DEADLINE: 5PM US EASTERN STANDARD TIME ON 8TH JANUARY 2021.
WORLD BANK AFRICA GENDER INNOVATION LAB (GIL)
CALL FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST TO IMPROVE WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT IN NIGERIA.
CALL RELEASE DATE: 23RD NOVEMBER 2020
The GIL works to generate evidence on how to close gender gaps in five thematic areas: land and property rights, agriculture, youth employment and social protection, entrepreneurship, and social norms. In close collaboration with partners, the GIL designs, launches, and oversees rigorous impact evaluations of
interventions. These interventions are typically carried out by NGOs, governments, and private sector programs, policies, and products.1 Each GIL impact evaluation aims to generate evidence on what works best to close key gender gaps and relax identified constraints to women’s economic empowerment. Each GIL impact evaluation is carefully selected to probe critical knowledge gaps and to meaningfully inform policymakers and project teams.
GIL is in the process of establishing a Nigeria Gender Innovation Lab which will:
(1) document the magnitude and key drivers of gender gaps in economic outcomes in Nigeria;
(2) generate new evidence on what works to improve women’s economic empowerment in Nigeria through at least 5 new impact evaluations; and
(3) coordinate with relevant stakeholders to promote the uptake and scaling of effective
Whom is this opportunity for?
Each successful applicant will meet all four criteria below:
• Be an NGO, government, donor, or private sector firm.
• Have a new or existing intervention, which they are planning to roll-out or scale-up; that could help strengthen women’s economic empowerment in rural Nigeria; and for which the organization has already secured any necessary funding.
• Be interested in gaining insights into how and why their intervention is working through a scientifically sound, quantitative impact evaluation.
• Be interested in strengthening their intervention’s design towards more effectively serving women.
EOI Selection Criteria
a. Geographical Fit: Will the intervention take place in rural Nigeria? GIL works across Sub-Saharan Africa but only interventions in rural Nigeria will be eligible for evaluation under this expression of interest call.
b. Project Fit: Is the intervention a new or existing intervention with the potential to strengthen women’s economic empowerment in rural areas?
c. Potential to Probe Critical Knowledge Gaps: Will an impact evaluation of the intervention help answer one or more of the priority questions (listed above)?
d. Project Partner’s Capacity and Risk Factors: Does the prospective partner have proven capacity to successfully carry out the type and scale of intervention that it is proposing? Does the partner have funding already secured to carry out the intervention? Is the environment going to be sufficiently secure within the time frame of the project to not impede or undermine the impact evaluation?
e. Organizational Commitment to Learning: Partnering with researchers for a rigorous impact evaluation requires a sustained and deep-seated commitment, including buy-in from the partner’s senior leadership, program managers, and sometimes, key stakeholders, including donors. It also requires a true interest in learning how one’s programs are working and letting this information become publicly available when the results of the impact evaluation are published and presented.
Finally, the organization and project implementation team must be willing to
work constructively on an impact evaluation, including potential changes to implementation plans.
f. Other Practical Criteria
(i) Is there at least one potential viable comparison group that will allow for credible impact evaluation results? Will some set of impacts be measurable and observable within three years?
(ii) Are there sufficient technical skills and infrastructure in the potential study location to carry out the data collection needed for the impact evaluation?
(iii) Will the program be implemented at a sufficient scale to allow an impact evaluation to statistically detect the anticipated impacts?
(iv) Is the partners’ timeline for the roll-out / scale-up of the intervention such that there will be adequate time to design an impact evaluation and collect baseline survey data prior to roll-out / scale-up?
TIMELINE:
Prospective partners should submit expressions of interest (EOIs) by the submission deadline, which is 5pm US Eastern Standard Time on Friday, 8th January 2021. Each submission is to follow the guidelines outlined below in the “Expression of Interest Application Form”. EOIs should be submitted as a Word document by email to Amy Copley (acopley@worldbank.org).
