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9 Background
Since 2010, Spark microgrants has been supporting rural communities in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi to improve their livelihoods and social cohesion through its Community Driven Development (CDD) model the Facilitated Collective Action Process (FCAP). Sparks operations have since then expanded to other countries outside the East African region to Ghana, Malawi and Liberia.
In Uganda, Spark has supported over 200 communities in the Eastern, Northern and West Nile regions in the Districts of Bulambuli, Mbale, Bududa, Kapchorwa, Sironko, Manafwa, Amuru and Arua.
Spark intends to measure the long term impact of FCAP in communities which graduated from the model in 2019 and before in Uganda. The evaluation is intended to capture the changes in these communities that are attributed to the FCAP including livelihoods, Social cohesion and gender gains.
The FCAP Model
Spark MicroGrants’ key innovation, the Facilitated Collective Action Process (FCAP), is a model for local development which combines a facilitated community planning process with a village micro grant. The FCAP’s most important domains of impact are (1) improved livelihoods and (2) strengthened social cohesion. Within these domains, demonstrated results include greater food consumption, increased household assets, improved trust among neighbors, greater transparency in leadership, and increased involvement of women in decision-making and leadership.
Evaluation of the Long term impact of FCAP
Spark is seeking an independent research partner to evaluate the impact of its intervention in communities that benefited from the FCAP 5 or more years ago. The evaluation is expected to generate proof of the impact of the FCAP model in the long term. The information generated from the evaluation is expected to feed into a larger body of evidence about the impact of CDD projects/programs world over.
Evaluation Design
The consultant is expected to come up with an evaluation design that estimates the FCAP long term impact (5-10 years) with a high precision and within statistically acceptable assumptions. The best design is one that doesn’t require baseline data (as no baseline data were collected before project start), utilizes a mixed methods approach and is able to estimate the impact on beneficiary households attributable to the FCAP.
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Scope of the Evaluation
The Evaluation will be carried out in Eastern (around the Elgon sub-region) and Northern Uganda (in Amuru District). The total number of beneficiary communities in the 2 regions is 60, 38 in the Eastern region and 22 in the Northern region. The Evaluation is expected to be carried out from October to December 2024.
Evaluation Questions
The impact evaluation should address the following broad research questions:
1. What is the long term impact of the FCAP on household well-being?
2. What is the long term impact of the FCAP on Village-level social cohesion?
3. What are the gender and inclusion gains of the FCAP in the beneficiary communities?
Spark will provide the consultant with the FCAP theory of change and further detailed information about the FCAP.
Brief description of the evaluation questions
Household wellbeing: We hypothesize that FCAP affects household wellbeing through two principal channels - firstly by addressing the constraints alleviated by the selected Spark funded community project, and secondly through gains from improved social cohesion and citizen engagement. The FCAP is expected to increase household assets, consumption and savings. The consultant will examine and test this hypothesis of household wellbeing, again specifically targeted to and designed to be able to disaggregate by traditionally marginalized groups, and assess differences in outcomes based on different profiles of community members (for example, considering gender, wealth status, local leadership status, profession/livelihood, etc.).
Social Cohesion: We hypothesize that through training for community members, facilitated participatory planning activities, and facilitation of spaces for collaborative development planning and implementation, there is increased social cohesion within target communities. This may be experienced as (but not exclusive to) a greater sense of shared purpose, collective action by community members, more inclusive and broad-based cooperation advocacy and civic engagement, and a greater sense of trust between village members. The consultant will examine and test this hypothesis, developing a methodology to define and measure social cohesion relevant to the intervention scope and context, and aligned with broader industry literature.
Gender gains: At the core of the FCAP model is emphasis on gender mainstreaming and inclusion within the facilitation and implementation of community sub projects. For example each community is supposed to have half of its FCAP leadership committee as female and ensure that the projects selected do not benefit just a section but rather the entire community irrespective of age, gender, sex, religion e.t.c. The consultant is expected to use their experience and expertise to develop appropriate gender and inclusion measurements to accurately capture the gains to this effect experienced by the communities as a result of FCAP.
Outcomes to be measured
Within explorations of the research questions above, the consultant must ensure the inclusion of assessments against the indicators in the results framework below (noting that the full scope of the assignment is expected to go beyond the result framework, but must cover these outcome areas). The consultant is expected to provide more detailed outcomes to measure the FCAP impact on climate change in consultation with Spark.
