Consultants at Catholic Relief Services (CRS)

 Call for Expression of Interest – Ad Hoc Operations Support Personnel for LLIN Mass Campaign (Global Fund Malaria Grant)  
 In Nigeria, CRS is a sub-recipient (SR) on the Global Fund HIV and Malaria grants and has assumed the role of principal recipient (PR) for the Global Fund Malaria grant in January 2017. As PR, CRS has partnered with the National Malaria Elimination Program (NMEP), various state governments and malaria partners and stakeholders to coordinate the 2017 long lasting insecticide treated nets (LLIN) mass campaigns states; Kwara, Imo, Edo and Ondo. In addition, CRS will deploy ICT4D devices and technology with the Cash and Asset

Transfer (CAT) strategy during the mass campaigns in the ICT4D states.  
OBJECTIVES OF THIS CONSULTANCY  
Provide operations and finance related operational support in the LLIN mass campaign implementation in the four Campaign States.
The personnel will be responsible for preliminary review and collation of documentations required for activities in the campaign states before they are forwarded to CRS GF Malaria office in Abuja.  

CATEGORIES OF AD HOC OPERATIONS SUPPORT PERSONNEL 
Category One:  State Ad hoc operations support personnel- One per state
Category Two:  LGA Ad hoc Operations support personnel- One per LGA in each state.  

SPECIFIC TASKS 

• Attendance sheet: Ad hoc operations support personnel are expected to collate the attendance sheet and compare it with the number of people either at the training or on the field.  They will verify names on the attendance sheets involved in the activity (training / others). This entails line by line check and conduct spot checks for paper attendance, and populate the information from the support documents in a required excel template.
• Verification of account details: The State ad hoc Operations support personnel will verify the beneficiary account details to confirm if it is up to ten digit or not. A platform may be provided at the spot to confirm if the beneficiary account details are valid or not. This will in long run ensure seamless payment process and drastically reduce invalid payments and reconciliation issues that will arise due to invalid account details.

Time sheet:

• Timesheet and other means of verification, agreed with the Vector Control unit, will be deployed to verify that campaign personnel performed required task/deliverables and subsequently collated by ad hoc operations support personnel. S/he will be responsible for preliminary review in the field before documents are sent to CRS GF Malaria office in Abuja. This is to ensure that discrepancies are detected, reported and addressed immediately. Other support document: The ad hoc operations support personnel will collate other support documents necessary for any valid payment.  For instance, a payment request that requires an attendance sheet as support should be supported accordingly and should not be supported with wrong documentation such as signed payment sheet which is not relevant for the payment request. 
• Send payment schedule to the Vector control unit, for further confirmation and revert to participants for issues that need follow-up.
• Distribution of campaign materials: The ad hoc operations support personnel will be responsible for distribution of campaign materials (training and implementation) for their respective LGAs and delivery to the LGA team
• Feeding during LGA level training: The ad hoc operations support personnel will be responsible for liaising with food vendor for their respective LGA to ensure timely delivery of the food, the right quantity based on agreement with the vendor and to report issues with regards to the feeding if any. 
• Any other responsibility as assigned. 
• State ad hoc operations support personnel expected role in the LLIN campaign includes: 
• Verification of account details: The State ad hoc Operations support personnel will verify the beneficiary account details to confirm if it is up to ten digit or not. A platform may be provided at the spot to confirm if the beneficiary account details are valid or not. This will in long run ensure seamless payment process and drastically reduce invalid payments and reconciliation issues that will arise due to invalid account details.
• Coordinate distribution of campaign materials: The state ad hoc operation support personnel will oversee and coordinate (with technical guidance from the technical Work stream) the distribution of the campaign materials and raise waybills for each LGA.
• Vehicle logistics: The state ad hoc operations support personnel will oversee and coordinate use of vehicles for monitoring and supervision in LGAs as well as collation and review of daily vehicle log for retirement.  

LOCATION OF CONSULTANCY SERVICE 
Kwara, Imo, Edo and Ondo States.  

