USDA seeks Proposals to improve literacy of school-age children

Deadline: 16-Oct-20

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Nascent Solutions Inc. (Nascent) is seeking proposals for Midterm Evaluation of a 5-year McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Project in Cameroon.

This is a five-year project funded under USDA’s McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program. Implemented by Nascent, the project is designed to improve the literacy of school-age children through improved literacy instruction, student attentiveness, and student attendance.

Secondarily, the project intends to increase the use of positive health and dietary practices. The project runs from October 2018 to September 2023.

While the primary objective is improving literacy, the staple activity is the provision of a daily lunch using food commodities provided by USDA. Nascent seeks to improve:

Quality of literacy instruction, through more consistent teacher attendance, provision of better teaching and materials, and training of teachers and administrators;
Student attentiveness, through the daily lunch program and extracurricular activities;
Student attendance, through school infrastructure improvements, enrollment outreaches, an increased community understanding of education benefits, and reducing health related absences;
Use of positive health and dietary practices, through increased knowledge of hygiene, safe food preparation, and nutrition, as well as increased access to clean water and sanitation and preventative health interventions;
Education systems, through enhancing the capacity of government and civil society, as well as improving local education- and nutrition-related policies.

The midterm evaluation will inform Nascent, USDA, and implementation partners of the project’s impact and progress. They will use its content to:

assess progress in project implementation;
provide a signal of the effectiveness of interventions;
reassess the theory of change;
make mid-course corrections;
document lessons learned; and
emphasize the most viable sustainability paths to stakeholders.

This will continue a quasiexperimental evaluation setup at baseline by an external evaluation firm.

Profile of Evaluation Team

Evaluators are welcome to assemble a team as they see fit (not including field level data collectors, who will be recruited separately). Their skills should be complementary, with one identified as the Team Lead, who will bear responsibility for all work products and processes. Firms and groups of independent consultants are welcome to apply. Combined, the team should have the following skills and attributes:

Demonstrated experience leading complex impact evaluations.
Demonstrated expertise in study design and sampling.
Demonstrated experience in the development of quantitative data collection tools and managing field data collection (including mobile).
Demonstrated experience in using qualitative methods such as focus group discussions and key informant interviews.
Demonstrated experience in data management and analysis using statistical software, including analyzing complex (multi-stage cluster samples) surveys.
Demonstrated experience using propensity score matching, principal component analysis, and differencein-differences analysis techniques.
Demonstrated experience in concise, illuminating report writing, including data visualization.
Demonstrated experience in training and managing field data collectors and complex logistics.
Subject matter expertise in literacy and education.
Subject matter expertise in maternal nutrition, child nutrition, and hygiene.
Strong teamwork ability across cultures and time zones.
Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate with a variety of stakeholders, ranging from young students to government officials.
Experience with EGRA.
Experience with the Stallings Classroom Observation system.
Experience with dietary diversity surveys.
Experience with USDA McGovern-Dole projects.
Experience in Cameroon. If other criteria are met, preference is given to Cameroon-based teams.
High proficiency in written and verbal French and English.