Call for proposal to conduct coverage surveys of vitamin A Supplementation campaigns in multiple African countries

Helen Keller International (Helen Keller Intl) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to saving and improving the sight and lives of the world’s vulnerable by combatting the causes and consequences of blindness, poor health and malnutrition. Helen Keller Intl invites all eligible Bidders to submit proposals to support Helen Keller to implement 2 rounds of post event coverage surveys in July 2024 and December 2024 to measure the coverage of the VAS distribution campaigns.

The purpose of this Request for Proposals (RFP) is to select a vendor that will provide best value to Helen Keller Intl, when both technical and cost factors are combined.

Scope of work

Helen Keller Intl supports the supplementation with high dose of Vitamin A of up to 40 million children every year in 14 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. When delivered twice a year to at least 80% of children aged 6 to 59 months in countries with high under five mortality and high rates of vitamin A deficiency, Vitamin A supplementation (VAS) can contribute to a reduction of child mortality by up to 24%.

VAS is delivered to children twice a year through multiple delivery mechanisms. Some countries are organizing mass distribution campaigns where teams of distributors visit every household to give the vitamin A to children. Others have integrated VAS into their facility-based delivery systems alongside with routine immunization or growth monitoring. A third group of countries are using a hybrid system that combines campaigns and facility-based delivery.

In 9 countries, Helen Keller Intl supports the delivery of VAS in multiple regions through door-to-door campaigns and facility-based delivery model. These campaigns are organized twice a year, around May and November every year, and are implemented by the Ministry of Health with financial and technical support from Helen Keller teams. These countries are Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, DRC, Madagascar.

To assess the number of children reached through these campaigns (coverage), Helen Keller Intl conducts cross-sectional household surveys following the methodology developed by the WHO for measuring the coverage of immunization campaigns. (https://www.who.int/publications-detail-redirect/WHO-IVB-18.09)

We are seeking a consultancy agency to assist Helen Keller Intl conduct up to two rounds of these surveys, in July and December, in multiple countries. The award for the second survey will be dependent on the quality of deliverables provided in the first survey.

We are seeking agencies that can conduct these surveys in multiple countries at the same time, although we will consider agencies even if they cannot cover the 9 proposed countries.

In each country, the agency will be responsible for the preparation of the survey, including adaptation of protocols and tools, submission of protocols and tools to ethical review boards, recruitment, training and supervision of field data collectors, analysis of data and reporting.

Survey description

• The surveys, called Post event coverage surveys (PECS) must be conducted within 4 weeks of the end of the VAS campaigns to avoid recall bias.
• The sampling for these surveys consists in between 70 and 100 clusters of 10 to 12 children and must cover all the regions supported by Helen Keller Intl to provide a reliable estimate of the coverage of VAS in these regions.
• Clusters are randomly selected using a Probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling approach in collaboration with the Ministry of Health Statistics Department. Within each of the clusters selected, the data collection team first conducts an exhaustive census of the household, listing all households (eligible and not eligible) and the number of children in each. From this list, the team will randomly select between 10 and 12 eligible households to administer the questionnaire.
• These surveys also randomly sample one health facility and one community distributor in each of the selected clusters to assess the performance of the campaign implementation, and the satisfaction of the health worker and community health worker and identify challenges that may have affected coverage.
• Household questionnaires focus primarily on the receipt of VAS services and the reasons for non-receipt, and caregivers’ satisfaction, but can also integrate additional modules aiming at assessing the coverage of other health and nutrition services or investigating knowledge and practices of household members on country relevant topics.
• Questionnaires are digitalized using Survey CTO and the consulting agency should provide each data collection team with smartphones and tablets that can be used for entering the answers from the respondents in the field.
• Helen Keller uses the Survey CTO platform for its data collection and storing of data as soon as entered in the forms.
• Helen Keller Intl has adapted the WHO guides and tools to the specific needs of PECS and developed a comprehensive toolkit that includes protocols, questionnaires, analytical frames and report templates that the consulting agency will use for the conduction of the coverage survey pf the campaign.
• While conducting data collection, the agency is required to monitor the number of indicators for tracking data quality on a daily basis and report this information to the Helen Keller team
• Helen Keller uses STATA for data analysis and the Agency should provide all do-files used to conduct data cleaning, weighting, and analysis.
• The survey analysis and report should be ready within a maximum of 3 months after the end of the campaign to inform the preparation of the next round of the campaign.
• Dates of campaigns may vary and Helen Keller reserves the right to impose changes in the timing of the surveys.

Activities and deliverables

This number of days is considered for one country only, so agencies applying for multiple country surveys should budget for each country. The number of days proposed may be subject to adjustments and only consists in an initial estimation to guide bidders in pricing. It represents the number of days for one person.

1. Preparation of the survey – May 2024 and October 2024, 10 days per survey

• Coordinate with Helen Keller Intl and the Ministry of health for the preparation of the survey, at national and regional level
• Participate to the adaptation of the protocol and tools
• Elaborate and validate the survey implementation timeline with all stakeholder
• Participate to the random selection of clusters with the National Institute of Statistics
• Submit to ethical review board.
• Recruit and train data collection teams

Deliverables:

• Final protocol and tools on Word and SuveyCTO platform version
• Timetable of all survey activities
• List of clusters selected by rural and urban, with the probability of the selection, the total population and the number of households of each cluster.
• Ethical review approval letter
• Data collectors training report including the pilot

2. Data collection – July 2024 and August 2024, 20 days for each survey

• Ensure that data collection teams follow rigorously the methodology for cluster census, selection of households and administration the questionnaires.
• Conduct a verification of the quality of the data collected by re-visiting a random selection of 10% of the household selected to administer the same questionnaire again and compare with initial entries
• Conduct data collection quality monitoring with the number of indicators for tracking on a daily basis and report this information to the Helen Keller team
• Ensure that teams of supervisors are deployed to support data collection teams and address any challenge encountered.

Deliverables

• Raw Dataset on Excel format of :
  • Census
  • Household and children
  • Health facility
  • Community
  • Quality audit
• Data collection report included quality control tracking report

3. Analysis and reporting – August 2024 and January 2025, 15 days for each survey

• Clean the datasets on STATA format as per protocol recommendations and rules of:
• Weighting household dataset base as per recommended
• Conduct analysis of all datasets as per the recommended analytical frame
• Prepare report in accordance with recommended template.

Deliverables

• Clean datasets on STATA format of:
  • Census
  • Household and children
  • Health facility
  • Community
  • Quality audit
• Analysis tables for all datasets
• Final survey report including the report of the re-visiting a random selection of 10% of the household conduct by the supervisors (Quality audit)
• An executive summary of the report

4. Dissemination – September 2024 and February 2025, 5 days for each survey

• Prepare a presentation for dissemination of results to local stakeholders.
• Participate to relevant forum and present results of the survey.

Deliverables

• Power Point presentation on survey results
• Minutes of dissemination forum with actionable recommendations
• Final report including the recommendation from the dissemination meeting.
• An abstract of the report