Background

Description of the Assignment:

UPPR has supported over 2,500 poor urban communities in 23 towns and cities across Bangladesh since it began operations in 2008. UPPR recognises that poverty is multidimensional in nature and delivers an integrated response with complementary interventions. This includes mobilisation, community banking, improved water and sanitation, and improved livelihoods. The primary goal of the project is to lift households in poor urban settlements out of poverty. With regards to livelihoods, UPPR provides very specific support in the form of apprenticeship grants to train women and men, as well as small business start-up grants; which support women to establish their own small business. Most employment opportunities created through these grants are in informal sectors within poor urban communities. As a result they have limited scope for growth and sustainability.

However, the project recognises that there are many dimensions to poverty and that one project cannot meet them all. To meet priorities identified by the community, but which UPPR cannot engage with directly, UPPR supports communities to develop relationships with other projects and organisations. These are known as linkages and partnerships. Collaborations with no exchange of funds are termed linkages, while those where UPPR pays for the services provided are termed partnerships. Since 2013 UPPR has been developing partnerships with private sector employers and training providers to facilitate skill development training for women and men from poor urban communities and support/provide the creation of sustainable long-term employment. At present, a skills shortage exists in Bangladesh and so the project is looking to bridge gaps between demand and supply by establishing a relationship between communities, employers and skills development providers.

As a new National Urban Poverty Reduction Programme is planned, UPPR now wishes to commission a study to assess this strategy. This study will include a literature review of approaches in international development to engage the private sector in creating sustainable livelihoods. The study will also involve a review of the partnerships approach which UPPR has already established, including primary research into the outcomes for women and men that have been trained. In addition to assessing the feasibility of this approach in Bangladesh, this study should also make recommendations on how a new programme can most effectively incorporate the engagement of the private sector.

Project Description

Approximately 40 million people in Bangladesh live in urban areas, out of which 21 per cent live below the poverty line. Such poor urban households live in inadequate and insecure houses, often in unsanitary conditions. Difficulties in accessing employment are made worse by having little or no social protection. There is limited access to health and education opportunities. With one of the highest urbanization rates in Asia, the situation continues to worsen for an increasing number of urban poor in Bangladesh.

The Project

UPPR works with communities in 23 towns and cities across Bangladesh to develop the capacity of poor women to manage their communities’ development issues and tackle the needs they identify as most important. The project began in 2008 and seeks to reduce urban poverty in Bangladesh by sustainably improving the livelihoods and living conditions of 3 million poor and extreme poor people living in urban areas, especially women and children. UPPR recognises that poverty is multidimensional in nature and delivers an integrated response with complementary interventions. Key outputs include:

• Urban poor communities mobilized to form representative and inclusive groups and prepare community action plans;
• Poor urban communities have healthy and secure living environments;
• Urban poor and extremely poor people acquire the resources, knowledge and skills to increase their income and assets; and,
• Pro-poor urban policies and partnerships supported at the national and local levels.

 To achieve these outcomes UPPR works with over 2,500 Community Development Committees (CDCs). Over 90% of leadership in CDCs is provided by women and they manage the Participatory Identification of the Poor (PIP); the development of Community Action Plans (CAPs); and oversee the implementation of community contracts (see http://upprbd.org/whatwedo.aspx for more details).

To provide this support, the Government of Bangladesh and the United Nations Development Programme work together to manage and implement UPPR. It is the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) that hosts and executes UPPR at a national level. In the towns and cities in which UPPR works, and is executed jointly with the Municipality or City Cooperation. UNDP manages the implementation of the Project, and UN-Habitat supports the components that work on improving living conditions. Beyond the contributions of these actors, the majority of funding is provided by UK aid (GBP 67 million).

Private Sector Engagement

UPPR works in collaboration with the Government, non-Government and private sector organisations in project towns to access their services and achieve specific policy outcomes for sustainable poverty reduction. Since 2013, UPPR has had a particular focus on establishing partnerships with private sector employers. UPPR supports the skills training of men and women from poor urban settlements with a view to the employer providing sustainable employment. At present, a skills shortage exists in Bangladesh and so the project works to bridge gaps between demand and supply by establishing a relationship between communities, employers and skills development providers.

