TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR BASELINE STUDY USING N-WASH SOFTWARE

TERMS OF REFERENCE FOR BASELINE STUDY USING N-WASH SOFTWARE

About Welthungerhilfe:

Welthungerhilfe (WHH) is one of Germany’s leading non-governmental organizations with a dual mandate in both development cooperation and emergency response. WHH works to create a world in which all people can exercise their right to a self-determined life in dignity and justice, free from hunger and poverty. To bring justice for all, WHH partners with the civil society organizations in the countries where it operates, and currently the agency is partnering with over 100 local partners from 37 countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (www.welthungerhilfe.de).

WHH has been operational in Nepal since 2012 and is currently managing different projects in eight districts under four program thematic areas (sectors): food and nutrition security; WASH; right to food and empowerment; and Disaster Risk Reduction. WHH works hand in hand with civil society in Nepal to empower socially marginalized and economically poor citizens to reinforce their resilience and to ensure their right to adequate food and nutrition.  

Project background: 

The project “Strengthening Municipal-wideWASH governance for social change in Siraha and atari districts, Nepal (NPL1060)” is implementing inSaptari and Siraha districts through our implementing partners: Mahauli Community Development Center (MCDC) (Saptari) and Sabal Nepal (Siraha). The overall objective of the project is to improve the health and nutritional status through strengthening WASH governance and the provision of basic water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services; gender equality and empowerment of disadvantaged groups in the two districts. 

Objective of the assignment: 

One of the objectives of this project is to support municipalities for developing rural/municipality level WASHplanning. A series of comprehensive, evidence based, and fully life cycle costed WASH plans will be developed for each of the targeted Palikas in Siraha and Saptari. The process for developing the plan will broadly follow that defined in Figure 1 and will be coherent with the upcoming guidelines for WASH planning issued by the DWSS/MoWSS. 

The process of the development of the WASH plan will include a detailed assessment phase, wherein there will be a detailed mapping and survey of WASHinfrastructure, sources, service levels and behaviors, by using all predefined questionnaires specified in NWASH  software. The process of undertaking these assessments is to be undertaken in such a way which maximizes the ownership and capacity development of the Palika-level stakeholders. In this, the process of the assessment should build capacity of the Palika to collect and analyse this data, and to help build their capacity to be able to update the datasets through ongoing monitoring in future.

In this connection, the consultant(s) is expected to collect required information from three rural municipalities (Dakneshwori Municipality, Rajgadh and Bishnupur) of Saptari district  using NWASH MIS data collection tools and software. It is then to support the analysis of this data, to provide clean and easy-to-update datasets to the Palika authorities, and to develop the capacity of the Palika authorities and local branch of WSSDO to manage, analyze and update this data using NWASH in future. 

Methodology:

The baseline assessment mainly includes household survey (approx. 17761 households), WASH in institutions survey, drinking water supply schemes mapping, water resource inventory. The independent qualified consultant(s)/consulting firms is expected to formulate the statistically valid methodology for HH survey, whereas in cases of schools and health care facilities of three municipalities census would be done.  The mobile based software – NWASH will be used for this survey and data analysis. 

Table 1: Number of HH, School and Health facilities

Focus group discussion (FGD) and key informant interviews (KII) will be also adopted to explore WASH governance at project implemented municipalities. 

• Focus Group Discussion (FGD): 6-7 FGDs per municipality targeting marginalized and disadvantaged groups 

 1NWASH is an android based mobile application that use to collect comprehensive WASH information, including geo-referenced inventory and maps. All the data collected from this tool is centered in NWASH MIS platform operated by MoWSS. 

 2The data collection for Palikas in Sirah have already been collected, although they did not use the NWASH for collection. The scope of this assignment (herein) focuses only on Saptari.

• Key Informant Interviews (KII):  at least 5-10 KIIs with key stakeholders 

Responsibilities of consultant (s)/ Consulting Firms: 

• An inception report and presentation (after 3 days from signing of the contract) that explains, understanding of the assignment, detail methodology, study protocols for commencing and finalization of the assignment in consultation with Welthungerhilfe to undertake the task. 
• Conduct orientation to enumerators on data collection using NWASH software.
• Manage the field visit and community consultation as proposed.
• Complete synchronization of data on NWASH digital portal with correct GPS locations, summary of the findings and shared to WHH for feedback.
• Submission of final complete report with Rural/municipality-wide clean data set that the Palikas can easily understand and update. 

Key deliverables:

• An inception report including study methodology, timeline and study protocol
• Clean and synchronized data set per palikas
• Analysis of qualitative information, including interview notes/recording with coding
• Survey completion report highlighting key findings per palikas

Timeline for baseline study:

The time period for baseline study will be effective in action from the day of signing of awarded contract. The baseline study should not exceed more than 35 working days (including preparatory work, data collection, analysis, and finalization of report). The expected date to start this assignment is 02 April 2020. 

Required Qualifications: 

The individual consultant(s)/consulting firm should have prior experience in similar study particularly focusing on WASH. The proposed consultant (s)/ consulting firm should have following qualification:

Team Leader: Proposed team leader should have following qualification:

• Should have master degree in engineering or equivalent degree with having more than 5 years of experience on WASH sector.
• Experience on managing large scale study such as baseline, performance monitoring, and mid T term/final evaluation. 
• Should have strong knowledge on rural/urban WASH context, including, communal and self-water supply systems, faecal sludge management, and solid waste management. 
• Having TOT on NWASH, or experience on NWASH will be given preferred. 
  • Other study team members should be from the mix technical background (civil engineering, environmental health, public health, statistics, social work etc – although this list is not mandatory and alternative suggestions are welcome. 
  • The consultant(s)/ consulting firm should have experience in survey on using mobile based data collection tools, fieldwork, data collection, teamwork, presentation of results, plus understanding on WASH governance, and GESI issues. 
  • Consultant should have demonstrated excellent report writing skills; (Nepali and English) preferably in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector. 

Deadline for proposal and details of what is required

The interested and qualified consultant(s) / consulting firm must apply by 17:00 hours (COB) dated 7 April 2020 via email address recruitment.nepal@welthungerhilfe.de

The application should include:

• A brief technical proposal outlining how the work will be undertaken, methodology of analysis and what would be looked at during the study, the team structure, and providing broad headings of the final report structure (around 5 pages maximum)
• A detailed breakdown budgets
• A workplan
• CVs of the proposed Team Leader and key team members
• For consultant firms: copies of - firm registration certificate, VAT registration certificate, Latest tax clearance certificate, Tax Exempted by the government, a copy of tax exemption certificate should be submitted.
• For Individual(s): Copy of citizenship of certificate and VAT registration certificate.
• Sample documents (at least one copy) of similar study conducted under leadership of Team Leader. 

In case of any inquiries regarding this TOR, please contact at maheshwor.rijal@welthungerhilfe.de and cc’d to giri.khatri@welthungerhilfe.de COB 4 April 2020. 

Only short-listed applicants will be contacted for further evaluation process. Welthungerhilfe Nepal reserves all the rights to reject any or all application without assigning any reasons.