Consultant – Individual Full-Time

The ChildFund Mozambique is hiring a Consultant – Individual or Institution for ChildFund Mozambique for Early Childhood Development (ECD) Parenting Project in Ribauè and Monapo, Nampula Province.

Background

ChildFund Mozambique is implementing the project titled “Strengthening Partnerships for Nurturing Care Project” from March 2023 to March 2026 in Nampula Province covering Ribaue and Monapo Districts. The project builds upon learning and promising results on what works for responsive caregiving through group parenting sessions using existing community platforms.

The goal of this project is to improve the development of children aged 0-3 years in the above districts by March 2026.

Specifically, the Objectives of the project are:

Objective 1: Deliver an evidence-based parenting program that improves the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of caregivers, (including adolescent mothers) of children 0-3 years old in Kenya and Mozambique.

Objective 2: Improve overall caregiver well-being through holistic psychosocial support and income-generating activities for caregivers of young children 0-3 years in Kenya and Mozambique.

Objective 3: Support the capacity development of local implementing organizations and child protection agencies to enhance local ownership and enable multisectoral coordination at national and subnational levels in Kenya and Mozambique.

The Consultancy Assignment

The purpose of this assignment is to work in close partnership, coordination, and consultation with ChildFund Mozambique, its local implementing partners in Nampula, ChildFund International, and the international evaluation consultant, to support all evaluation activities specifically for the design, planning, implementation, reporting and dissemination (baseline).

Through this dynamic partnership, this evaluator will coordinate directly with ChildFund’s international evaluator. All logistical support will be completed in coordination with the ChildFund Mozambique Project Staff. The evaluator’s main roles will be to:

• Review and provide feedback on a Mozambique M&E Plan designed by the international evaluator.
• Support contextualization of study design and tools for the baseline evaluation.
• Manage and implement all aspects of enumerators’ training, field pretesting of tools and data collection.
• Enter the data (if paper-based data collection).
• Support preliminary analysis of data.
• Update the Baseline values of the PMT and generate a high-level summary of the findings.
• Review and provide feedback on the analysis and subsequent reports drafted by ChildFund’s international evaluator (baseline assessment report and final evaluation report findings).

It is important to refer that, after 3 years of project implementation, ChildFund is expecting to conduct the endline evaluation, and the selected consulting firm to conduct the baseline will be invited to lead the carry out the endline evaluation but with new scope of work aiming to assess the operated changes in the different project outcomes. Now, please consider your application only for baseline evaluation.

Expected deliverables

Per the terms of this TOR and consultant contract, satisfactory completion of deliverables outlined below per stage must be completed by the international evaluation consultant to continue to the next “stage.”

The deliverables are organized per table below. Evaluation Stage A Deliverables: M&E Plan (Estimated Timing for whole assignment): March 2026 (Estimated Day(s) per Deliverable)

• Requested inputs provided to the international evaluator to finalize the Country M&E Plan based on review of project documents and consultation with Country Team – 2 days.
• Evaluation Stage B Deliverables: Baseline Evaluation Planning, Implementation and Reporting – Estimated Day(s) per Deliverable.
• Spreadsheet of enumerators hired characterizing their competencies against the ToR for enumerators. This is inclusive of timing for hiring and determining enumerators – 0.5 day.
• Final set of training agenda and modules for the baseline assessment enumerators’ training that have been reviewed and finalized in consultation with ChildFund’s international evaluator – 2 days.
• Set of draft contextualized and translated baseline assessment data collection tools to utilize for training enumerators established in coordination with ChildFund’s international evaluator – 2 days.
• Training of enumerators and pretest of the tools – 4 days.
• Set of contextualized, translated, and finalized baseline assessment data collection tools – 1 day.
• Baseline assessment field data collection – 10 days.
• Complete set of entered, cleaned (and translated for qualitative data) raw qualitative and quantitative data as per the final baseline assessment data entry forms agreed with ChildFund’s international evaluator – 3 days.
• Preliminary analysis of agreed upon data (to be determined with ChildFund’s international evaluator) – 2 days.
• Validation of the preliminary results with the county stakeholders – 2 days.
• Update the PMT baseline values for the outcome indicators and data summary of the key findings – 0.5 day.
• Tracked changes and comments provided on the draft(s) of the international evaluator’s baseline assessment report and brief – 2 days.
• Travel – 1 day.
• Total days evaluation stage B – 30 days.

Proposed Time Frame

Not more than 30 days starting from the 20 th of November to the 20 th of December 2023. Specific timelines with breakdown of activities applicable to this evaluation will set out in consultation with the consultant.

Scope of Evaluation

The baseline evaluation will be undertaken in 2 districts of Nampula Province, namely: Ribaue and Monapo.

Evaluation Approach

The evaluation will be done in line with Baseline Study Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Plan for Mozambique whose draft will be developed by the International Consultant.

Selection of Consultant

Interested individuals and/or institutions are requested to provide, at a minimum:

• Their CV and CVs of all team members (if institution or team of individuals).
• Daily rate in Mozambique currency.
• A budget for travel costs to carry out preparation, training, and data collection.
• Past writing sample of a final assessment report.
• Reference contact information of at least 3 individuals or institutions that have conducted research with the individual or institution in the past.
• Preferably conversant with Portuguese and English.
• An example of a previous assessment’s/evaluation’s detailed work plan.
• Examples of past assessment training/capacity building materials used when training enumerators.
• Past evaluation reports or other research reports authored by the individual or institution’s staff.
• Minimum 14 years’ experience managing household-level surveys of similar scale and preferably in the ECD, child protection, maternal and child health, maternal and child nutrition, and/or other related sectors.
• Demonstrate a record of experience in carrying out evaluations, particularly demonstrated experience with research and participatory methods.
• Have relevant experience in working with governments and/or international organizations on consultancy assignments.
• Strong knowledge in using qualitative and quantitative statistical packages such as Nvivo, SPSS, STATA, and others.
• An excellent working knowledge of Emakwa, language spoken in the targeted districts is an asset.
• Have excellent proven written and spoken English and communication skills.

NB: Mozambican based consultants and consultancy firms are highly encouraged to apply for this job as the project will not afford to fly consultants from other countries. The applications received will be reviewed on a rolling basis. ChildFund reserves the right to close the window of applications as soon as appropriate consultancy applicant(s) who meet the above requirements is received.