Current Status of Training

By December 2014, UPPR had established 10 partnerships with private sector and training Institutions/organizations to train and provide 80% employment. A total of 2,446 trainees are enrolled in different training programmes. In addition four other partnerships have been agreed to train 600 additional trainees and subsequently employ 80% of the trained people. Private sector partners include the Bangladesh Garment Manufactures Export Association (BGMEA), the Solar Group, Land Mark Footwear, and Nippon Industries.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work:

The consultant will reflect on the ten (10) partnerships that have been established and on where implementation has begun or is in progress. Out of 10 partnerships, UPPR has signed agreements with the private sector organisation - Skill and Productivity Limited (SPL) and with an NGO - Society for underprivileged families (SUF) to employ UPPR trainees in six private sector organisations. In addition, UPPR has also signed a separate agreement with SPL to employ trainees in other various private sector organizations. UPPR has also entered into agreements with BGMEA, Muslim Aid partnered with Clifton Group and DEBA to facilitate employment of the trainees.

There are a number of key participants in this study. Firstly, the community members who should benefit from the training. Secondly, the organisations with whom the partnerships have been formed. Thirdly, the UPPR officials involved in establishing or supporting these relationships.

This study should identify the livelihood outcomes for the women and men that have been trained. As no baseline has been established it is expected that the consultant will only be able to reliably demonstrate change on certain key employment indicators, i.e. socio-economic background of the trainees, age-group, employment status prior to training (forma/informal), previous skills level, post training employment and income, match between the expectation and skills development, scope of developing multi-level skills with upward mobility and other socioeconomic characteristics etc.

While the consultant will be responsible for designing both qualitative and quantitative tools and directing the training of enumerators, UPPR staff will support quantitative data collection. This will include the enumeration of surveys, facilitating data entry, and cleaning the data set. The consultant will provide guidance as day to day management will be provided by the M&E Coordinator. The consultant is expected to undertake the final data analysis with additional support from the M&E Coordinator if required. All data will be gender segregated to enable a gender analysis.

UPPR maintains a database of the individuals who have been trained under these partnerships. This includes the dates of training; attendance record; current employments status; and, if applicable, current employment location. UPPR has a range of existing documentation on its interventions with more due to be published during 2015 (see http://upprbd.org/projectrpts.aspx).This includes outcome studies on UPPR’s other livelihood activities and a value for money study which gives some consideration to partnerships and with the private sector. UPPR is also commissioning a wider study on its partnerships and linkages (in-kind collaboration and paid-services) with a range of organisations and service providers which is likely to be coterminous with this study. If so, exchange of information and emerging findings may be facilitated. (A detailed exploration of occupational health and safety exceeds the scope of this study. However, the consultant may collect the experiences and perceptions of the stakeholders in this regard.)

Study Question

This study should achieve the following objectives and answer the following questions:

Theory and Process

• Document the rationale for private sector engagement in pro-poor programming, including best practices in private sector engagement both within and beyond South Asia;
• What is the current economic context in Bangladesh for engaging with private sector firms?
• Document UPPR’s approach to private sector engagement.

Outcome

• Income levels pre and post training;
• Opportunities for job retention and upward mobility;
• Disadvantaged/disabled;
• Perception of employers who hire these workers relative to their perceptions of other workers in their factories/organisations;
• What proportion of trained women and men had no previous training before this partnership?
• What proportion of women and men were not in full-time employment?
• Identify reasons as to why women and men did not have training and/or why they were not employed full-time;
• How many of the trained women and men are now in full-time employment? This should be broken down by employed with partner organisation or another and whether the individual is utilising the skills they were trained in;
• Assess the quality of working conditions, i.e. formal sector, wages, working hour, provision for sick, maternal and annual leave, workplace safety etc.
• Assess the reasons why any trained women and men are not working including any relationship with how the individual originally chose, or was selected for, this training;
• Incentives for private sector firms to engage workers trained through UPPR programmes. Why did they decide to partner with UPPR? Are there options for scaling up the partnership?
• What is the advantage and disadvantage of this present approach?