SELECTION CRITERIA 
The Ad Hoc Support Operations Personnel: 

• Must be resident in the state of choice, amongst the four campaign states.
• Must have a personal computer to work with;
• Must have a minimum of B.Sc. for State ad-hoc support and minimum of HND or higher for LGA ad-hoc support, in social sciences, Business administration, Finance/Accounting or related field;
• Must be computer literate, with proficiency in the use of excel, spreadsheet and word.
• Must have experience in financial review, payments and processing (This is an advantage)
• Should have previous or current experience providing support in LLIN Mass Campaign operations. This is desirable).
• Should be a good team player who can work with a team of experts and state government officials. 

3  
TIMELINES  
The Ad hoc operations support personnel, when selected, will have brief orientation (one-day) in their respective states, before activities begin. The ad hoc operations support personnel may be engaged for a period of Twenty (20) days during the LLIN Mass Campaign. The State ad hoc Operations support personnel may work 15 days in the field, and the remaining 5 days in Abuja, to summarize and complete deliverables for their respective state.   

REPORTING The Ad hoc Operation suport will report to the Finance specialist with dotted line to the Vector Control unit in Abuja. Overall coordination and technical oversight will be provided by the Grant manager.  

KEY WORKING RELATIONSHIPS CRS Finance/Grant unit, CRS Vector Control unit team in charge of the LLIN Mass Campaign, State Program Managers and other staff in the state, CAT team.  

PAYMENT SCHEDULE 

• Payment will be disbursed as per schedule of timely deliverables and the ad hoc staff will be paid for each level of effort for the completion of agreed deliverable. The ad hoc staff is expected to make a formal presentation of their report to the project team. 
• Please note that CRS will deduct and remit to the Federal Inland Revenue (FIR) a 5% withholding Tax from the total consultancy fees in accordance with the Nigerian Tax Law.  

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Putting Nitrogen Fixation to Work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa Phase II (N2Africa II)’  
Summary Information  Services required Consultant to conduct training to Community Based Seed Producers on Local Seed Business Development  Project/Program Title IITA N2Africa Project: Putting Nitrogen fixation to work for smallholder farmers in Africa (N2Africa Project Nigeria)  Nature of Contract Individual Consultant Duration – Estimate   20 Days Expected Start Date             Immediately after concluding contract agreement Expected places of focus FCT, Sokoto and Kebbi states  

Background/project description  
Catholic Relief Services in partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is implementing the “Putting Nitrogen Fixation to work for Smallholder Farmers in Africa Phase II (N2Africa II) project in Kebbi, Sokoto and FCT state since 2015. The benefit of phase I of the project were; farmers are convinced about yield enhancement effect the use of rhizobium inoculant in soybean production in Nigeria and are ready to adopt the practice as a practical way of generating more income. The project initiated community-based seed production activities. Interventions focused on increased access to improved seed by resource-poor farmers in Northern Nigeria’s Sokoto, Kebbi and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with the aim of strengthening the informal seed sector and delivery system. CRS-FtF built the capacity of 56 Field agents to be independent private inputs service provides (PISP) and they will be dealing with Seeds, Inoculants, P-Fertilizer, PICS bags, agro chemicals and render extension services to farmers in their various communities. 
Currently, Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project in collaboration with IITA-N2A are in the second phase of the project of implementing new strategy to create sustainable local seed businesses (LSB) through market research and links with seed companies. 
The collaborative effort of the Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods and N2A projects has played a catalytic role in dissemination of improved varieties by ensuring that community take the ownership of the seed system of focused legumes; a business model has been developed for soybean, groundnut and cowpea through community seed entrepreneur. The collaboration has caused increase in adoption of high yielding disease and pest-resistant legumes varieties which has resulted into increased in yield of these crops. However, despite its potential and opportunities in making Community Based Seed Production (CBSP) work, there are several constrains that need to be addressed to scale up the benefits of effectiveness of input supply and marketing systems. These include sustainable local seed businesses, market research and links with seed companies. The project is being implemented by CRS though a local partner; Diamond Development Initiatives.
The phase II exit strategy will build national capacity to develop locally-tailored innovative approaches to achieving the vision to sustain the benefit of rhizobium inoculant in legume production and value addition.  

Goal of the Project 
N2Africa will build sustainable, long-term partnerships to enable smallholder farmers to benefit from symbiotic N2-fixation by grain legumes through effective production technologies, including inoculants and fertilizers. The goal of the project is to contribute to improved rural household livelihoods of smallholder farmers in the project areas of FCT, Kebbi, and Sokoto State in Nigeria, by enhancing the yield of grain legumes and expanding the farm area cropped with legumes to improve incomes, and food and nutrition security.  

