Social Mobilizer, GEP

 Consultant Terms of Reference: India

Study on assessing the impact of WASH facilities on community

(Borrower’s household Visits: 2024-25)

Proposal Submission Deadline: July 15^th, 2024, at 5:00 PM IST

1)Overview

About Water.org

Water.org has been at the forefront of developing and delivering solutions to the water crisis for three decades. Founded by Gary White and Matt Damon, Water.org challenges the traditional approach by pioneering innovative, community-driven, and market-based solutions to ensure all people have access to safe water and sanitation.Water.org has positively transformed the lives of more than 40 million individuals in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean by providing access to safe water and improved sanitation. Water.org’s headquarters is in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

Water.org empowers people to take actions and deliver solutions that accelerate progress and impact via its WaterCredit model. WaterCredit empowers those living in poverty with access to affordable credit to meet their own water and sanitation needs. This comprehensive initiative puts microfinance tools to work in the water and sanitation sector. Water.org works in partnership with state government- State Rural Livelihood Mission (SRLMs), local non-governmental organizations and microfinance institutions to achieve its objectives. This study will focus on visiting households that took out WaterCredit loans from these partners.

Purpose

This Terms of Reference has been prepared with the aim of engaging a study agency to assess the importance of WASH financing as a solution to water and sanitation in communities. The agency will be selected to conduct household surveys with the SHGs members who have availed WSS loans from their respective federations and any financial institutions. The study will be conducted with Water.org’s SRLM partners across their respective states- Odisha Livelihood Mission (OLM), Maharashtra SRLM (UMED) and Madhya Pradesh SRLM.

The agency will be selected to conduct three rounds of data collection across India with all data collection to be conducted in 2024-25.

Water.org will engage a study agency with previous experience working with state government, microfinance institutions and NGOs to conduct the surveys. Additionally, the agency will need previous experience assessing development work in the area of water and sanitation. Agencies will only be considered for this project only if they are legally authorised to work in India. The bidding agencies are requested to provide details of their operational presence across the country.

Objectives:

The objective of study will be to:

1. To assess the loan utilization by households for intended purpose of Water and Sanitation improvements.
2. To understand the loan experience of the borrowers
3. To understand the borrower’s usage of Water and Sanitation asset and the impact on their behaviour change and health.

Study Methodology:

Methodological Framework

A mixed method study is proposed for conducting the study. Study agency will develop a very high level semi-structured quantitative tool around the study objectives via mWater and will be administered at the household level to understand the client’s experience of acquiring loan for WASH, their awareness on WASH, utilization of WASH asset along with physical verification of the asset. Qualitative tool for focus group discussions (FGD) at community level with SHG members to understand the loan processes is expected from the study. The agency is also expected to capture 5-6 case studies from the borrowers. 

Sample size estimation:

The districts and branches will be selected randomly based on the proportion of loan disbursed. Household will be selected based on a 95% confidence level and acceptable margin of error given the limitations of practical implementation. The tenure of the intervention will also be factored in while deciding on the sample size where longer interventions will have robust evidence Consequently, this feeds into our desired margin of error in the statistical inferences where at minimum, we require estimates with 5% margin of error at 95% confidence.

Sample selection methods:

Water.org will provide lists of the clients who availed water/sanitations loans for each SRLM intervention. The study agency will be responsible for selecting a representative sample which would be statistically significant from the provided client lists by systematic random sampling method. The representative samples should reflect the respective partner’s geographic coverage as well as loan type (water vs. sanitation). 

The randomised selection of the clients helps ensure accurate representation of the overall client population and help with (i) verifying that the majority of clients have taken out a water and/or sanitation loan, (ii) verifying that the loan has enabled the client to construct a functional water and/or sanitation improvement, (iii) assessing the construction quality and functionality of the improvement, (iv) conducting a survey of the client to understand their use of and satisfaction with the improvement. 

Mobile Survey Platform

Water.org utilizes the mWater mobile survey tool for quantitative data collection purposes. Utilizing mWater survey tools ensures real time data collection and quality control. Using a Training of Trainers approach, Water.org will provide training to the study agency core team members on the survey and how to administer it via mWater. The core team members will then be responsible for training all enumerators on how to administer the survey as well as how to utilize mWater. The study agency must use the mWater platform.  

The study agency will be responsible for acquiring mobile devices compatible with the mWater application. The most recent list of compatible devices can be found on the mWater website here. Please note that this list is not exhaustive. 

Location

The on-site client visits will take place in a variety of places across India-Odisha, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh. The study agency is expected to conduct the study in pre-selected districts across the 3 states. The sample size for each state is already determined based on standard sample size estimation and from the database provided by Water.org. The details of state-wise loan disbursed till date can be found in Annex I. 

Data collection

Water.org anticipates the following rounds of data collection:

i) In the month of Oct-Nov’24 with an estimated sample size of 385 households in Odisha in 3-4 districts.

(ii) In the month of Nov-Dec’24 with a sample of 385 households in Maharashtra.

(iii) In the month of May-June’25 with a sample of 385 households in Madhya Pradesh

All data collection and associated reports must be completed for each round.  

Deliverables and Key Dates

Water.org understands that activities and timelines per activity may change over the life of the contract. The timeline and deliverables for the first phase is detailed below in the table. Water.org anticipates that 1^st Phase assignment will be completed by December 2024.

Deliverables	1st Phase: For OLM
Proposals from bidding study agency	15th July’24
Agency selection	5th August’24
Signing of MoU & Kick-off meeting	22nd August’24
Inception report due	15th Sept’24
Submission of data collection tool	30th September’24
Training on mWater platform (from Water.org)	5th October’24
As needed, translate the survey in the local language
Data collection complete	10th Oct – 15th Nov’24
Draft report submission	15th December 2024
Final reports due to Water.org. Reports include: 1)Single report summarizing findings from each SRLM (1-2 pager) 2)5 case studies per partner	30th December 2024

The agency can indicate the timeline for all three phases in their proposals.

 

Submission of Proposals

Complete proposals should be emailed to Kaveri Haldar (Senior Regional Insight Specialist) at khaldar@water.org, copying to Diwakar Das at ddas@water.org (Sr. Manager, Regional Insights).  Subject line must be “Study on assessing the impact of WASH facilities on community(2024-25)”.

The deadline for submitting proposals is July 15^th , 2024.

For detailed information, please check the complete version of the RFP attached below.