Evaluation

Assess whether women and men felt adequately trained to fulfill the requirements of their respective job (i.e. identify the gap in training).

Sustainability

• Is the training likely to yield lasting employment for women and men?
• Is such private sector engagement a sustainable means of creating livelihoods for significant numbers of vulnerable poor and extreme poor women and men?
• Is formal training for formal employment a realistic option for all community members? Is there a continued requirement for informal training as provided through UPPR’s apprenticeship grant?

Future Programming

• Document best practices and lessons learned including case stories with recommendations for future programming.

• Document whether private sector engagement strategy should be considered and outlined as a key focus for future programming considering significant growth trends of the economy of Bangladesh;
• Make recommendations based on international good practices on what role ICT might play in bringing community members and private sectors employers into regular contact, i.e. website or SMS services to advertise opportunities.

Methodology

In preparing proposed methodologies, the consultant should consider the following requirements. The consultant is strongly encouraged to support their proposed approaches with examples of how they have successfully met such requirements in the past.

Literature review

The consultant will undertake a review of literature around private sector engagement and highlight good practices in this area. The consultant will also work with UPPR to document the project’s own approach to engaging with the private sector to provide skills training.

Mixed Methods

The study will require a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Collecting outcome data from community members is likely to require a survey. UPPR staff will support data collection. The consultant should utilised qualitative approaches in engaging community members, private sector partners, local government institutions and UPPR staff. This is likely to consist of both key informant interviews and participatory approaches when engaging with community members. All proposed approaches must be justified in the proposal. Consideration should also be given in the proposal as to how different approaches and sources of evidence may serve to triangulate findings.

Sampling

The sample of community members will be drawn from the 2,246 who have received training. This should be done in line with standard procedures. Consultants should outline their likely approach and anticipated sample size. This may be finalised during the inception phase. The final list of private sector partners to be engaged with will be agreed with UPPR during the inception phase. It is hoped that the majority of partners will be engaged.

Analysis Framework

In addition to outlining their approach to managing and analysing quantitative data, the consultant is expected to propose a detailed and systematic approach to analysing qualitative data, highlighting whether different approaches are required depending on the type of participatory approach applied. This may include the use of software such as NVIVO or network mapping tools. Strategies for visualising data are strongly encouraged. Gender base data analysis will be applied along with group for disadvantage and disable people.

Value for Money

The consultant should outline their approach to establishing Value for Money. It is recommended that the consultant consider the DFID 3 E approach of economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

Expected Outputs and Deliverables:

The expected outputs are:

• An inception report incorporating revised project understanding and approach; sampling strategy; qualitative tools; qualitative analysis framework; and timeline
• A Power Point presentation of emerging findings and meeting with key stakeholders
• A draft report ( in word document) which answers the key questions in depth and includes a literature review, case stories illustrating key findings, recommendation for supporting sustainable livelihoods and best practice for future programme
• Final report on the study incorporating all comments and feedback
• The End of Assignment report.

Estimated Duration to Complete the Expected Outputs & Deliverables:

• An inception report incorporating revised project understanding and approach; sampling strategy; qualitative tools; qualitative analysis framework; and timeline (Estimated duration: 3 days);
• Field visit and a Power Point presentation of emerging findings and meeting with key stakeholders (Estimated duration: 10 days);
• A draft report which answers the key questions in depth and includes a literature review, case stories, illustrating key findings, recommendation for supporting sustainable livelihoods and best practice for future programme (Estimated duration: 10 days);
• Final report incorporating all final comments on the draft report (Estimated duration: 6 days);
• End of Assignment report study phase should result in a report that should be formatted to A4 size paper, and all report should be submitted in hard copy and in MS Word version. All data sets and analysis must be shared with the project (Estimated duration: 1 day).

Institutional Arrangement / Supervision and Performance Evaluation:

The study will be managed by the International Project Manager and under the overall guidance of the National Project Director. Contractual oversight will be provided by the UPPR Operations Manager.

