Terms of Reference
Third Party Process Monitoring
Contract Identification No.: PAF II-AF2-S-QCBS-198
- Background
The Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) was established around in 2003, operating in six pilot districts. To date, PAF has successfully reached out to vulnerable groups, especially those who are disadvantaged due to gender, caste, ethnicity or physical isolation, in 55districts (some special programs have been conducted in additional 3districts). PAF has mobilized and made agreements with 29761Community Organizations (COs) for implementing various sub-projects. Based on community demand, CO members conduct various income generation and infrastructure sub-projects. The project has directly benefitted825765 households and has indirectly benefitted additional 3,27,295 households through PAF financed infrastructure sub-projects. COs have also started building federations, networks, and co-operatives. PAF is now operating its regular program in 55districts and innovative windows program in 3 districts. This expanded effort will also focus on supporting scaling-up activities and market linkages to graduating community organizations and support to those that have already engaged in higher-level organizational forms.
The project aims to improve living conditions, livelihoods and empowerment among the rural poor, with particular attention to groups that have traditionally been excluded by reasons of gender, ethnicity, caste, and location. The project has four main components: (i) small-scale community infrastructure, to provide capacity-building support and sub-grants to community organizations for local infrastructure projects (e.g., micro irrigation, footbridges, drinking water, etc.); (ii) sustainable income generation, to provide capacity-building support and sub-grants to community organizations for income-generation activities; (iii) product development, market linkages and pilots, to support those community organizations that are more advanced; and (iv) capacity-building and institutional strengthening, to support the formation and development of community organizations and the creation of cooperatives and market alliances. Given that there is a tendency of rural areas becoming more peri-urban around some urban centers in Nepal, the project aims to support piloting of CO creation and investment support in peri-urban settings. In addition, the project is also adopting an activity-based pocket area (spatial) development approach wherein the project would identify several geographic areas (pockets) where a group of COs have already organized into higher level institutions or are carrying out a particular activity that would benefit from economies of scale. Special capacity building support would be provided to those COs for product development and also necessary help would be offered in order to link them with the markets, ensuring a stable source of demand to cater to.
- Justification for Process Monitoring Consultancy
A project like PAF requires responsive and adaptive monitoring because community level development processes do not necessarily conform to pre-set rules, deadlines, predictions or blue print approaches andconventional monitoring mechanisms may not fullycapture all necessary data on quality of field level implementation.Process Monitoring (PM) facilitates the project management and others involved in the project to understand how and through what processes inputs get converted into outputs, what issues are critical in that process and what action is necessary to increase the effectiveness of the project interventions. It seeks to assess whether the process observed is functioning and procedures followed and points out factors responsible for the deviation, if any, and provides a platform for discussing what needs to be done about the identified issues. It is a key management toolat all levels (national and field), especially for the process driven projects, designed to help implementing organizations to ensure more participatory practice and demand responsiveness.
The process monitors are intended as partners to the project, who will be the “eyes and ears” of the project at the field level, feeding key observations and information to the staff and management. The process monitors, as independent consultants, would provide the Bank task team and PAF management a more direct and objective communication of the qualitative changes and processes taking place at CO level throughout the project process, i.e., social mobilization, CO formation, income generation activity, revolving fund process, infrastructure building, O&M and etc. It would also be valuable feedback mechanism from the communities on how to do things better, as well as to get a clear assessment of hard-to-measure shifts in community attitudes, behavior and practice. The focus areas of the process monitoring will be in the areas of quality of infrastructure services, effectiveness of revolving fund, adequacy and sustainability of income generation activities, adherence to processes and procedures of PAF.The focus would also include beneficiary satisfaction with the project services.This will help the PAF management to learn and provide a feedback to allow adaptation of the project design as necessary. The identified key processes will be systematically observed, documented and communicated in order to facilitate better management decision making. The process monitoring should identify specific areas for adaptation or modification, thereby enabling the project resulting in better shaping and implementation of the project activities over time.
- Objective of Process Monitoring:
The key objectives of the consultancy are:
To identify any critical deviations in project implementation and factors responsible and recommend actions that would help project management to take appropriate decisions, particularly inthe areas of quality of infrastructure services, effectiveness of revolving fund, adequacy and sustainability of income generation activities, adherence to processes and procedures of PAF including target group participation.
To identify specific areas/issues based on process monitoring that require further thematic and evaluation studies.
To identify and describe/document best practices and develop a good feedback mechanism, include beneficiary satisfaction with the project services, for learning, monitoring and adaptation for the different project staffat all levels.
- Scope of Work for the Process Monitoring Services
- The processes to be monitored should be in relation to the processes mentioned in the project activities and results framework of the project with focus on adherence to agreed procedures by POs, regular visits of POs at COs, compliance with maintenance of books, accounts and meeting schedules, quality of community infrastructure services, effectiveness and efficiency of revolving fund, adequacy and sustainability of income generation activities, inclusion and participation of the intended beneficiaries, as well as social capital gained through the PAF process. Tracking of processes on a regular basis at all levels will have to be correlated with the data available from MIS to establish the correlation between process quality and progress achieved. A detailed methodology along with identified process indicators should be reflected in the technical proposal of the consultant.
- It is envisaged that processes will be assessed through systematic qualitative analysis for example, conducting Focus Group (FG) session on randomly selected community members. Appropriate participatory appraisal techniques will be used to supplement the FG discussions.
- The consultant is expected to raise issues and propose follow up actions and also to identify needs to carry out the specific thematic studies, evaluations, impact assessments, institutional monitoring, at periodic intervals in addition to the requirements by the project as well as World Bank.
