PROJECT BACKGROUND

The Yemen Emergency Social Protection Enhancement and COVID-19 Response Project (ESPECRP) funded by the World bank is providing additional financing to provide cash transfers, temporary employment, and increased access to basic services and economic opportunities to food-insecure populations affected by COVID-19, the conflict, and climate-related shocks, as well as to strengthen the capacity of national institutions in Yemen.

Within the realm of the ESPECRP’s additional financing, an approach called ‘Continuum of Support – Geographically Bundled Activities’, simply referred to as geo-bundling, is being funded. Geo-bundling is “the simultaneous targeting of various interventions for geographically focused areas in Yemen to ensure complementarity and allow for a comprehensive, concurrent approach to tackle the different drivers of food insecurity in Yemen and maximize lasting impact”. Whilst these interventions are already being implemented in Yemen, under the bundling approach, they are to be integrated to focus on certain geographic areas or communities instead of spreading out geographically.

Geo-bundling complements short-term measures of cash assistance, such as the Cash for Nutrition program, with medium to longer term benefits from interventions that increase resilience to future food insecurity and malnutrition, such as Cash for Work program, PWP building community assets and Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs). These projects aim for longer-term impacts to increase resilience in the face of future food insecurity by aiming to restore agricultural land and to develop irrigation systems. Furthermore, bundles would be supporting local food producers and distributors toward increased agricultural production, enhanced nutrition practices, support to livelihoods and relaunch of local economic activities, as well as access to basic services. Overall, the geo-bundling project objective is to eventually allow graduation towards medium and longer-term development benefits.

An impact evaluation will assess the benefits of concentrating interventions in communities and subdistricts rather than spreading interventions out geographically. Accordingly, the proposed survey seeks to answer the following questions, among others:

· What is the impact of geo-bundled social protection, food production and agricultural interventions on short- and medium-term resilience to food insecurity?

· Does the application of the geo-bundling approach achieve sustained improvements in food and nutrition security above and beyond what could be expected from a similar budget allocated to the same interventions in different geographic areas?

METHODOLOGY

The survey firm will be responsible for the implementation of the impact evaluation survey at household, small firm, and village (community) level for the selected treatment and control groups.

in selected governorates in the Southern part of Yemen by administering the questionnaire to the primary male and primary female household member. The data collection will capture both shorter and longer term outcomes of the bundling of projects. The survey firm will coordinate closely with implementing partners SFD, SMEPS, and PWP throughout the project including analysis of results and their documentation and publication. IFPRI will develop the survey questionnaires and analyze the data. A detailed sample size and locations for survey implementation will be developed and provided before commencement of fieldwork.

If the sample size changes substantially from the projected sample here, the budget may be amended with the agreement of the IFPRI and the survey firm.

Questionnaires

The selected survey firm will work with the research team under supervision of IFPRI to finalize the design of the questionnaire to make sure it fits the Yemeni context. There will be two respondents for the survey, in most cases one female and one male respondent per household. The survey length per respondent will be approximately 45 -60 minutes long, with enumerators completing 3-4 questionnaires/households per day.

SPECIFIC TASKS

Obtaining necessary permits or clearance for the survey

· Acquire all permissions necessary for conducting the survey, including relevant permissions from national and/or local authorities as needed for conducting in-person surveys.

Adhere to local formalities and obtain any required permits related to the survey implementation, as well as survey team health and accident insurance, salary, taxes, and others as necessary.

Data entry system

The survey firm is expected to use a computerized system for data entry that will enable remote real-time monitoring by the research under supervision of IFPRI.

Pilot Test

After developing the questionnaires and receiving approvals, the selected survey firm would be expected to implement a pilot test, designed in consultation with members of the research team under supervision of IFPRI. The pilot will be conducted to provide a final check on the questionnaires’ design and data entry system, as well as length of the interview.

The selected survey firm will recruit teams, from amongst their best personnel, to participate in an associated pilot test data collection training, utilizing both print and tablet questionnaires. Recruits must have previously worked with the survey firm. The training should also be delivered to Supervisors, Interviewers, and Quality Controllers. The pilot will take place in a few areas not covered in the sample of the main data collection. Locations will be divided amongst the teams recruited for the pilot.

Recruitment, training, and main data collection

The main data collection involves several activities that are described in some details below:

Recruiting Field Researchers

Quantitative interviewers, supervisors and Quality Controllers will be recruited by the selected survey firm to participate in the training. All recruits selected for the survey should have previous experience, and all must be university graduates. At least one half of the interviewers should be women to allow for women respondents to be interviewed in their houses. Selection will be from amongst those who have previously worked closely with the survey firm in similar surveys. Knowledge and experience with the research topic and methodology, performance during in-house training, and field practice will all be considered for selection. Staff selection must also consider the interviewer’s familiarity and fluency in the local dialect of the expected respondents. Interviewers may be recruited from the same district as study communities to avoid long travel and ensure acceptability of females moving without mahrams but must not be recruited from the same subdistrict as study communities.

Training of Field Staff

Different training sessions will be conducted by the selected survey firm for the main data collection:

Supervisor Training

Training sessions for supervisors will take place over 5 days in Cairo together with the research team,

including going over the main modules of the survey questionnaires to ensure that they understand the content of the survey. The training will also focus specifically on a supervisor’s main responsibilities including how to enter a community, how to check the sample in the field, how to deal with non-response cases, how to organize a team’s work, how to use the tablet program, how to review the completed questionnaires before transferring to the designated Dropbox, how to solve duplicates if they occur, how to fill the fieldwork achievement sheet, how to problem-solve, etc. Travel costs for supervisors to Cairo should be included in the financial proposal.