Duration of Work:

This study will take place over two months and require 30 working days inclusive of travel days. The consultant will work from home with field mission to Bangladesh for 12 working days for in-country visit to selected UPPR towns (Dhaka North, Dhaka South, Chittagong, Tongi and Tangail) and a presentation on preliminary findings.

Duty Station:

The consultancy will be home-based with one trip to Bangladesh (for visits to 5 selected towns). Transport for in-country travel will be provided by UPPR. All other expenses shall be borne by the consultant. The per diem for in-country travel will be as per the UN rates.

Tentative payment schedule:

• 1st payment: 10% of total contract value will be paid after submitting project inception document;
• 2nd payment: 30% of total contract value will be paid after meeting with key stakeholders and submission of presentation with emerging findings;
• 3rd payment: 30% of total contract value will be paid after the submission and approval of the draft report;
• 4th payment: 30% of total contract value will be paid after the submission and approval of the Final report and the End of Assignment report.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards (human rights, peace, understanding between peoples and nations, tolerance, integrity, respect, results orientation (UNDP core ethics) impartiality;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

 Functional Competencies:

• Demonstrate openness to change, flexibility and ability to manage complexities
• Development and poverty knowledge (especially in urban context);
• Proven research and evaluation capacities;
• Proven ability to write very high quality reports (in the English language);
• Proven strong written, networking and communication skills

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• At least University Degree and preferably Masters degree in demography, population and development, statistics, economics, policy advocacy, urban planning or related area of study.

Experience:

• Minimum of ten (10) years of experience in undertaking research in international development settings, including evaluations.
• Examples of at least two previous studies related to livelihood creation, skills training impacts, including at least one that involved private sector engagement.
• Previous professional experience in South Asia.

Language:

• S/he must have excellent skills in written and spoken English and capacity to provide high quality reports in a professional and timely manner.

Application procedure:

Technical Proposal:

Interested individuals must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications.

• Duly accomplished Letter of Confirmation of Interest and Availability using the template provided by UNDP;
• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate andat least three (3) professional references;
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, if applicable, on how they will approach and complete the assignment. A methodology is recommended for intellectual services, but may be omitted for support services[Note: this is optional for support services];
• Technical Proposal needs to contain a detailed description of the process the contractor intends to follow to complete the tasks including a detailed work plan and time schedule for completion/delivery of the final product. This will be agreed upon by the project after selection of the contractor.

Financial Proposal:

Financial Proposal will be prepared on lump sum basis and would include:

• The Financial Proposal shall consist of a comprehensive budget. The budget will be prepared in USD and would include all fees and associated costs, i.e. professional fee, travel cost, subsistence per diems, etc.;
• In order to assist UNDP in the comparison of financial proposals, the financial proposals will include a breakdown of this amount disclosing the key assumption employed in costing the tasks.

The Budget of the successful bidder will be fixed, therefore, comprehensive and all inclusive budget should be prepared. The assignment will be time bound and no extension and/or financial addition is expected to be provided. The price should take into account all HR costs and ofessional fees, travel costs, DSA, subsistence and ancillary expenses.

UNDP shall effect payments, by bank transfer to the successful bidder’s bank account, upon acceptance by UNDP of the deliverables as specified in the ToR. Payments will be made in tranches based on the following percentages and milestones.

Evaluation of the Candidates:

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis:

The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant up on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70% mark in technical evaluation will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria (Total 70 marks):

• Experience of research on private sector engagement (20 marks);
• Experience of both quantitative and qualitative research design (10 marks);
• Experience in undertaking urban poverty research (10 marks);
• Quality and relevance of proposed approach (15 marks);
• Quality of proposed analysis framework (15 marks).

Financial Evaluation (Total 30 marks):

All technical qualified proposals will be scored out 30 based on the formula provided below. The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal. All other proposals received points according to the following formula:

p = y (µ/z)

where:

p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;

y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;

µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;

z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

Documents to be included when submitting the proposals:

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:

• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references;
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a plan on how they will approach and complete the assignment.

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