Consultancy for the midterm evaluation of the HATUTAN II Program

CARE in Timor-Leste is seeking the services of a consultancy firm/ consultant, referred to as “the consultant” in this solicitation, to conduct a midterm evaluation for Hahán ne’ebé atu Fó Tulun ho Nutrisaun no Edukasaun/ Food to Support Nutrition and Education (HATUTAN II, 2022-2026). HATUTAN II is a program funded by USDA’s McGovern-Dole Food for Education and Child Nutrition in Timor-Leste. Through this consultancy, CARE seeks to ensure an independently verified and rigorous evaluation study.

The midterm evaluation will use a quasi-experimental, mixed-method approach. The evaluation will assess the impact of HATUTAN II’s intervention against expected results, the validity of its Theory of Change, and identify areas for improvement, lessons learned, and recommendations to inform programmatic adaptations and policy development.

The consultant (s) will be responsible for: designing the study; adapting the baseline tools and sampling strategy where applicable; developing and rolling out data collection and ensuring data quality; cleaning and analyzing data; preparing the baseline report; and presenting the results to USDA and the Ministry of Education.

The data collection will be conducted by external enumerators under the supervision of the consultant. The consultant can either :
a. Option 1: Propose hiring an enumeration team in country, if feasible, thus also being responsible for the recruitment process and logistical operations, in addition to training enumerators and overseeing data collection;

or
b. Option 2: Propose to oversee enumerators hired by CARE in country, with CARE being responsible for recruitment and for organizing logistics, but not for training enumerators or managing their work. (This option is offered due to the limited availability of data collection firms and evaluation firms in country, and the complexity of the logistical arrangements in rural and remote areas, particularly for international consultancy firms without a presence in Timor-Leste.)

CARE in Timor-Leste will be responsible for: liaising with the Ministry of Education and obtaining approvals in country; providing background information on the program; informing the evaluation design; ensuring adherence to CARE’s policies on safeguarding, child protection, fraud prevention, and safe data management; and, should the consultant select Option 2 above, contracting, training, and managing on-the-ground logistics and overall work of enumerator teams

It is anticipated that this consultancy will start on January 6, 2025, and the consultant must finalize the evaluation reports no later than April 30, 2025.

The deadline for submission of bids to this consultancy opportunity is December 4, 2024, COB at 17:00 hours – Timor-Leste time. The expression of interest and financial quote should be emailed to Martinha S. da Costa at tlsprocurementbids@careint.org.