Survey Firm to Support the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Impact Evaluation of the Labor-Intensive Works Project

Statement of Work

Impact Evaluation of the Labor-Intensive Works Project

Request for Proposal (RFP) and Terms of References (TOR) for Survey Companies

1. SUMMARY

In this Call for Tenders, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) invites survey firms to submit their offers to support IFPRI’s impact evaluation study for Labor Intensive Works project funded by KfW and implemented by the Social Fund for Development (SFD).

The general objective would be to collaborate on all aspects of data collection including preparation for the survey, survey data collection, and data cleaning. The call for proposals required survey firms to submit a full proposal offer to fulfil the required tasks.

The services required by IFPRI are described in this Terms of Reference.

2. BACKGROUND ON THE INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), an international organization, conducts research to provide policy solutions that reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition throughout the developing world in an environmentally sustainable manner. Founded in 1975, IFPRI has worked for more than 40 years with policymakers, academics, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector, development practitioners, and others to undertake research, capacity strengthening, and policy communications activities. These activities are designed to address the broad range of economic development and poverty reduction issues that bear on IFPRI’s mission. The Institute is one of 15 organizations worldwide that make up the CGIAR. IFPRI was officially deemed a public international organization under Executive Order 12359.

IFPRI’s vision is a world free of hunger and malnutrition. This vision is based on the human right to adequate food and freedom from hunger and a recognition of the dignity inherent in all human beings. It is a vision of a world where every person has secure access to sufficient and safe food to sustain a healthy and productive life and where food-related decisions are made transparently and include the participation of consumers and producers. This flows from the CGIAR’s vision to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human health and nutrition, and enhance ecosystem resilience through high-quality international agricultural research, partnership, and leadership.

IFPRI’s mission is to provide research-based policy solutions that sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. This mission flows from the system level objectives of the CGIAR, “To reduce levels of rural poverty, improve food security, improve health and nutrition, and sustainably manage natural resources in developing countries through scientific research and research-related activities in the fields of agriculture, livestock, forestry, fisheries, policy, and natural resources management.”

3. BACKGROUND ON LABOR INTENSIVE WORK (LIWP) PROJECT

The objectives of LIWP are to create temporary job opportunities to reduce the negative impacts of crises on food security and to use the job opportunities to invest in beneficial projects, through the construction of new infrastructure or improvements of existing infrastructure. The targeted outcomes are increased income and consumption smoothing, reduction in poverty, and infrastructure development. Due to the crisis situation and urgency of achieving high levels of coverage, LIWP focuses currently on short-term interventions of 4–6 months. This means that the infrastructure development is limited to projects that can be achieved within this time frame, such as Protection and rehabilitation of Agricultural lands and terraces, construction and rehabilitation of irrigation canals, improvement, and protection of rural roads, etc.

Targeting of communities occurs at different geographical levels sequentially. Governorate and district-level targeting is based on a distress index and the history of prior SFD involvement at the district level is taken into account. At the village level, there is a combination of desk targeting and field targeting. Desk targeting of villages based on basic service deprivation according to the census, prioritization of villages with at least 300 people in a single village or cluster, and priority to villages hosting IDPS. Field verification is also used in particular to ensure poverty village conditions seen in the area and ensure compliance with a policy that there must be fewer than 30% of farms growing qat.

Beneficiaries self-select, depend on reducing wages from 10-20% lower than the prevailing local wages. Participation is based on their well-being and capabilities. Households who wish to work are registered and receive an allocation of 40-50 workdays, depending on the number of participating households relative to project needs.

Women and people with special needs are specifically encouraged to participate by designing appropriate work tasks and schedules to accommodate their needs. Households are grouped into specific work types, with up to three workers from the same household, all involved in the same activity. During infrastructure construction, some participants receive on-the-job training for skills such as building, plumbing, plastering, blacksmithing, etc.

4. OBJECTIVE, QUESTIONNAIRES, AND SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES

4.1 Objective of the study

The proposed panel survey seeks to answer the following questions, among others:

• What are the impacts of LIWP on household and community welfare?
  • Does the new livelihoods approach increase sustainability of impacts?

    4.2 Sample Size and Location

    The planned panel sample size is 3000 households in 20 communities in selected governorates in South of Yemen.

    If the sample size changes substantially from the projected sample here, the budget may be amended with the agreement of the IFPRI and the survey firm.

    4.3 Questionnaires

    The selected survey firm will work with IFPRI to finalize the design of the questionnaire in English and Arabic[1].The survey length will approximately be 1.5 hours long, with enumerators completing 3-4 questionnaires per day.

    The main outcomes of the survey are presented below:

    Outcomes:

    · Employment, wages, and labor income

    · Reduced coping strategies index and food consumption score

    · Time use

    · Revenues and costs from livestock if any