Quality Controllers Mechanism

The survey firm is expected to propose an appropriate and well-tested quality control mechanism. One of the main quality control mechanisms is to have a random back-checks component for 10 percent of the sample which will be shared with the research team under supervision of IFPRI to verify acceptable level of confidence that interviews took place according to the study criteria.

Interviewers Training

To ensure that the interviewers have understood the issues under examination, they will also receive training sessions on data collection. The training should occur in person or using a live video feed, at least 40 hours, and encompass a full review of the questionnaire with sufficient space with clarification of the purpose and meaning of each question, supervised practice with partners in going through the full questionnaire and using the CAPI, and assessment of interviewer readiness for fieldwork. Supervisors are required to participate in these training sessions. Trainings must be arranged so that either a local IFPRI consultant or IFPRI research staff in Cairo can attend remotely or in-person all trainings, in addition to any other members of the research team if required.

Interviewers will receive training on basic interview techniques and specific survey topics (e.g., measurements of indicators, KTP, CAPI, etc.) as well as:

· Entry into a community and acting as a team

· Obtaining consent forms

· How to ask survey questions

· How to fill out the questionnaire, using visual aids

· Reporting training (including the interviewers’ assignment sheet, reporting issues, etc.).

· How to problem-solve

· Role playing

· Mock interviews

· Field practice in areas not covered in the survey sample

· Others

The training will include in-house sessions and field practice. The in-house sessions will include practice with print questionnaires followed by special training on the data entry system. Field practice will be conducted, after receiving security approvals, in areas not covered in the main data collection sample.

The selected survey firm’s trainers will observe the interviewers while they conduct interviews to give them feedback on their performance and respond to their questions. Each interviewer will be evaluated during field practice by different trainers. Interviewers who do not perform well in the field practice will be excluded from the remainder of the training and main data collection.

At the end of the training sessions, interviewers are ranked based on an overall evaluation of their performance. The best performing interviewers will be selected to participate in the main data collection. Ranking results will also be considered in team creation to ensure a balance of interviewer levels.

The trainings will be scheduled in consultation with IFPRI, to allow their staff/consultants to attend and respond to questions as necessary. This is particularly important for sessions concerning the content of the survey modules.

Household listing

In order to draw a random sample from each village, the field research team on initially entering the village must prepare a complete listing of households based on an interview with the local SFD consultant from which a random sample will be drawn following an algorithm to be agreed with IFPRI. To avoid sensitivities with local authorities, full names of household heads will not be required: any nickname/ laqeb can be used instead to describe the households sufficiently to identify them. The total number should agree with the number of households found in the needs assessment.

Main Data Collection

Once the training sessions are completed, teams will be composed as appropriate to the sample. Any issues or questions that arise during the data collection should be communicated to the IFPRI contact person and documented in the data collection report.

During the period of main data collection, in order to facilitate real-time monitoring by IFPRI, the survey firm will upload data as it is shared from the field to a shared Dropbox readable by the IFPRI and IE research team.

For quality assurance within the methodology of using tablets provided by the survey firm, the selected survey firm will ensure:

· Effective supervision of the interviewing teams during fieldwork.

· Field visits and checks on a regular basis, at all stages, by the fieldwork coordinator and the associated staff team.

· Close communication is maintained between the office and fieldwork teams, throughout fieldwork.

· An agreed system of quality control checks conducted by the quality controllers.

· Print a certain percentage of questionnaires to be used if the tablet fails or proves problematic during the interview. In this case the interviewer has to continue the interview on paper and can enter the data on the tablet, later on the same day, after solving the problem.

· Other suggestions for quality control are welcome.

Data processing and quality checks

Data cleaning procedures should be agreed with IFPRI and fully documented. The selected survey firm will be expected to submit the raw data (as originally entered at the time of the interview), a cleaned and labeled dataset, and full documentation (including do files) of how the raw data was processed. This will ensure the cleanliness, completeness, and consistency of the data collection, and entry, as well as to facilitate further tabulations and analysis.

The survey firm is requested to fully elaborate on the data cleaning process they will follow.

In case the selected survey firm does not possess capacity to perform data cleaning in STATA, IFPRI research team may provide guidance and support through capacity building activities.

Follow-up and responsiveness

Within 1 month after the fieldwork completion and data delivery, the selected survey firm will be available on a continuous basis to discuss with IFPRI, and other members of the research team under supervision of IFPRI, initial findings from the data analysis and will consult with the fieldwork staff to check if any surprising findings match their qualitative impressions from the field.

TIMEFRAME

A This assignment will commence from May 2025 to August 2026.

DELIVERABLES AND TIMELINE

Timelines are broad, indicative and subject to change based on progress with the implementation of project interventions.

Table 1: Phase I: Activity, Start Dates and Durations

Table 2: Phase II: Activity, Start Dates and Durations

Submission and approval of reports

· Reports, documents, and corresponding IT files referred to above must be submitted to IFPRI.

· Reports must be written in English.

· IFPRI is responsible for approving the reports.

· PowerPoint presentations or equivalent will not be considered as reports.

SELECTION CRITERIA

The survey firm selection will be based on IFPRI assessment of potential to deliver high quality data at a reasonable cost, as indicated by survey firm elaboration of their data quality procedures, experience, and references. The survey firm selection will also be based on its proven ability in obtaining the necessary approvals and permissions for conducting fieldwork and based on having a solid relationship with the Government of Yemen and the local authorities.

Proposed Deliverables and Payment Schedule

Payment Breakdown and Deliverable Due Dates (note that timing may depend on related delays to the Yemen Geobundling Project beneficiary and geographical selection process)