Canada-Ukraine Trade and Investment Support (CUTIS) Project
Open Announcement for 2 Short Term Consultants
(Quality control expert and Gender expert) for
Survey on Gender-based barriers of SMEs to Trade and Growth
1. Project Information
The CUTIS project is funded by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada (GAC) and managed by the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC) in coalition with the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (CUCC). The ultimate goal of the CUTIS project is to stimulate sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty in Ukraine through the expansion of Ukrainian trade with Canada and the encouragement of Canadian investment in Ukraine. The CUTIS team is focusing its support in five export industries: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services, Clothing, Footwear, Furniture, and Chocolates and Sugar Confectionery. The CUTIS gender equality strategy aims to generate knowledge about the barriers that inhibit Small and Medium Sized businesses (SMEs) owned or operated by women from exporting, in order to help stakeholders reduce those barriers. The SMEs definition employed by the CUTIS project is that the company has under 500 employees.
2. Purpose of the Survey
The CUTIS project is currently accepting proposals to assist its gender team implement and analyze challenges faced by SMEs in the above five priority export industries. The objective of this survey is to establish evidence of the gender gaps in business management and in international trade, including trade with Canada, facing SMEs in Ukraine. The survey results will be used to make concrete recommendations on how to best support Ukrainian SMEs - owned or operated by men and women – by generating new knowledge over and above previous studies of this type.
3. Scope and Timeframe of the Short Term Consultancy
Consultants are invited to apply for this opportunity by completing all application requirements detailed in the following pages. The contract relates to a two-stage process: only if the successful consultant completes the Stage 1 deliverables in the Statement of Work in a satisfactory manner, will they be invited to undertake subsequent work relating to the second stage.
Type of Services: Short Term Consultancy Contract
Closing Date: 19 May 2017
Estimated # days (STAGE 1): 10 days (per consultant / first contract only)
Duration of Contract: 3 months
Payment Remuneration will be paid upon receipt of the below deliverables and their certification by the CUTIS Project that the services have been satisfactorily performed.
Travel Costs for quality control expert
4. Summary of Instructions
Applications must be submitted in MS-Word by E-MAIL only to the Kyiv CUTIS office no later than the above closing date (19 of May) to the following e-mail address: . Please direct any questions regarding this opportunity to the same email address, no later than 3 days in advance of the closing date. Any applications submitted in a language other than English, or submitted after the closing date, will not be accepted. Apllicants should indicate “Applications: A quality control expert /A gender expert” in the subject line of their email submission.
Applications must include (as an attachment) the CV, letter of interest and the financial proposal. Applications without financial proposal will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered.
The CUTIS Project applies fair and transparent selection process that would take into account the competencies/skills of the applicants as well as their financial proposals.
5. Scope of Qualifications
Quality control expert:
The Contractor should have proven experience in:
- designing and implementing broad-based surveys in Ukraine or a country with the same level of economic development;
- conducting quality and quantity control of data collection;
- conducting enterprise surveys;
- managing mixed-method quantitative research, which has involved training survey-takers or interviewers;
- sampling, designing a quantitative survey instrument and direct implementation of the instrument;
- familiarity with survey methodologies of various kinds (such as censes or cluster sampling), as well as data collection expertise;
- familiarity dealing with large data sets (including cleaning and analyzing data sets using a variety of software programs), and
- strong oral and written competencies in English.
The quality control expert will have recent experience in enterprise surveys, preferably relating to SMEs in Ukraine.
Gender expert:
The applicant must have a proven in-depth understanding of the subject matter – gender and the economy – and must have proven experience authoring published research reports.
The Contractor should have proven experience in/as:
- experience designing, conducting or analyzing enterprise surveys and surveys on social sciences topics;
- experience designing survey instruments (including reference sheets or primers for survey-takers, etc.)
- lead author of recent publications on gender issues and the economic/business development;
- excellent writing skills in English as well as in Ukrainian
- familiarity with quantitative and qualitative data analysis (using a variety of software programs), especially comparative analyses, and
- strong oral and written competencies in English.
STATEMENT OF WORK -APPENDIX A
Objectives and Outcomes
It is intended that the survey produce the following results:
1) A better understanding of what government and other stakeholders can do to support and promote women and men as exporters, and women as business owners and top managers interested in expanding their business to the next growth level;
2) Greater awareness about the “constraints” and “success factors” of SMEs owned and operated by women – and to discover if they are significantly different from constraints / factors reported by men; and
3) A comparative analysis of export-oriented and non-export oriented SME constraints/ successes.
