TERMS OF REFERENCE Comparative Study on Outcomes and Impacts of Safe, Secure and Adequate Housing

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Comparative Study on Outcomes and Impacts of Safe, Secure and Adequate Housing

A. BACKGROUND

Habitat for Humanity Nepal

Habitat for Humanity International has been present in Nepal since 1997, serving landless, low-income, vulnerable (ultra-poor, socially excluded, disaster-affected, or living in disaster-prone areas) and Dalit families to build adequate (safe, secure, habitable, and accessible) houses. With its central office in Kathmandu and two field offices in Eastern Region (in Province 1) and the Far-western region (Sudur Paschim Province), Habitat Nepal works in over 10 districts throughout Nepal.

Habitat for Humanity Nepal (Habitat Nepal in brief), registered with the Social Welfare Council (SWC) as an INGO, works towards adequate housing. It employs a holistic approach to long-term shelter solutions by forging effective coordination, collaborative partnerships with government agencies, strengthening relationships with local partners, and pursuing growth through market development initiatives.

Habitat for Humanity's Theory of Change

B. OBJECTIVES

Comparative study: have’s vs. have not’s 

Habitat Nepal's theory of change expresses, 'Habitat wants to support people to thrive through housing' and finishes with 'Leading to thriving people and communities living with dignity, security and resilience.' Guided by the TOC (theory of change), Habitat Nepal wishes to measure the impacts that decent housing may have on:

• people and community are more resilient to the impacts of disasters and disturbances, 
• people have improved health and well-being, and 
• people enjoy inclusive educational, economic, and cultural life/opportunities.

Hence, Habitat Nepal wishes to conduct a comparative study between low-income families with decent housing and low-income families without decent housing. The study area will be within Habitat Nepal's land and housing projects and will be conducted through appropriate research of homeowners (beneficiaries) and potential Habitat homeowners (non-beneficiaries).

Given the above, Habitat Nepal is seeking the services of a consultant or consultancy firm for the study. The analysis will provide information on the demographic description of the target population and their needs relevant to safe, secure, and adequate housing.

Habitat Nepal expects the Consultant to submit an expression of interest describing appropriate research methods including how they will sample, plan, the time needed, enumerators needed, and techniques employed to carry out the study. The Consultant will be developing the appropriate methods and tools for this study in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity.

Objectives of the Study

• To establish the linkage between decent housing with health, education, socio-economic and environmental outcomes, and impacts compared with families without decent housing.
• To establish foundational metrics upon which subsequent housing project indicators will be built. 
• To assess the knowledge and practice of potential/target homeowners (i.e., from poor, vulnerable and marginalized households) on safe, secure, and adequate housing. 
• To build capacities of staff from Habitat Nepal and implementing Partners through working with consultants to complete the study.

C. SCOPE OF WORK

1. People's knowledge and practice

The study will gather data on the beneficiary and non-beneficiary's knowledge and practice on safe, secure, and adequate housing. It will also provide data for analysis to quantify safe, secure, and adequate housing gaps.

2. Mapping homeowners' perceptions and experiences on housing outcomes and impacts

Both homeowners' and potential homeowners' perceptions and experiences on outcomes and impacts of safe, secure, and adequate housing will be captured, including data relating to the following topics:

• Health: Medical expenses, frequency of illness (morbidity), the incidence of snake bite, earning/working days, income, and others.
• Education: Space for study, time to do homework and study, light quality for study, quietness, privacy, performance in class, dropout, and others.
• Economic: Loss of stored food/seed grains from rodents and high moisture, annual repair and maintenance costs, household income increases due to more working days because of good health and others.
• Environment: Protection from adverse weather conditions, i.e., extreme hot wind in summer and frigid wind in winter, from better ventilation and insulation provisions. Protection from natural disasters such as floods, water inundation and fire (from open stoves). Community cleanliness and organization, maintaining green space/garden/forest in public places and others.
• Social: Community cohesiveness and activeness due to better housing facility and sanitation conditions, community projects planning and implementation, gathering during social activities and events and others.

3. Recognized  beneficial outcomes from safe, secure, and adequate housing

The following outcome indicators are a sample of potential indicators which can be adopted during this study. The Consultant will work alongside Habitat Nepal in the development of the indicators.

