The World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) is designing an RCT evaluation that seeks to assess the effect of a vocational program offered by Pro-Health International (PHI) to women affected by HIV/AIDS in Bauchi and Adamawa states of Nigeria. The evaluation will measure the impact of the vocational program in strengthening women’s socio-economic outcomes, as well as the impact of add-on interventions to the program. The added interventions include transfer of a productive assets, a buddy program, and a gender norms training offered to women participating in the vocational training program as well as their partners.

As part of a rigorous evaluation of this intervention, GIL is looking for a qualified contractor to conduct the second follow up survey of program beneficiaries and a comparison group. 

Request for Expressions of Interest for a survey firm to provide data collection support for the Impact Evaluation of a livelihoods support intervention in Nigeria in July 2024.

The World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) is conducting a randomized controlled trial (RCT) impact evaluation study to investigate the effect of a livelihoods support intervention in Nigeria.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, women’s labor market outcomes lag behind their male counterparts. Reasons underlying this gap include, but not limited to, limited access to education, skills, and information among women, restrictive social norms, discrimination on behalf of employers and institutions. Further, in contexts where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is prevalent, women’s participation in the workforce could be even lower due to poor health, stigma, and the added burden of caring for HIV-infected children and/or other family members. In this light, offering training in marketable vocational skills, alongside improving access to capital and social networks can help boost women’s labor market outcomes.

The World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) is designing an RCT evaluation that seeks to assess the effect of a vocational program offered by Pro-Health International (PHI) to women affected by HIV/AIDS in Bauchi and Adamawa states of Nigeria. The evaluation will measure the impact of the vocational program in strengthening women’s socio-economic outcomes, as well as the impact of add-on interventions to the program. The added interventions include transfer of a productive assets, a buddy program, and a gender norms training offered to women participating in the vocational training program as well as their partners.

As part of a rigorous evaluation of this intervention, GIL is looking for a qualified contractor to conduct the second follow up survey of program beneficiaries and a comparison group. The second follow up survey will interview approximately 2,887 women across 15 LGAs from rural Bauchi and Adamawa states. The LGAs from Bauchi state are Bogoro, Dass, Tafawa Balewa, Toro, Ningi, Misau, and Katagum. The LGAs in Adamawa state are Numan, Demsa, Fufore, Girei, Gombi, Hong, Mayo-belwa, and Song. The survey will include modules on vocational training participation, technical and non-technical knowledge, employment outcomes, health outcomes and wellbeing.

Working under the supervision of the World Bank, the selected firm will be expected to: (i) pilot quantitative questionnaire, edit as needed, translate and back-translate it, and program it into a CAPI software (ii) develop a high-quality system of quantitative data collection; (iii) hire, contract, and pay interviewers, supervisors, data editors and back checkers; (iv) collect quantitative data from respondents in the sample provided by the GIL research team using tablets and other devices; (v) organize field visits, high-frequency checks of the incoming data, and regular questionnaire backchecks throughout the duration of the survey to ensure the quality of data collected; (vi) deliver raw data to the GIL research team every 3 days throughout the data collection period, in a format compatible with STATA; (vii) deliver a reports on the overall progress of the quantitative data collection that contains data compilation, backup methods and data processing, and a final clean STATA-compatible dataset;

Interested firms should provide information demonstrating that they have the required qualifications and relevant experience to perform the services. The shortlisting criteria are: (i) experience in electronic data collection; (ii) experience in data collection on vocational and livelihood programs’ outcomes on vulnerable populations, particularly with women living with HIV/AIDS; (iii) experience administering questionnaires to vulnerable populations including those living with or caring for individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the selected states of the study, and with sensitively conducting survey work in the community while protecting the privacy of the respondents; experience collaborating with community health workers as first point of contact for survey respondents, particularly in vulnerable populations like those in the current study (iv) experience and ability to manage logistics, as well as the required equipment and staff necessary the carry out the survey; (v) experience in creating and managing databases; (vi) experience conducting large-scale surveys in Northern Nigeria; (vii) ability to begin this work as soon as possible.

The expression of interest may include brochures, description of similar assignments, experience in similar conditions, availability of appropriate skills among staff, etc. The description of similar assignments should include precise information on sample sizes and type of data collected (quantitative or qualitative, indicators included, etc.). Please adhere to a page limit of 10 pages while providing your response. Interested survey firms must submit their expression of interest by April 11, 2024.