Job Description

(TERMS OF REFERENCE)

Designing, executing and report generation for Endline Assessment of nutritional status, feeding practices, and service delivery scenario in selected districts of Gujarat for Project Vruddhi

Action Against Hunger Foundation is an Indian not-for-profit, exclusively committed to eradicating child undernutrition, through a three-pronged approach of raising awareness, implementing direction intervention projects in vulnerable geographies and conducting research to understand the underlying causes of malnutrition and has touched over 7 lakh lives in the past five years. It is a member of a leading global network working in more than 50+ countries and supporting around 20 million people.

Action Against Hunger India invites proposal from Individual and Agency for an end-line study of project Vruddhi in Sabarkantha and Aravali district of Gujarat

About Project Vruddhi 

The Power of Nutrition and Action Against Hunger are working with the Government of Gujarat to implement Project Vruddhi. The project has worked closely with the Government of Gujarat (GoG), specifically supporting the Health and ICDS Departments, GoG, to achieve accelerated progress towards nutrition outcomes identified under POSHAN Abhiyan. 

The project has aimed to prioritise and mobilize forces to tackle the root causes of malnutrition and identify an effective, replicable model of service delivery and demand creation. Specifically, the project has worked in depth in two high-burden districts of Gujarat (high stunting rates, low coverage of quality nutrition services, and limited knowledge of good nutrition behaviours within communities) – Sabarkantha. The present study will be conducted in the intervening district, Sabarkantha along with a control district – Aravali. 

Scope of Work 

The proposed study will be conducted by an organization or individual with a significant amount of experience working on child nutrition and anthropometry skills to conduct the study based on and compare the same with the baseline and mid-term assessment conducted by the organization.

The objective is to generate reliable and representative estimates of, but not limited to, a set of quantitative indicators (see Annex 1) in the target districts. The Endline assessment will have 3 components

Household survey

Interviews with relevant stakeholders

Observation of community-based events 

Additionally, the study will also have a qualitative aspect which will be conducted with a limited sample of mothers and FLWs using qualitative tools – case studies, semi-structured interviews, and FGDs. 

Except for the qualitative component, being introduced at the endline, all other parts of the methodology and sampling strategy have already been implemented at baseline. Therefore, consultancy teams only need to replicate previous methodological and sampling decisions for the quantitative part. 

Part-1 Household survey 

Objective: To generate robust district-level estimates of the state of nutrition of mothers and children. 

Methodology: A mixed method can be applied for rich results. Cross-sectional study with a quasi- experimental design by using proportional random sampling at the Anganwadi level followed by systemic sampling scheme (CSS) at the individual level. 

Study tool: The household survey will have structured, closed-ended, questionnaire-based interviews involving eligible respondents at the population level in intervention and control districts and anthropometry of children. 

Sample Size:

400 individuals will be required to be recruited for each of the 4 age groups for both intervention and control districts (mothers of children aged: 0-5/6-11/12-23/24-35 months, requiring a total sample of = 400 mothers*4 age groups*2 districts. So, 1600 mothers and their babies will need to be recruited in each of the intervention and control districts altogether culminating in 3200 interviews for the survey. This sample will cover all the blocks of the district. 

Collection of Anthropometric data: 

The Project Vruddhi team will provide 12 sets of anthropometric instruments comprising of -

Standard weighing machine,

Infant meter (used for measuring the length of children aged less than 2 y)

Stadiometer (used to measure standing height)

MUAC tapes. 

The agency needs to plan a detailed visit and coverage and share during the inception report.

An appropriate team has to be formed to collect anthropometric data. The data collector should be prepared to carry the Anthropometric instruments to the selected catchment on daily basis.

The agency must ensure there is appropriate coordination to ensure that the Anthro data collector gets the information of the selected households with eligible children identified by the household survey team.

Appropriate effort should be made to get the relevant measurements from all 4 eligible children.

There should be a set of supervisors to oversee the work and ensure quality.

It will be approximately a 6–8-page questionnaire which will take 1-1.5 hours to complete for a single respondent.

Part-2 Interviews of Relevant Stakeholders 

Objective: To understand the project approach, concerns and gaps given to different stakeholders and to address the overall programmatic goal of Project Vruddhi. 

The stakeholders include:

ASHA of the sampled AWC

Anganwadi worker (AWW) of the sampled AWC

Selected Lady Supervisors (LS)

Child development project officer (CDPO)

Selected Medical officers – Primary Health Center (MO-PHC)

Community Health Officers (CHO) - Health & Wellness centers 

Methodology: These interviews of ASHA and AWW will be through a closed-ended structured questionnaire. The interviews of LS, CDPO, CHO and MO-PHC will be through an open-ended, unprompted interview guide. Each data collector will complete 1 interview of ASHA and AWW of the same AWC along with a household survey.

Any team member should be allotted the task of interviewing LS and MO-PHC who will be randomly selected from the corresponding blocks of the selected AWCs for HHS. The list will be provided by the Project Vruddhi team. Every CDPO of the block will also be interviewed. The data will be collected using TABLET for all the stakeholders and the developed tool will be provided by the Project Vruddhi team as an APP.

Evaluation Criteria:

Only the bids of individuals/ agencies meeting the eligibility criteria will be evaluated.

Out of the eligible bidders, the bidders quoting the lowest bid, will be selected.

Proposals that meet the eligibility criteria will be evaluated against capability and experiencein providing services and the availability of suitable human resources. This evaluation will be conducted with respect to the agency, and with respect to the team proposed.

Interested applicant agencies/individuals are requested to share their technical and budget Proposals with the subject line “Endline Assessment for Project Vruddhi” at the following email addresses by midnight of 30th June 2024. 

Point Person for the assignment:

The designated agency will coordinate and report to Mr. Pritam Bhattacharyya (Manager-MEAL, Project Vruddhi) regarding this assignment.

Mobile no: 8809154528/8252532524

Email ID: pbhattacharyya@actionagainsthunger.in    Documents required on letterhead:

Quotation – Detailed breakup of each activity like Travel, Training, Data collection, etc.

Quality Control

Quality Assurance

Number of Enumerators and number of interviews considered per day.

Timeline for data collection

Documents required as attachments:

CVs of resource persons involved in the project

CVs of supervisors and data enumerators 

Please Note: The application should accompany a self-declaration on the organization's letterhead stating that the agency has not been blacklisted by any organization. 

For detailed information, please check the complete version of the RFP attached 

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