Research Triangle Institute (RTI) has over 30 years’ experience assisting governments, communities, and the private sector. As a not-for-profit, independent research institute based in North Carolina, USA, RTI has roughly 5,000 employees with global experience implementing international development projects. RTI's Sustainable Growth & Resilience (SG&R) technical unit within the International Development Group brings together RTI experts and capabilities across food security, agriculture, energy, environment, water, governance, and economic opportunity. SG&R will leverage RTI's experience designing and delivering multisectoral programming and technical solutions to respond to climate change, build resilience, and promote economic growth around the world.

RTI is recruiting consultant firm for a project in Ethiopia, Poverty Reduced Sustainably in an Environment of Resilient and Vibrant Economy (PReSERVE). It is a consortium of Food for the Hungry (FH) Ethiopia and its partners, RTI International (RTI), Professional Alliance for Development (PADet), Amhara Development Association (ADA), Bahir Dar University, Dimagi, and iDE. PReSERVE is an integrated activity to improve food security of vulnerable households in targeted Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) communities in the Amhara Region and contribute to a sustained reduction in rural poverty.

PReSERVE will reach about a quarter of a million direct PSNP participants in eleven contiguous woredas in Wag Hemra, South Gondar, and Central Gondar zones in Amhara Region. FH Ethiopia will build on its previous work in seven of the eleven woredas to implement a prioritized portfolio of evidence based, catalytic interventions with potential to push the needle on graduation of ultra-poor PSNP households from poverty. Grounded on the PSNP design, PReSERVE will improve the effectiveness and accountability of core PSNP activities and test evidenced solutions through livelihood deepening (LD) interventions. LD interventions will be implemented in four of the nine woredas that were selected due to evidence of potential for market-related improvements and overall impact. Targeting one third of the total PSNP caseload, with special focus on the social groups of interest (women, youth, and people with disabilities). LD activities will target 13,100 PSNP HHs and 24,045 youth (50% female).

Scope of Work

RTI in collaboration with BDU planned to undertake Food environment personal domain assessment to identify factors within the personal food environment for three types of animal source foods namely sheep and goat (shoat) meat, goat milk and fish in Amhara region.

The study will be conducted in Sahila from Wag Himra zone; and Simada from South Gondar zone. Household level data collection will be conducted from 400 women with a child < 5 years to gather information on the accessibility, affordability, convenience, and desirability of pre-selected animal source foods such as goat milk, shoat meat and fish that are available.

The consulting firm is responsible for undertaking primary data collection pertaining to the research objectives and activities related to food environment personal domain study from Simada and Sahila woredas of Amhara region.

A total of 400 households (200 from Simada and 200 from Sahila) will be interviewed using a tablet-based survey instrument uploaded on ODK or other related tools. The sample households will be from randomly selected ten kebeles of each woreda.

Job Requirements

Consultant qualification

Consultant should:

• Have team members with an appropriate post-graduate qualifications in Human Nutrition, Public Health, Economics, Development Studies, and other related fields.

• Have excellent knowledge and appropriate research experience of at least five years in Food system or human nutrition.

• Be a consultant under the set of legal provisions or under any valid legal cover.

• Have a commitment to meet the deadline.

• Experience with social inclusion, for example including women, youth, or other target social groups in participatory methods.

• Strong interviewing, discussions, analytical, and research skills.

• Prove and References for successfully conducting assignments of similar nature.

Deliverables

• ODK programming of the data collection/ survey instrument

• Co-training of data collectors and pre-testing

• List of the selected sample households and the sampling frame

• Data collection, quality control and supervision of data collectors

• Upload the collected data every evening to the server

• Field report on the progress of the data collection

• Consider feedbacks and make corrections

• Data cleaning and preliminary analysis of the dataset

How to Apply

Interested and qualified professionals/firms may send/submit their proposals, along with the following information:

• Profile, giving background and experience of the individual/organization

• Technical Proposal consisting of Proposed detail plan to undertake the assignment

• Time period needed for completion of the contract

• Financial proposal: Indicate the total price with detailed breakdown

• Copy of renewed Registration Certificate, License or Work Permit

• Other relevant supporting documents.

 Please submit the technical proposal in soft copy by e-mail to bteka@rti.org and cc to eyuya@rti.org and financial proposal only to madmasu@rti.org.

For evaluation of proposals, we will consider 70% weight for technical proposal and 30% for financial proposal.

 The deadline for application of this call for consultancy service is May 24, 2023, at 5:00pm.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

RTI International provides equal employment opportunities to all applicants for employment regardless of his/her race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, marital status, amnesty, or status as or in accordance with applicable local laws.