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Outcome area |
Dimension |
Indicator |
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Livelihoods |
Household consumption |
Percentage of households are food secure based on FCS |
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Percentage of households are food secure based on HFSSM |
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Percentage of households having more than one meal a day |
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Household Dietary Diversity Score |
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Average asset index score/Percentage of households that are ranked poor (1st & 2nd quintile) |
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Average poverty rate based on Poverty Probability Index / % of households living below the poverty line of $2.5/day |
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Average Monetary value of household assets |
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Household savings |
Percentage of households that are saving |
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Amount of money saved per household |
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Household income |
% of households starting income generating activities to boost their income / % of households with at least 2 income generating activities |
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Average annual household income |
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School attendance |
% of children within the school going age that are currently attending school |
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Gender |
% of women who have decision making power at household and village level |
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% of women who have joint ownership of household assets |
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% of women who are confident enough to express themselves in public |
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% of women who are involved in income generating activities |
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% of women who report high rates of GBV in their communities |
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Social Cohesion |
Shared purpose |
% of individuals who agree or strongly agree that everyone living in this community, feels like they are part of this community |
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% of community members who can recite their community vision/goal |
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% of individuals who believe that their community identity is collectively shared |
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Trust |
% of community members who have strong generalized trust |
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% of community members who feel close to other community members |
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% of individuals that have helped or been helped by other |
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community members in the last 6 months |
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Collective norms |
% of community members aware of projects being implemented within their communities |
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% of HHs participating/contributing to community projects |
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# of days spent by community members on community activities |
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% of community members who participate in community activities aimed at bettering public service delivery within their communities |
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Civic Engagement |
% of community members aware of community meetings within their villages |
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% of community members regularly attending community meetings |
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% of community members who regularly contribute ideas in community meetings |
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% of community members who feel that their ideas are valued by their leaders |
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% of community members that belong to community groups |
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% of community members that have participated in at least one election for their community leaders |
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% of community members who agree that their leadership have done a good job |
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% of community members who report interaction with government leaders |
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Average time spent by local leaders on community activities |
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% of individuals who participate in government programs |
The consultant will also have core responsibilities to work with Spark to clearly define all terms laid out above within the research questions prior to any survey instrument being designed.
Role of Spark
• Spark will provide a list of FCAP communities within the target areas for the impact evaluation.
• Spark will support the consultant to receive government approval to work in all identified treatment and control areas. It will be the responsibility of the consultant to ultimately get this approval.
• All project sign offs, approvals and liaison between the consultant and Spark will be through the M&E Director.
• Spark will work with the consultant to clearly define all terms laid out within the research question prior to any field work being conducted.
Activities
The expected activities to achieve this are as follows:
|
Activity |
Deadline |
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Deliver an inception report detailing full methodology including; sampling approach and data collection tools alongside a signed off definition guide of all key terms. |
1/Nov/2024 |
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Obtain all local ethical and research permits to conduct the impact evaluation from the appropriate Institutional Review Board. |
15/Nov/2024 |
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Enumerator recruitment and training for the baseline data collection |
22/Nov/2024 |
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Pilot and validate the electronic questionnaire |
22/Nov/2024 |
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Conduct household listing to construct a sampling frame |
22/Nov/2024 |
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Create a detailed Field Procedure Plan |
22/Nov/2024 |
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Conduct data collection (both qualitative and quantitative) |
06/Dec/2024 |
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Submit first draft of the baseline evaluation report |
20/Dec/2024 |
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Submit final report (word version and a slide presentation), cleaned datasets (quantitative - in Stata/R/Excel; qualitative - Transcribed FGD notes) and dofiles/scripts used for analysis |
10/Jan/2025 |
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Write and publish an article about the study in a relevant journal |
31/Apr/2025 |
All deliverables must be reviewed, verified, and approved by the Spark M&E Director.
Application Details:
Applications in the form of a technical and financial proposal are welcomed from individuals, or teams, who are able to demonstrate the capacity to deliver the piece of work set out above, within the Ugandan context.
The following skills and experiences are essential criteria for all applicants:
• Expert understanding of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods
• Significant experience in conducting and/or managing similar or comparable assignments in both methodology and scale within the Ugandan context.
• Experience in applying for, and securing approval IRB approvals in Uganda
• Demonstrated ability to bring together inputs into clear and concise summaries or recommendations
• Expert knowledge of the Social Cohesion, Livelihoods, Civic Engagement and Social
Accountability within international development
• A strong academic background in the effects of government centralization and decentralization programs.
Interested parties should submit a technical and financial proposal to Spark MicroGrants to include:
• A cover letter demonstrating how you meet the criteria above
• A draft work plan and associated budget to include the daily rates of all individuals involved and a description of the roles they each play within the team.
• CVs for all individuals listed
• Maximum two examples of previous work that demonstrates the skills or experience relevant to this assignment.
Please send completed proposals to enock@sparkmicrogrants.org by end of day 13/Oct/2024 Please note that we will be unable to give feedback to unsuccessful applicants.
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