Health outcomes

1. Safe and adequate housing can improve health outcomes by stabilizing or reducing costs and saving family resources for other essential expenditures. (Indicator: reduced expenditure for health-related costs)
2. Physical improvements in housing can lead to positive health outcomes by reducing exposure to toxins and asthma-promoting conditions and improving the physical comfort of the home. (Indicator: reduced risks of contracting acute respiratory infections through improved housing structures)
3. Avoiding challenging situations such as reductions in stress associated with crowding and domestic abuse can lead to improved health and psychological outcomes (Indicator: reduced morbidity)
4. Improving residential stability can improve health outcomes by reducing stress and enabling chronically ill individuals to maintain a consistent treatment regime. (Indicator: improved capacity for consistent treatments among chronically ill individuals)
5. Reductions in parental and child stress associated with crowding and parental stress associated with unaffordable rent and loan payments. (Indicator: reduced economic burden)

Education outcomes

1. The educational benefits provided by residential stability (i.e., fewer moves), leading to school stability. (Indicator: improved school attendance)
2. The educational benefits of moving to areas with better schools and/or schools where the households have higher incomes. (Indicator: improved access to quality learning opportunities)
3. Better lighting and space to study producing better school attainment. (Indicator: improved school grades)

Economic outcomes

1. The economic benefits are provided by improved health and stable shelter to the extent that it leads to more working days. (Indicator: increased working days)

Environmental outcomes

1. Environmental benefits are provided by safe and adequate shelter. (Indicator: improved household resilience)

Social and community development outcomes

1. Social and political involvement.
2. Neighbourhood perceptions and social capital.

Research Questions

Broad questions (data sources are FGDs of homeowner and potential homeowner)

1. What are the benefits (outcomes and impact) of safe, secure, and adequate housing as experienced by homeowners? 
2. What is the socio-economic status of homeowners and potential homeowners?
3. How safe, secure, and adequate do homeowners perceive their housing?
4. How cohesive are the relationships between people, families, and communities in their present settlement?
5. Have disaster risk reduction and climate change elements been adopted in existing housing?

Specific questions (data sources are individual households: HHs survey)

1. What is the status of homeowners' and potential homeowners' knowledge and practice on safe, secure, and adequate housing? 
2. What are the experiences of homeowners and potential homeowners on health, education, socio-economic and environmental outcomes, and impacts of safe, secure, and adequate housing?
3. What are the differences in experiences of homeowners and potential homeowners regarding the impact of housing on their health, education, socio-economic, and environment?

D. DELIVERABLES/SPECIFIC OUTPUTS EXPECTED FROM CONSULTANT

The Consultant will design tools in collaboration with Habitat Nepal and oversee the overall planning and implementation of the research in coordination with Habitat Nepal. Based on the scope of work of the research outlined above, the Consultant will perform the following:

• Provide inputs to improve the definition of appropriate indicators for health, education, socio-economic and environmental outcomes of safe, secure, and adequate housing for poor and marginalized families. Develop further indicators if needed.
• The Consultant will indicate in their proposal how they will carry out the research design requirements.

Deliverables:

1. Inception report
2. Final list of indicators for outcome and impact of safe, secure, and adequate housing.
3. Survey tools for qualitative (if any) and quantitative data collection
4. Clean datasets 
5. Analyzed tables in MS Excel 
6. Soft copy of the draft and final report
7. Presentation of findings and recommendations to the Habitat Nepal team

E. TIMEFRAME

Habitat Nepal requires the Consultant to provide a detailed workplan in the Inception Report. The workplan should clearly indicate the activities, the output, the days required, and the methodology of work. The survey must be completed by the 20th November 2022 and presented to Habitat Nepal by 30th November 2022.

F. STUDY LOCATION AND POPULATION

The Consultant will need to indicate their proposed sample frame and sampling methodology in the inception report. Altogether, there were 4,345 new houses built in the past 5 fiscal years (i.e., from 2017 to 2021). These houses were built in various Municipalities of 8 districts. However, for the study only four districts have been selected i.e., Jhapa, Morang, Saptari and Kanchanpur for treatment groups (households who received new house construction support till 2021). And four new districts (i.e., Siraha, Dhanusha, Rautahat and Kailali) have been selected to assess the housing condition of potential homeowners (Dalits households). The total household of Dalits in four district is about 28,760 in 23 (32.7% of total) Municipalities in approved Program Agreement 2022 by SWC. The table below shows the number of the household who received new house support from Habitat Nepal’s and the Dalits households by district who are the potential beneficiaries of Habitat Nepal.

