all data collection instruments prior to training. Pre-testing is focused on the flow, translation, and logic of the instrument. Subcontractor shall conduct a pre-test with a sample similar to but not part of the final sample, with an eye towards representation across key demographic targets (i.e. urban vs rural, gender, age, etc.). The Subcontractor should propose a sample size for the pretest; the SI team estimates that approximately 50 would be sufficient. After completing the pre-test, Subcontractor shall hold debriefing sessions in which any difficulties or problems with the survey will be identified. The subcontractor shall communicate any proposed changes to the SI team and after approval the questionnaire will be modified.
8. Training/Field Manual: The subcontractor will develop a manual for supervisors and enumerators. These should contain basic information like i) background on the project, ii) enumeration best practices, iii) the survey instrument itself, iv) metadata and tracking protocols, etc.
9. Staff training: All supervisors and call center operators involved in the data collection are required to receive training prior to data collection from the data collection firm. The training shall be comprised of classroom (in-person) as well as practice sessions administering surveys. The SI team expects 1-2 days of training in the ARTS survey to be sufficient.
10. Communication: The SI team requests recurring meetings before, after, and during data collection to conduct quality control and provide managerial oversight.

[1] If this is not feasible, the subcontractor shall propose an approach that uses the 10 regions + Bamako instead

Click here to download the full terms of reference

Click here to download the Annexe A