Objectives of the Consultancy 
The objective of this assignment is to provide to training to 79 seed producers on local seed business (LSB) in FCT, Sokoto and Kebbi States that could produce and market quality seed of varieties preferred by other farmers.  In addition, the consultant will provide coaching and monitoring to local seed business entrepreneurs to become technically equipped, professionally organised, market oriented and strategically linked to achieve commercial sustainability.  
Key tasks to be performed by consultant are the following four building block and coaching activities follow thereafter to continuously guide a group: 

Introducing and developing local seed business model:

• The consultant will develop a local seed business (LSB) model which should focus on defining an LSB and what is seed entreneurship?
• Building block 1-Training local seed businesses to be technically equipped:  The consultant will conduct an assessment to make a quick inventory- situation analysis of the CBSP training conducted previously on seed production planning, key pre-harvest and crop establishment skills to produce quality seed? how to set demonstration; what are the key harvest and post-harvest practices involved in preparation of the seed for marketing, quality control in seed production, improving LSBs access to land and land management.  The assessment should focus on the ones operational or not and why? 
• Building block 2- Training Local Seed Businesses to be professionally organized: The consultant will conduct a Training of trainers (TOT) capacity on local seed businesses to CBSPs across the targeted project communities. The consultant will also develop a detailed curriculum for training these CBSPs. A well-structured training will be conducted at a suitable central location in each of the project states. The training, which should focus on local seed businesses to be professionally organized, should emphasize ensuring functional financial management in local seed businesses; enhancing organizational management in local seed businesses; improving local seed business governance; promoting gender sensitive local seed businesses; developing a business model and a business plan for a local seed business
• Building block3- Building the technical capacity of local seed businesses to be market oriented: The consultant will build the capacity of community seed based producers across targeted project communities. The training on market oriented should focus on doing market research, marketing of local seed business, enhancing customer feedback.
•  Building block 4- Training local seed businesses to be strategically linked: The training is intended to encourage adequate planning and to facilitate effective linkages of LSBs to available services within their communities. The training will inform the project on the types of existing links with emphasis to understanding the importance of partnerships and how to manage partnerships and partnerships with value chain development initiatives.  
• Submit a detailed final report on the whole assignment.

Timeline and Deliverables schedule
This consultancy will be done in four phases (5 days each) 26th June 2017 – 30th June 2017, 3rd – 7th July, 2017, 14th- 18th August, 2017 and 11th- 15th September, 2017, all activities will be conducted with supervision, assistance, and guidance of the below Project staff
CRS (Program Managers, Agricultural Livelihoods Technical Lead) and; 
DDI Program Coordinators 
The consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables:
Reporting Requirements
(Activities and/or Outputs)
To be Completed by no later than these Due Dates
Delivery Instructions
(# of copies, paper/electronic transmittals, formats, names of reviewers, etc.)
1. Submission of the detailed assessment of the situation analysis of the CSBPs over the years detailed curriculum for training field LSBs on seed businesses 
30th June, 2017 CRS and DDI staff to review assessment report and to review the approach and curriculum/ modules
2. Submission of a detailed training report on training LSBs to be professionally organized on seed businesses. This shall include sheets signed by the participants.
7th July, 2017 CRS and DDI Staff to review training plan, methodology, tools, and final training report.
3. Submission of training report provided to LSBs to be professionally organized across the targeted project communities. This shall include sheets signed by the participants. 
18th August, 2017 CRS and DDI Staff to review training plan, methodology, tools, and final training report. 
4. Submission of training report provided to LSBs to be strategically linked. This shall include sheets signed by the participants.
15th September, 2017
CRS and DDI Staff to review training, plan, methodology, tools, and final training report.
Note: CRS shall arrange all field and logistics in partnership with DDI and N2Afica and partners for 2SCALE and other Project areas to be mutually identified with the consultant
Duration of the work
The duration of the consultancy service will be 25 working days. 
How to apply
This solicitation will be judged by an evaluation panel who will use a cost/ technical best-value tradeoff analysis, i.e. the offer that results in the most appropriate solution for CRS in consideration of technical, cost, and other factors. The technical proposal is significantly more important than the cost proposal. CRS will evaluate Offeror’s proposals in accordance with the following scoring criteria: 
Technical Proposal:
1. Technical Approach (50 points) 

