SI Seeks Data Collection Firm in Mali

Project Background

Social Impact (SI) is a Washington, DC-area international development management consulting firm. SI’s mission is to improve the effectiveness of international development programs to improve people’s lives. SI provides a full range of management consulting, technical assistance, and training services to strengthen international development programs, organizations, and policies. SI provides services globally in the areas of monitoring and evaluation, strategic planning, project, and program design, organizational capacity building, and gender and social analysis. SI services crosscut all development sectors including democracy and governance, health and education, the environment, and economic growth. SI’s clients include US government agencies such as USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and the US Department of State; bilateral donors; multilateral development banks; foundations; and non-profits.

SI’s official home page is: http://www.socialimpact.com/

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) /Mali Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Platform is a five-year activity awarded to SI to provide technical and advisory services to design and carry out various monitoring, evaluation, and learning activities for USAID/Mali. The contract has 3 major components.

Third-Party Monitoring (TPM);
Evaluation Services and Surveys; and
Collaborating, Learning, and Adaptive Management and Communication Services.

Under Component 2, SI will conduct a baseline study for the United States Agency for Development (USAID) Doniya Taabolo Activity (the “Project”). The goal of the Project is to measure whether the Doniya Taabolo Activity intervention resulted in students in target schools demonstrating greater skills in math than their peers of the same grades in non-targeted homologous schools. The purpose of this RFP is to solicit proposals for the Project for the purchase the services of a Malian data collection firm to administer Early Grade Math Assessments (EGMA) to students in Mali.

Service Explanation

To assist the SI baseline team (BT) in collecting data to respond to the study questions, SI seeks the service of a Malian data collection firm to collect the following data described below and in the RFP document. All work will be performed under the supervision of the BT and SI. Data collection will take place at 200 schools (100 treatment and 100 control) in a total of four regions (Bamako, Koulikoro, Segou, and Sikasso), in 20 Cercles and 174 Communes.

An assessment will be administered to students to assess the baseline math results in September-October 2024. The BT will select 100 treatment and 100 comparison schools, from which 15 students each in grades 2 and 4 will be randomly selected to participate in the EGMA. The assessment will be approximately 30 minutes in length and will be offered in Bamanankan. The subcontractor should advise on whether any other translations are recommended. The BT will program the questionnaire in SurveyCTO for use on Android tablets, and the Malian data collection firm will use SI’s account server to upload data from the field using Android tablets. SI will provide access to the server and the programmed instrument. The Malian data collection firm does not need to purchase a subscription nor program any instruments.

SI requests that all bidders examine the specific requirements contained in this Request for Proposals (RFP) and prepare responses pursuant to the terms of this RFP. All questions related to the RFP are to be submitted by August 7, 2024. The deadline to submit proposals is August 19, 2024. Please refer to the RFP for a detailed documentation of project background and scope of work.

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