Coverage Survey Post Vitamin A Supplementation Catch-Up Activity (Pecs 1st Semester 2024) At Helen Keller International

Helen Keller International (Helen Keller Intl) is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving and improving the sight and lives of vulnerable people around the world by combatting the causes and consequences of blindness, poor health and malnutrition. Helen Keller Intl invites all eligible bidders to submit proposals to implement a post-vitamin A supplementation campaign coverage survey planned for May/June to measure coverage of VAS distribution activities.

The objective of this tender is to select a supplier who will provide the best value for money to Helen Keller Intl, when technical and cost factors are combined.

The full call, including the scoring grid, is available here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NXzENeLWIUmEq5NsT1Buz6_Wv7dRqdlZ?usp=sharing

Eligibility of bidders

This RFP is open to non-governmental organizations and private business entities who are deemed capable of implementing the scope of work, who have a strong record of business integrity and ethics, and who meet the criteria for eligibility set out in this section.

Bidders submitting proposals in response to this RFP must meet the following requirements:

1. Be a non-governmental entity (for-profit and non-profit businesses, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), etc.) that are legally registered under the laws of the country where they operate.
2. Have demonstrated ability and expertise to successfully implement the scope of work.
3. Have completed the required disclosures and requests for information and documentation incorporated into this RFP
4. Be prepared to comply with applicable donor rules and regulations and Helen Keller Intl requirements.

Note: Helen Keller Intl will not award a contract to any company that is debarred, suspended, or proposed to be debarred by the United States Government, or that proposes to do business with companies or executives of companies that are excluded, suspended or proposed for exclusion, in the course of carrying out the requirement of this activity.

Scope of work

Helen Keller Intl will evaluate all eligible proposals received in response to this Request for Proposals in accordance with the evaluation criteria described herein.

CONTEXT

Helen Keller Intl supports vitamin A supplementation for 40 million children each year in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. When given 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, the Vitamin A supplementation can help reduce child mortality by up to 24%.

Vitamin A capsules are administered to children twice a year through multiple delivery mechanisms. Some countries organize mass distribution campaigns where teams of distributors go to every home to give vitamin A to children. Others have integrated VAS into their basic health care, alongside routine vaccination or growth monitoring. A third group of countries uses a hybrid system that combines campaigns and supplementation based on routine services.

In Madagascar, Helen Keller Intl provides technical and financial support for the implementation of Vitamin A Supplementation (VAS), initially in the regions of Sava, Sofia, Menabe, Ihorombe and then plans to expand its activities towards the regions of Melaky, Betsiboka, Boeny, Diana, through catch-up activities coupled with vaccination campaigns (AVS polio, measles, AVII). These activities are usually organized twice a year, around May and November each year and are implemented by the Ministry of Health with financial and technical support from Helen Keller’s teams.

In order to assess the number of children reached by these activities (coverage) in the first half of 2024, Helen Keller Intl is conducting cross-sectional household coverage surveys following the methodology developed by WHO to measure coverage of vaccination campaigns .

We are currently looking for a consultancy firm or consultants to support Helen Keller’s teams in the country in order to carry out an investigation, after the vitamin A supplementation campaign in May 2024.

The agency will be responsible for the preparation of the survey, including adaptation of the protocol and tools, submission of the protocol and tools to national ethics committees, recruitment, training and supervision of data investigators in the field, quality control of data collection, data analysis and reporting.

Description of the survey

• The surveys, called Post-Event Coverage Surveys (PECS), should be conducted within 4 weeks of the end of SVA catch-up activities to avoid recall bias.
• The sampling for these surveys consists of 110 clusters which should cover all regions supported by Helen Keller Intl in order to provide a reliable estimate of VAS coverage in these regions. As Helen Keller covers 4 regions out of 24, the clusters will be drawn by a systematic random drawing proportional to the size of the population per region by the national statistics institute.
• . Within each of the selected clusters, the data collection team first carries out an exhaustive enumeration of all households in the cluster, listing all households (eligible and ineligible), the number of children and the number of people living in each of them. From this list, the team will randomly select approximately 12 eligible households to administer the questionnaire.
• These surveys also allow random sampling of a health facility and a community distributor in each of the selected clusters in order to assess the performance of the campaign implementation, the satisfaction of the health worker and the agent community and identify challenges that may have affected the coverage of VAS activities.
• Household questionnaires focus primarily on receipt of SVA services and reasons for non-receipt, satisfaction of mothers looking after children, but may also include additional modules aimed at assessing coverage of other services. health and nutrition or to study the knowledge and practices of household members on topics relevant to the country.
• Questionnaires are digitized using SurveyCTO and the consultancy firm must provide each data collection team with smartphones and/or tablets that can be used to capture responses from respondents in the field.
• Helen Keller uses the Survey CTO platform to collect and store data as it is entered into forms.
• Helen Keller Intl has adapted the WHO guides and tools to the specific needs of PECS and developed a comprehensive toolkit that includes the protocol, questionnaires, analytical frameworks and reporting templates that the consultancy agency will use for carrying out the coverage survey.
• The consultancy firm conducts quality control of the data at different times during collection:
• During the enumeration,
  • a quality control will be carried out by the supervisors by returning to 10% of the households counted to redo the count and compare their data with that of the investigators
  • Via the SurveyCTO platform, he will have to plan systematic recordings of sequence of enumeration interviews. A dedicated team (supervisor) will have to listen to 10% of these audio to compare with the data entered in the forms by the investigators
• During the collection of household survey data
  • a quality control will be carried out by the supervisors by returning to 10% (i.e. 1 household/cluster) of the households surveyed to conduct an interview with a shortened questionnaire and compare their data with that of the investigators
  • Via the SurveyCTO platform, he will have to plan systematic recording of the sequence of interviews for the collection of household data. A dedicated team (supervisor) will have to listen to 10% of these audio to compare with the data entered in the forms by the investigators
• During data collection, the organization is required to monitor the number of data quality monitoring indicators on a daily basis and communicate this information to Helen Keller’s team and the survey steering team .
• During the collection (enumeration, household survey, with health workers and community health workers) the office must set up a dashboard for daily monitoring of the main indicators of each collection
• The consulting firm must provide a daily report of the data collection, the differences observed between the data of the investigators and those of the supervisors during quality control and the actions taken when there are differences.
• Helen Keller uses STATA for data analysis and the consulting firm should provide all working files used to perform data cleaning, weighting and analysis.
• The survey analysis and report should be ready within a maximum of 2 months after the end of the campaign to inform the preparation of the next round of campaigns.
• Campaign dates may vary and Helen Keller reserves the right to impose changes to the survey schedule.

Planned contract period and award mechanism

The anticipated period of the award is expected to be 6 months from April 2024. Bidders must clearly indicate the “start-up” support costs for the investigation, if any, required to begin services.

Helen Keller Intl intends to award a firm, fixed-price service contract to the winning bid. The firm fixed price service contract will be awarded at the discretion of Helen Keller International. No additional benefits, fees, taxes or costs may be added after award. This RFP is subject to all terms and conditions of the resulting contract. Any resulting rewards will be governed by these terms and conditions.