- It is expected that the consultant would help PAF to establish linkage with MIS data for identification of issues, analysis, integrating process monitoring data.
- Proposed Sampling Frame
It is expected that the process monitors to be able to reach around 2,500 COs by the end of the assignment (6 months), which could give some good and solid information vis-a-vis PAF’s current coverage (29761COs). It is expected that the consultant would take “cluster” samples by making 7-10 neighboring COs as cluster to minimize traveling time and geographical constraints. Field process monitors will be divided into 9-11 groups, who will visit around 500COs (50-60 Cluster) per month. In other words, each field team will visit 6-7 clusters per month. However, this is a preliminary idea for the sampling frame, and the consultant is expected to come up with a realistic yet solid sampling frame in its technical proposal.
A proposed sampling design is expected in the technical proposal by the consultant. Care has to be taken while designing sampling frame that a certain percentage of COs from different age categories (1-3 years, 4-6 years, more than 6 years).Other CO communities may be purposively selected on a more flexible basis (within the agreed total sample number), in response to identified field needs or management requests.Such samples could include those COs identified by PAF as “problematic” due to weak facilitation, remoteness, poor performance of revolving funds. The sample design and the sampling intensity would be chosen in such a way that parameter estimation done would adhere to acceptable accuracies and standard error of estimation to be agreed.
- Reporting requirements
The consultant would be required to conform to the reporting standards, style, format, size and such other specifications as required by the project, and undertake revisions, value addition and such other changes as required by them. The consultant would be required to do monthly reporting of the findings to the PAF. It is anticipated that, on a monthly basis,adetailed district/project wise report shall be prepared including a matrix form indicating the key issues, learning emerged and actions recommended. On quarterly basis, asimple analytical report of all districts/projects is expected highlighting the major findings, case studies, lessonslearnt and key actions recommended to the Bank and PAF management.The executive summary of the report should include a matrix form to enable better comprehension and improve readability.
Mere submission of report in physical form may not lead to a discussion and intended decisions, therefore debriefing note will be shared at each sample district level and the final report will be shared in national level. The findings should be presented to the respective learning groups in a workshop mode and to be facilitated by a trained facilitator.In case the field monitors find serious issues which need to be acted upon urgently, the consultant should immediately report such cases to PAF with background information and proposals for appropriate actions.
Thefinal report shall inform, on the basis of the field findings, key characteristics of COs that require more intensive support and monitoring, as well as other factors which are believed to influence quality of their actions, with a view to facilitating the identification of ‘priority’ COs.
- Duration of consultancy:
The consulting service would behired for6 months.
- Deliverables:
Based on the above, the consultant will deliver the following in various stages of the work:
Deliverables / Period from the date of ContractDevelop a frame work of process monitoring as part of the Inception report / 2 weeks
Finalize decentralized team placement in districts, monitoring mechanism, tools, sampling strategy and methodology, training of monitors as agreed by the project / 4 weeks
Provide advance field work plan and movement of field workers. / 4 weeks
Initiate and Conduct process monitoring as per agreed sampling framework and field monitoring plan / 6thweek onwards
Consolidate key findings by district and submit a monthly report to the Bank task team / 6th week onwards every month
Submit a final report, summarizing findings, presentation on districtand a national level and providing recommendations for / End of assignment after 6 month from the contract
- Qualification and experience of the firm:
(i)5 years of documented experience in the development sector and implementation of similar projects types for government, NGOs, INGOs and similar others.
(ii)Having documented evidence of average financial turnover of 2 million annually for last three years.
(iii)Other relevant documents like company registration, VAT registration, latest tax clearance, etc. are necessary.
- Consultant’s Qualification and Experience
Team Composition, Qualifications and Experience of the Key Members of the Consulting Team
The key members of the process monitoring would include:
Team leader with Master Degree in Development related field and proven track record in Process Monitoring activities. Person should have at least 10 years field experience in monitoring and evaluation system in community driven development/livelihood/social fund ofprojects. A minimum of 5 years working experience in similar project is essential.
Co-Team Leader with Master Degree in Sociology or related discipline and excellent analytical skills in social/behavioral science and at least 5 years relevant experience in monitoring and evaluation system development. The Co-Team Leader must possess applied knowledge in participatory method of M&E. He/She should also be acquainted with latest available software applications in the field of socio-economic analysis.
The consultant will arrange field enumerators/monitors and associate who are well experienced and trained to have better access to villages and the processes, extract reliable information and effective verification for analysis. This will help strength capacity of the communities in turn.
- Client’s Input to the Consultant
The consultant will be working closely with the client from the start of the consultancy services. PAF team would provide guidance and support if necessary while selecting the cluster for the assigned task
- Payment terms:
The selected service agency will get 25% of contract amount after submitting the inception report detailing monitoring tools and mechanism and field decentralization plan
10% each would be made after the receipt of final monthly report acceptable to PAF for 5 months
25% Final Payment, would be made upon receipt of final consolidated report acceptable to PAF
- Consultant’s Selection Method
The process for selecting the Consultant/SA will be selected on the basis of World Bank Guidelines selection of Consultants by using Quality and Cost Based Selection QCBS giving quality 80 percentages and Cost 20 percentages weight. Consultant must be register in Value added Tax (VAT)
The competing Consultant/SA should come up with prior experience in design and leading evaluation; data analysis skills; knowledge of the regional and institutional context; technical competence in a specific sector; process management skills; language proficiency.
The firm should enclose the two/three work samples of their previous experience. The team composition should identify the team leader, evaluation expert and data entry clerks. Each team member should be specialists in their respective area. The quality assurance process/mechanism should be defined on their document so that PAF could rely on results from their study.