2. Consultant Capabilities & Past Performance (25 points) 3. Proposed Personnel (25 points)
TOTAL:     100 points

• Technical Approach (up to 4 pages): Offerors must include an overall approach to implementing the scope of work outlined in Section 2 that demonstrates their methodology, technical ability, and experience in implementing detailed work plan. Offerors must provide evidence of their ability to implement the scope of work with respect to achieving specific tasks and meeting proposed deadlines.
• Consultant Capabilities and Past Performance (up to 2 pages): Offerors must provide a description of the company/organization’s specific experience delivering similar services. Additionally, offerors must include 3 past performance references of similar work previously implemented as well as contact information for the companies for which such work was completed. Contact information must include at a minimum: name of point of contact who can speak to the offeror’s performance, name and address of the company for which the work was performance, and email and phone number of the point of contact.
• Proposed Personnel: This section must include CVs of proposed personnel to provide the services required. Offerors may include up to two CVs of up to three pages each. Personnel will be judged on relevant demonstrated experience, academic qualifications, and language skills. Candidates who do not meet the minimum requirements set forth by this request will not be given a score.  

Cost Proposal:

• The cost proposal is not scored, but will be negotiated as part of the best value analysis. Cost proposals will be evaluated for reasonableness, realism, completeness, and competitiveness. The overall price will be used as part of the tradeoff analysis to determine final selection.
• CRS will pay directly for other expenses for the consultant like accommodation, per diems, transport and travel logistics, enumerators, and printing of any materials to be used. 

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Initiated in September 2014, The Comprehensive, Coordinated Care for Children Project (4Children) is a five†year USAID†funded consortium of organizations led by Catholic Relief Services with partners IntraHealth, Maestral, Pact, Plan and Westat. 4Children designed to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for OVC affected by HIV and AIDS and other adversities. 4Children draws on global evidence, which illustrates that HIV and other adversities are best prevented and addressed when families and children have access to both high quality health and social welfare services. 4Children helps countries to identify practical and appropriate policies, programs and services that reduce the risk of HIV and maltreatment and promote child well-being. It promotes approaches that address the unique needs of each child and family, including strengthening front line social service workforce and case management systems.
The United States Government (USG) has made a significant investment in the prevention and response to HIV and AIDS in Nigeria over the past decade. In fiscal year 2015, more than 800,000 children benefitted from PEPFAR-supported services. Currently, PEPFAR-funded OVC programming is occurring across the country in approximately 180 LGAs.

Under PEPFAR 3.0, approaches will focus on the highest impact interventions in key geographic areas where data demonstrate the highest prevalence of HIV. In Nigeria, this has resulted in the identification of 32 LGAs where facilities report the highest prevalence of HIV. These LGAs, also referred to as “scale up” LGAs, will be the focus of intense PEPFAR-funded interventions aimed at significantly decreasing the rate of new HIV infections and successfully treating existing cases and controlling the spread of the disease. Future interventions will have an increased focus on linking OVC and their caregivers to HIV testing and counseling (HTC) and treatment and outreach to adolescent girls to prevent new HIV infections. Through this new focus, it is anticipated that 300,000 OVC will be graduation or transitioned from current programming by end of fiscal year (FY) 2016 and an additional 600,000 OVC by end FY 2017.

To achieve these targets, 4Children will implement a two year project focused on the provision of technical assistance to PEPFAR OVC Implementing Partners, Government of Nigeria entities and Networks to graduate and transition OVC households and children from care and support. To support these efforts, the project will strengthen programming around sustainability planning, case management and referral of OVC and vulnerable households to health facilities, household economic strengthening activities parenting, and youth/adolescent girl programming, as well as supporting the development of a HIV-sensitive social service system.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS CONSULTANCY
 4Children require skilled and experienced consultants to assist in the conduct, analysis and reporting of capacity strengthening outcomes based on initial assessment conducted for State Ministries of Women Affairs and Social Development and Civil Society Networks (AONN). The consultant will be for a duration of 21 working days with 15 days in field. The assignment will be executed with two consultants covering 4 states each within the stipulated working period.