Rationale and team structure
The reality is that the vast majority of Ukrainian SMEs are not exporting, despite Ukraine’s new trade agreements with Europe and Canada. Yet little is understood as to why so few companies in the SME sector are export-oriented or which trade barriers and constraints explain this situation, and whether or not gender-based barriers figure significantly.
And although official data is unclear, we can assume that women’s representation among export-oriented companies is even lower than women’s representation among all business owners in Ukraine (under a 1 in 5 ratio).
The CUTIS project will finance a major survey that will help close this knowledge gap.
Our project team has designed a draft survey for SMEs, which will be tested in a focus group of business representatives from the five priority industries identified and can be further refined by the two successful consultants. The survey has approximately 100 questions and a total of 3,500 words (Please see the attached survey; if not attached, one can be requested by emailing ).
A Research Institute/Contractor, selected through an open bid by the CUTIS Project, is expected to use the resulting survey in order to examine the five industries, under the supervision of, and in collaboration with, the consultants. The Consultants cannot be associated with the successful Contractor’s institution. The Quality control expert will assist CUTIS staff to finalize the survey tool, will measure the sample size, and will collaborate with the selected Research Institute team to oversee the data collection methods and data documentation, in order to ensure a high quality result. The Gender expert will primarily be in charge of drafting the report associated with the new findings.
Team members:
Canadian gender expert (CUTIS project)
Ukrainian gender expert (CUTIS project)
External quality control expert (Consultant)
External Gender expert (Consultant)
Research Institute (Contractor/ # persons TBC)
Proposed Methodology and Scope:
The quality control expert must undertake the following work:
- assist CUTIS staff to finalize the survey tool
- measure the sample size
- collaborate with the Research Institute team
- oversee the data collection methods and data documentation, in order to ensure a high quality
- supervise and control the data collection
- conduct analysis of data received (logic and statistic control), and
- ensure quality of the electronic data set.
The gender expert must undertake the following work:
- assist CUTIS gender experts to finalize the survey tool;
- compare the responses of different groups of (male/female) respondents, as well as export-oriented SMEs vs. domestic-oriented SMEs;
- summarize key results and observations;
- draft the report associated with the new data.
The CUTIS project will be responsible for identifying the first industry to be examined, and for providing information relating to SMEs within this industry to survey. The company lists will be purchased from the State Statistical Service as well as provided by the CUTIS project database.
The scope of the survey we are expecting is fairly significant: the planned target is approximately 1000 surveys. CUTIS project will finance one of the following:
1). 200 surveys with gender parity (100 male and 100 female respondents) in each priority industry, or
2). A sample size which is representative, with a reasonable margin of error (+- 5).
We will take into consideration that a gender ratio of 1:1 of survey responses may be difficult in some industries, (such as furniture manufacturing).
Close collaboration with CUTIS staff is essential throughout the work.
Deliverables and Timeframe
The Contractors are expected to work and achieve results within the following timeframe, for completion of the first industry's survey:
Task / DeadlineFinalization of the survey tool
Gender expert - 1 day
Quality control expert – 1 day / 12 June 2017
Review the approved survey work plan with Research Institute
Gender expert - 1 day
Quality control expert – 1 day / 19 June 2017
Quality control expert – 2 days: Organize Training for survey-takers /interviewers / 20 June 2017
Prep work with the Research Institute
Quality control expert – 1 day / 23 June 2017
Research Institute
Industry # 1 Survey-taking (under supervision of the quality control expert);
Quality control expert - 3 days / 26 June – 15 August 2017
Research Institute
Organization of raw data, data analysis and summary of results
Quality control expert - 2 days and
Gender expert - 6 days / 2 August – 17 August 2017
Draft report submission (gender expert)
Gender expert - 1 day / 18 August 2017
Final report
Gender expert - 1 day (integrating comments from CUTIS team) / 31 August 2017
Instructions
Please provide a letter of interest, explaining how you meet each of the qualification requirements (outlined in section 5) for the position you are applying for. Clearly indicate whether you are applying for the Quality control expert or the Gender expert. Attach to your email:
· CV (max. 5 pages)
· Survey you have designed or supervised recently (Quality control expert only)
· 1-2 writing samples (reports) in English (Gender expert only)
Applications will be accepted until 17:00 on Friday May 19, 2017. We thank all applicants, but only those invited to an interview will be contacted. The proposal should be emailed to the Canada-Ukraine Trade and Investment Support Project, indicating the following text in the subject of email: “Survey proposal: gender-based barriers to trade.”
Contact person:
Kostyantyn Ryzhkov,
Ukraine Project Manager,
+38 (044) 277-23-95
E-mail:
Thank you for your interest.
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