Search For Common Ground (SFCG)- Request For Proposal For Data Collection On The Impact Of Conflict On Women And Children In Northwest Nigeria

DEADLINE: 25TH SEPTEMBER, 2021
SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND
TERMS OF REFERENCE
DATA COLLECTION ON THE IMPACT OF CONFLICT ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN NORTHWEST NIGERIA

Search for Common Ground (Search) is seeking the service of organisations with presence in the North West Region of Nigeria (Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara States) for data collection on the impact of the conflicts on Women and Children. Search is primarily interested in organisations with past quantitative and qualitative data collection experience and presence in the target states. The Organization’s profile should induce details of previous data collection experience with a detailed description of the organization(s) and specific tasks worked on. Interested organisations should also include language skills and proficiency levels of local Nigerian languages in their resume and profile.

About Search for Common Ground
Search for Common Ground (Search) will be conducting an in-depth analysis of the impact of conflict on Women and Children in northwest Nigeria. The proposed analysis will provide strategic guidance and direction to UNICEF on the impact of the growing violence and recommended strategies to mitigate the effects. The analysis will highlight the impact of the rise in violence on the socio-economic situation of rural and urban populations, particularly women and children, of northwest Nigeria (Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara States), Search’s analysis will highlight the impact of the conflict on livelihoods, coping mechanisms, access to basic services and physical security of women and children in the target states. Search will also develop a framework that will serve as a guide for mainstreaming conflict sensitivity in UNICEF’s programming in northwest Nigeria.

About the Project
Search for Common Ground (Search) with funding from UNICEF is implementing a 2month analysis on the impact of conflict on women and children in North-West Nigeria. Search will be carrying out an in-depth examination of the impact of conflict on women and children in the three most conflict-affected states of Zamfara, Katsina, and Sokoto in northwest Nigeria. Search will deploy a combination of extensive desk review and exploratory research conducted using quantitative and qualitative methodology. This approach will adopt a review of secondary data covering the context before and after the rise in violence in Zamfara, Katsina, and Sokoto Stales. Search will also deploy direct assessment to obtain primary data using mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative methods) through structured questionnaires and surveys.

Purpose and Objectives Study
The overall purpose of the proposed study on the Impact of Conflict on Women and children in North-West Nigeria are:

• To establish evidence-based analysis on the socio-economic impact of the crisis on vulnerable populations, specifically women and children, their livelihoods, coping mechanisms, access to basic services, and physical security.
• Generate a strategic conflict-sensitive framework based on the findings and recommendations to enhance risk-informed program development

Methodology
The study will adopt two approaches; the first will be a systematic extensive desk review analysis and secondly, a mixed-method (qualitative and quantitative) approach which will include in-depth interviews with Key Informants (KII), Focus Group Discussions (FGD), and a household survey. The KIIs and FGDs will be conducted using semi-structured questionnaires and guides to elicit responses for the qualitative study, while the household survey will be conducted using structured questionnaires to gather responses for the quantitative study. These methodologies are elaborated below:

The study will adopt mixed methods to gather qualitative data from participants using Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and key informants interviews (KIIs) approaches. The respondents will be selected from women groups and leaders, children, community leaders, traditional leaders, religious actors, and youth leaders, across the 9 LGAs – 3 in each state (Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara) – of this study. Search will also conduct key informant interviews with actors at the state level. There will be a semi-structured questionnaire administered to households comprising men, women, and youth in the communities to generate relevant quantitative data to measure the domains stated in the study matrix. This short survey will collect quantitative data on general issues around current migration and displacement, social tension and conflict, women and child protection, existing barriers and vulnerabilities, the economic instability of vulnerable women, impact on food systems and markets.

Geographic Locations
Data collection will be carried out at State, LGA, and Community levels in Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara states, At the LGA level, the study will require data collection across 9 LGAs (3 LGAs per state) which will be communicated to the successful Organisation upon award.

Personnel Required for Data Collection
The successful Organisation will be required to provide the following categories of data collectors for the study across Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara

• 1 Field Data Collection Expert (One person who will oversee the entire data collection process across the three target states).
• 3 State level stakeholder engagement and security focal point (One per state)
• 3 State level mobilisers (one per state)
• 9 LGA level mobilisers (3 per state)
• 18 Quantitative Data Collector (6 per state)
• 18 Qualitative Data Collectors (6 per state)
• 9 Supervisors (3 per state)
• 6 Database Assistants (2 per state)

Logistical Support
Search will be responsible for organizing the logistics for data collection (vehicles and drivers), and at least one Search staff member may be available to support data collection across all the sample states.

Ethical Considerations
To ensure that the study is ethical participation will be voluntary for all respondents. Respondents will be informed of the purpose of the study and given the option to opt-in or out of the study. Only participants who freely give their consent to be part of the study will be interviewed. Also, data will only be collected from respondents 18 years and above.

Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy
Search for Common Ground (Search) consider all forms of abuse towards children, youth, and vulnerable adults to be unacceptable. Our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy set out the measures we will take to safeguard children, youth, and vulnerable adults. This includes proactive actions to prevent situations of abuse and harm occurring, and reactive actions to respond to situations where a child, youth or vulnerable adult is, or maybe, suffering abuse.

Who is a child? A child is any human under the age of 18 as stipulated by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989.

Who is considered youth? Youth is the transitional period between adolescence and adulthood, for this policy we focus on the group of individuals ages 15 to 25 years old.

Who is a vulnerable adult? A person who by reason of disability, age, gender, social and economic status, illness, or the context they are in, may be unable to take care of or protect him or herself against abuse, harm or exploitation.

As part of our Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy, it is a requirement that all staff including but not limited to all permanent and temporary members of staff; Community based staff or incentive worker; Volunteers and interns; Consultants; Translators; Search’s Board of Directors; Invited visitors (including donors/ funders; media/ journalists); Partner organisations; Third-party contractors (i.e. suppliers, builders, etc); Members of research bodies, academic Institutions, associates, and all Search’s affiliates, agree to abide by the Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy and have signed it before commencing any work with the children. The umbrella term ‘Search affiliates’ will be used to refer to all people associated with Search.

It is a Mandatory requirement that any form of unacceptable behaviour which breaches this safeguarding policy must be reported. In the case of situations which are not covered by the safeguarding policy, Search expects its representatives to apply common sense whilst focusing on the “child’s Best Interests”.

Date Quality Assurance and Management
Training of data collectors: Search Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation (DMEL) team will facilitate a one-day in-person training (including both capacity building and piloting) for 6 data collectors/research teams in each state in preparation for the fieldwork data collection. The training will be interactive and participatory. Enumerators will be presented with an overview of the research methodology and analytical framework, as well as in-depth instruction and practice on the use of the research tools. This comprehensive training is essential to ensure high quality, consistent and ethical research processes, Significant time will be dedicated to data recording and handling methods. The training will also explore the ethical considerations associated with this research and develop a plan of action to address or mitigate these concerns. At the end of the training, all participants will sign a contract of engagement with Search.

After the training, all data collectors will be involved in simulation exercises, and the research tools will be piloted in order to make any necessary adjustments before the field data collection. The pilots will be treated as live’ exercises where the teams will also be required to complete the write-up and processing of the different tools, though insights obtained through the piloting process will inform the study in general, data collected in the pilots will not constitute part of the final research sample and would create a more diverse approach to the COVID-19 context and dynamic as the target cuts across different groups.

Timeline

Deliverables
Search expects the following deliverables from the successful Organisation as they correspond to the timeline and budget:

• Resume of experienced data collectors listed above who were engaged across Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara States
• Daily submission of quantitative data and recordings collected
• Submission of an invoice by the Organisation,
• Narrative report of all Key Informant interviews conducted
• Signing and submission of consultant organisations contract

Additional Payment Terms

• Payments will be determined by the number of days worked as determined by attendance sheets signed.
• In the event that Search is not satisfied with any of the deliverables submitted, payment will be withheld and the consultancy terminated.
• In addition, no expenses arc expected from the contractor, but if the possibility of any docs arises, the Contactor will obtain the prior approval of Search.

Required Skills and Experiences
The following skills and experiences are expected by Search for the Organisation to be engaged on this project:

• Previous data collect on experience (worked with Search on any survey and assessment in the past is a strong advantage
• Ability to Use Mobile Apps for data collection
• Have good understanding of the project LGAs and good knowledge of the local context
• Good command of English and any relevant local languages (i.e Hausa, Kanuri, Fulfude) is required
• Should be a graduate of any of the accredited high institutions within or outside Nigeria.
• Experience in conducting interviews, surveys or focus groups discussion
• Familiarity and experience with contextual challenges in the geographic location (s) where the study will take place.

Ethical Principles
The successful Organisation is required to respect the following ethical principles in undertaking the data collection:

• Comprehensive and systematic inquiry: Enumerators should make the most of the existing information and full range of stakeholders available at the time of the study
• Competence: Enumerators should possess the abides and skills and experience appropriate to undertake the tasks proposed and should practice within the limits of his or her professional training and competence.
• Honestly and Integrity: Enumerator should be transparent and observe all ethical consideration for data collection
• Respect for people: Enumerators respect the security, dignity and self-worth of respondents, program participants. Enumerators have the responsibility to be sensitive to and respect differences amongst participants in culture, religion, gender, disability, age and ethnicity.

Application Requirements
To apply, interested organizations are requested to submit the following documents:

(1) Application Letter

(2) Capacity statement showing the organization’s previous in similar roles

(3) Financial quote covering the cost of engaging the required data collectors only (daily stipend and cost of airtime/data)

Please Merge Document 1 and 2 above as a single documents. Documents 3 should be submitted as an Excel, showing all computation formula.

Note: Search will cover other costs related to trainings and transportation of data collectors to the LGAs and Communities.