Country: India
Closing date: 11 Nov 2018
DUTY STATION: The Consultant will work from her/his own location with field trips to West Bengal and Bihar for interviews. Two visits to Delhi will need to be undertaken for consultation and data collection purposes. Communication with UNICEF will be mostly over email, Skype, or phone.
DURATION OF CONSULTANCY: 111 input days over 1 December 2018 – 30 June 2019
CLOSING DATE: 11 November, 2018
Background:
UNICEF and its partners are providing technical assistance to the Government of India to strengthen its efforts to end child marriage. Through the Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage, UNICEF and UNFPA are targeting adolescent girls (aged 10-19) at risk of child marriage or early union in 12 high burden countries, of which India is one (UNICEF, 2018. UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage https://www.unicef.org/protection/57929_92681.html). The programme offers a framework for promoting the rights of girls to delay marriage and focuses on the underlying conditions that keep the practice in place. Founded on a thorough theory of change (see Annex 1), the programme focuses on enabling girls at risk of child marriage to choose and direct their own futures, supporting households in demonstrating positive attitudes towards adolescent girls, and strengthening the systems that deliver services to adolescent girls. It also seeks to ensure laws and policies protect and promote adolescent girls' rights, and highlight the importance of using robust data to inform policies relating to adolescent girls.
One of the challenges of working in the domain of ending child marriage is the limited evidence available on the impact of “cash plus” and other schemes to end child marriage. Despite great demand from governments, the international development community, donors and academics, there are currently no proven and evaluated models for national (or state-wide) programmes to end child marriage (UNICEF-UNFPA, 2017). India’s own priority focus on ending child marriage has meant that countless initiatives – whether large government schemes or smaller NGO interventions – are working towards this important goal, but many are doing so without an explicit theory of change, let alone a rigorous evaluation component. It is not well understood which initiatives work better than others, which provide the highest return on investment or which do not work at all. The knowledge base in this area is so low, that three recent systematic rereview (Malhotra et al., 2011; Chae & Thoai, 2017; Kalmar et al., 2017) identified only six child marriage interventions in India that were rigorously evaluated. The reviews tend to indicate that girl empowerment (e.g. with information) and schooling approaches, including those that provide school vouchers or payment of school fees (including provision of uniforms, books, etc.), as well as life-skills and CCTs conditional on attending school had the most positive results. Approaches which educated and mobilized parents and community members were also found to be quite successful in some of the reviews (Malhotra, et al. 2011).
The overarching goal of this consultancy is to better prepare UNICEF-supported programmes aiming to end child marriage in India for evaluation. This evaluation scoping study will review the existing theory of change used for the child marriage programme in India against the latest evidence and customize it to the country’s context. It will also review the underlying assumptions of two ongoing cash/cash plus transfer schemes in India (MKUY and Kanyashree Prakalpa), and retrospectively develop a theory of change to facilitate a rigorous evaluation of the schemes in the future.
PURPOSE:
The purpose of this consultancy is to critically review the theory of change (ToC) (Annex-1) used in UNICEF’s programming to end child marriage and to prepare the conceptual foundations for potential future evaluations of cash/cash plus schemes which aim to end child marriage.
More specifically, the objectives of this consultancy are to:
Annex I ToC.docx
Scope of the Activity
Time period
The Consultant will review relevant literature on child marriage in India and comparable contexts published in the past 19 years (2000-2019). The review should include all evaluated interventions in India that measured the impact on child marriage or a proxy indicator, including peer reviewed and grey literature.
Geographical coverage
While the purpose of this consultancy is to review how well the Global Theory of Change (Annex I) from the Global Programme to Accelerate Action to End Child Marriage applies to the context of India and what adjustments might be needed based on the latest evidence, literature from countries other than India applies. Thus, the consultant should review relevant literature on the determinants and causes, moderators and mediators, and consequences of child marriage published in the past 10 years from the South Asia region. Influential publications from other parts of the world on the topic of child marriage should also be included. The consultant should employ a systematic search approach to identify all evaluated interventions (using experimental, quasi-experimental, and non-experimental designs) from India that measured the impact on child marriage (or a proxy indicator) and were published between 2009-2019. Relevant and rigorous evaluations from other contexts, which assist with interpreting/situating evidence from India should also be included in the literature review (most likely these will be from the South Asia region, but cash transfer studies from Sub-Saharan Africa and South America may also be applicable). The final report should include a table of all identified evaluated evaluations in India. A focus on the states of Bihar and West Bengal will be necessary to develop testable ToCs (See Annex II for an example) for the two cash transfer programmes (MKUY and Kanyashree Prakalpa) that are operating there. A focus on tribal, urban and migrant populations will be needed to review how the revised ToC applies to them.
Target groups
The ToCs are concerned with ending child marriage amongst girls under age 18 in India, but boys under age 18 should also be included, either as part of the same ToC or an adjusted one. Additional iterations of the global ToC will need to be developed in order to customize it to tribal, urban and migrant populations. The ToCs developed for Bihar and West Bengal will need to be context specific to those programmes and their target populations (mostly girls under 18). In order to question the ToC assumptions and causality pathways, the consultant will need to interview key stakeholders from the Department of Women Development and Social Welfare in Bihar and West Bengal, and from the Education Department, and the Health Department in Bihar. These interviews will also help with designing a rigorous evaluation design for the MKUY programme in Bihar.
Relevant Central Government representatives, UNICEF specialists, and experts from the NGO and academic community should also be interviewed to triangulate the conclusions reached through a literature review.