SPECIFIC TASKS
The scope of the consultancy will include but not limited to:

• Conduct detailed institutional capacity assessment for State Ministries of Women Affairs and Social Development and CSO Networks (AONN).
• Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the institutions related to system improvement and sustainability.
• Measure significantly progress made by the institutions after initial assessment.
• Document lessons learnt and promising practices following deployment of 4Children tool, accompaniment and capacity strengthening approach.
• Conduct a trend and cascade analysis showing demonstrable growth for each institution and zonal level.
• Review capacity strengthening improvement plans and propose follow-on intervention for strengthening sustainability for selected institutions; and
• Develop process report and learning documentation that depicts results from 4Children capacity strengthening approach for government and CSO networks.

COVERAGE/LOCATION OF CONSULTANCY SERVICE

• 12 States (including Abuja).

METHODOLOGY

• A desk-based review of any existing information and capacity strengthening interventions will be conducted; Field-based capacity assessment with representatives of Institutions to identify progress, promising practices and challenges in 4Children capacity strengthening approach.

OUTPUTS/DELIVERABLES
The specific outputs will include:

• Learning documentation on 4Children Capacity Strengthening approach
• Completed copies of Sustainability Capacity Assessment Framework and Tool (SAF-T) for each assessed institution;
• Scorecard report on capacity strengthening results;
• Process and consultancy report
• Comprehensive Capacity Assessment Report by zone and National

DURATION AND TIMELINES

The consultancy will utilize up to 2 persons per work day spread over a period of one month.

The period and duration of assignment is stated thus:

Task

Timeline

Responsibility

Training and Orientation of Consultants on SAF-T and debrief on reassessment plan

August 10 – 11

4Children

Conduct capacity assessment for 12 SMWASD, AONN

August 14 – 25

Consultants

Harmonization and analysis of data

August 28 - 29

Consultants

Reporting, Documentation and Consultancy report

August 30 – September 2

Consultants
20 days (with weekends)


LIAISON AND REPORTING

• The Consultant will report to the Sustainability Direction on all contractual obligations and liaise with 4Children Government System Strengthening and Organization Capacity Strengthening Advisors for day-to-day delivery of the assignment.
• The consultant will implement the assignment under the guidance of Technical focal point persons and technical staff at zonal levels.
• All reports shall be submitted to the Sustainability Director. 4Children shall certify all deliverables before CRS effects any payments.

CRS/4Children Support to the Consultant:

• 1. Access to all past reports and data relevant to this assignment;
• 2. Access to the 4Children Office and needed infrastructure;
• 3. Assistance to gain access to relevant stakeholders for discussions and to obtain information pertaining to the consultancy;
• 4. Logistics for visits to stakeholders in states.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

Education:
University degree in Public Health, Public Administration, Business Administration or Organizational Management or Leadership, or equivalent degree with proven capacity strengthening experience

Experience:

• Five years of experience in organizational development and provision of technical assistance to international non-governmental organizations and/or civil society and faith-based organizations preferably to those engaged in HIV care and treatment and/or OVC services delivery.
• Demonstrated ability to maintain positive relationships with and accountability towards diverse actors including donors, PEPFAR OVC, government, and civil society partners.
• Excellent capacity and system strengthening skills including the demonstrated ability to conduct assessments, analysis, monitoring, and reporting as well as the ability to develop practical solutions within set deadlines.
• Experience in quality improvement science, using data to inform decision-making and sustainability planning/monitoring a plus.
• Excellent negotiation and analytical/problem solving skills.
• Strong interpersonal, partnership, and training, facilitation and mentoring skills.
• Excellent written and oral communications skills in English.
• Knowledge of GON OVC service delivery standards and PEPFAR programming, process, guidance and frameworks is strongly preferred.
• Proficiency in the use of Microsoft Office suite, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

PAYMENT SCHEDULE
Payment will be disbursed as per schedule of timely deliverables and the ad hoc staff will be paid for each level of effort for the completion of agreed deliverable. The ad hoc staff is expected to make a formal presentation of their report to the project team.

Please note that CRS will deduct and remit to the Federal Inland Revenue (FIR) a 5% withholding Tax from the total consultancy fees in accordance with the Nigerian Tax Law.