G. QUERIES ON TOR

In case of any confusion or clarification in this TOR, the firms can send their issues at info@habitatnepal.org

H. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE CONSULTANT

Habitat Nepal is looking for reputed and qualified national or international research institutions/individual consultants meeting the following criteria:

1. Demonstrated capacity to conduct research in housing and settlements, with cross-cutting technical capacities on health, WASH, education, and livelihood. 
2. Proven competencies and relevant work experience in conducting qualitative and quantitative studies, analyzing, and reporting the outcomes and impacts of health, education, livelihood, and social development outcomes.
3. Proven experience and knowledge of health and nutrition, education, livelihood, and social development policies, practices, and government and non-government structures in Nepal
4. Proven competency in systematic integration and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data
5. Proven competency in developing and using tools and methods, explicitly, conducting literature review, household-level surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews with different respondent groups, including women, community members, and government and non-government stakeholders
6. Demonstrated experience in data collection ethics and methodologies: recording, processing, and analysis
7. Excellent computer skills with high proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel; practical experience using, or at least familiarity with, information management systems and analysis software such as Kobo, SPSS, etc. 
8. Proven experience in coordinating with diverse teams
9. Effective, high-quality communication, writing, and interpersonal skills are essential
10. Professional fluency in spoken and written English and Nepali, and ability to communicate concisely with impact; high-level English writing skills are mandatory

I. COORDINATION AND SUPERVISION

Under the supervision of the Senior Research and MEAL (Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning) Manager, the Consultant will work closely with Habitat Nepal Resource Development and Communication team. The consultants will need to comply with Habitat's Safeguarding policies as part of the onboarding process.

J. SUPPORT FROM HABITAT NEPAL

Habitat Nepal will provide the following documents and support to the Consultant to complete the study:

1. Overview of Theory of Change of Habitat for Humanity International
2. Overview of Theory of Change of Habitat Nepal
3. Organize meetings at various phases of the study, including meetings with partners, government institutions, and Habitat Nepal staff
4. Selection of enumerators and arranging for training on study tools
5. Hiring of vehicles for field visits

K. ETHICAL STANDARDS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Throughout the design and implementation of the study, the Consultants are expected to adhere to the Habitat Nepal Code of Conduct, including their Safeguarding Policy, ensuring that all measures are taken to protect the rights, safety, and welfare of the individuals and communities involved. The consultants should guarantee that the analysis is technically accurate and reliable and conducted transparently and impartially. Habitat Nepal will own all products resulting from this analysis. Without prior authorization in writing, the consultants will not be allowed to present any of the results or use any product resulting from the analysis as their own or for private publication purposes.

L. FINANCIAL PROPOSAL 

Financial proposal should be presented in the following format. If you feel some headings are missing, you can add accordingly.

The consultant should include travel cost, accommodation & food expenses, expert fee, etc. in the budget.

M. DOCUMENTS REQUIRED

• Technical and Financial proposal
• Research institution/organizations profile or CV with a list of past clients in related assessment
• Copies of report of prior related works with testimonials/certificates from former clients
• A copy of organizations registration certificate/
• A copy of PAN/VAT registration certificate
• A copy of the tax clearance certificate of most recent fiscal year for firms or companies
• CV of experts proposed and their citizenship certificate/passport.

N.TO APPLY

Interested reputed and qualified national or international research institutions/individual consultants should submit their technical and financial proposal including testimonials/certificates in the form of hardcopies in sealed/closed envelope.

Please submit technical proposal and financial proposal in separate sealed/closed envelopes.

Please send the sealed/closed envelope bid to-

National Director

Habitat for Humanity International- Nepal, 

Sanepa Chowk, Lalitpur – 2, 

P.O. Box: 24037, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Application deadline: 7 August 2022

Only shortlisted research institutions will be notified.