Methodology
This evaluation scoping study predominantly consists of a desk review of child marriage literature from 2000-2019, UNICEF’s strategic and programme documents, government and other documents pertaining to the MKUY and Kanyashree Prakalpa cash transfer schemes, and other relevant literature/documents that will facilitate a critical review and construction of the three theories of change (ToC 1=revision of global ToC, with iterations that apply to tribal, urban and migrant populations; ToC 2= testable ToC for MKUY scheme; ToC 3=testable ToC for Kanyashree). In order to identify all evaluated interventions in India that measured the impact on child marriage (or a proxy indicator) between 2000-2019, a systematic literature search methodology will need to be adopted. However, it is not a requirement that a systematic review methodology (as defined by Campbell or Cochrane Collaboration) is adopted.
Approximately 20 key informant interviews to triangulate the findings underpinning the ToC revisions/constructions and to help with the evaluability assessment and design of a rigorous impact evaluation for the MKUY scheme in Bihar will also take place. Key informants may include government officials, UNICEF specialists (from the India Country Office, regional office, and headquarters), NGO and civil society stakeholders working on child marriage in India and researchers with expertise on the topic. The sampling for the KIIs will be purposive and UNICEF will facilitate contact to UNICEF staff and government stakeholders. Independent experts, such as researchers and specialists from NGOs and civil society may need to be approached directly by the Consultant for an interview.
The research questions guiding this assignment are outlined below. Both the proposed methodology and questions are open to refinement and suggestions from the contracted researcher in the early stages of this consultancy and will need to be elaborated in the inception report.
Research Questions and Methods
The study will be guided by an advisory group, which will review the key deliverables and also help to guide the Consultant in interpreting the literature, interview findings or any difficult decisions that arise. The inception report, final report and research/policy brief will be subject to an independent quality assurance review by a third party.
Methodological rigour will be weighted significantly in the assessment of proposals. Bidders are therefore invited to question the methodology suggested in this TOR, build on it or propose a different approach, which they deem more appropriate.
Ethical considerations will need to be included in the inception report and follow the guidance outlined in the UNICEF Procedure for Ethical Standards in Research, Evaluation and Data Collection and Analysis. However, it is anticipated that an IRB/ethics review will not be required for this study due to its non-invasive, predominantly desk-based approach.
A gender perspective must be applied in all data collection and analysis, asking questions about the different experiences of boys and girls and analyzing primary and secondary data, and reviewing the literature through a lens that teases out gender issues and pays close attention to the vulnerabilities of different groups of children and adolescents, including those from tribal areas, urban and rural areas, and those involved in migration.
The contracted researcher will be responsible for ensuring the confidentiality and secure storage of all raw data from interviews and will be required to keep them in a safe space for five years. UNICEF will be the owner of all data collected under this consultancy.
Estimated duration of contract
The estimated duration of this contract is 111 input days. The contract is expected to begin on 1 December 2018 and end on 30 June 2019. The deliverable timelines incorporate peer review processes and draft revisions.
Deliverables:Please refer to the attached financial proposal template for deliverables and tentative submission dates.The final reports and policy/research brief will need to adhere to UNICEF’s Style Book, including using the appropriate referencing style and spelling. The contractor will be required to edit it to a high professional standard.
Qualifications & Experience required
Desired
Duty Station
The Consultant will work from her/his own location with field trips to West Bengal and Bihar for interviews. Two visits to Delhi will need to be undertaken for consultation and data collection purposes. Communication with UNICEF will be mostly over email, Skype, or phone.There will be 4 sets of travel to/within India for the consultant. Whether these trips are national or international will depend on the location of the consultant. All airfares need to be in economy class using the most economical route.
Location(s) for travel including the travel to districts to be covered:
Duration: Delhi trips will be 3-4 days each. Trips to Patna and Kolkata will be 8 days each.Number of trips: Four.
Management and Supervision
This contact will be supervised by the Research & Evaluation Specialist, SPME section, UNICEF, Delhi, with regular input from the Child Protection Specialist, Child Protection Section, UNICEF, Delhi and Social Policy Specialist, UNICEF, Delhi. Ultimate responsibility for the consultancy rests with the Chief of CP, UNICEF, Delhi.
Please submit your online application by 24:00 Hours Indian Standard Time on 11 November, 2018.
HOW TO APPLY:Your online application should contain Five separate attachments:
(Important: Please note that in one word document you should include both the cover letter and the methodology and this one word document should be uploaded under Cover Letter)
3.Curriculum Vitae (CV) (to be uploaded online under CV/Resume)
4. A financial proposal indicating deliverable-based professional fee as per template attached below. Please do not forget to specify your name in the file while saving. (to be uploaded under financial proposal template).
(To be uploaded under Work Sample. The work samples can be uploaded using Google drive or Drop box. However, please note that the system accepts only one document upload. Hence, you should copy and paste your work samples into one document and then upload that one document or alternatively share links to the 3 documents in one file.)
Please Note: It is mandatory to submit the methodology, financial proposal template and the work samples.
TECHNICAL EVALUATION CRITERIA (WITH WEIGHTS FOR EACH CRITERIA)
Total technical score – 80. Minimum overall qualifying score is 56. Only those candidates who meet the minimum qualifying marks of 56 as well as score the minimum score in each of the above sub-criteria will be considered technically responsive and their financials will be opened.
For any clarifications, please contact:
UNICEF,Supply & Procurement Section
73, Lodi Estate, New Delhi 110003
Telephone # +91-11-24606516
Email: indconsultants@unicef.org
How to apply:
UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organization. To apply, click on the following link http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/?job=517468