Call for Proposal for a Survey firm to implement the survey work in Sri Lanka for the project “Building Resilience and Inclusivity for Growth and Holistic Transformation (BRIGHT).

Rationale

Sri Lanka is experiencing one of the worst economic crises in its history, but nationally representative data on the impacts of the crisis on poverty, diets and other dimensions of wellbeing is scarce, and most surveys conducted in Sri Lanka are not publicly accessible to researchers. In light of these data and knowledge gaps, IFPRI aims to implement a large-scale multi-thematic household survey intended to be representative at the national level, at the rural/urban/estate level, and at the provincial level. This survey will be designed to track household food and non-food expenditure, incomes, agricultural production, employment and livelihoods, social protection and other dimensions of welfare such as food security, water security, energy security, diets, coping strategies, and gender equality. It is also envisaged that this survey – to be conducted in 2024 – will constitute a baseline for a future panel survey. IFPRI is therefore putting out an open call for survey firms to implement this survey.

Survey content

IFPRI has designed a household questionnaire that will be both male and female adults in a household (typically household head and spouse). We expect the male questionnaire to be 2.5 hours in length and female questionnaire to be 2.5 hours in length, followed by anthropometric measurements for all children 1-18 years of age and one adult male and one adult female. As a multi-thematic integrated household questionnaire, the consultant survey firm will be expected to effectively manage survey logistics to prevent survey fatigue among respondents, including some appreciation for respondents as necessary (see below). The various modules in the questionnaire are listed below.

Module A: Household Identification

Module B: Household Composition

Module C: Employment and Livelihoods (Man and woman)

Module D: Agriculture (Man, typically)

Module E: Homestead Gardens – 3 minutes per crop (Woman or Man)

Module F: Livestock and fishing (Man typically)

Module G: Non-farm Enterprises (Man or Woman)

Module H: Food Consumption (Woman)

Module I: Non-Food Expenditure (Man and woman)

Module J: Housing (Man)

Module K: Own household assets (Man)

Module L: Debt and savings

Module M: Other Incomes (Man)

Module N: Shocks and Coping Strategies

Module Q: Shocks, coping strategies and livelihood transformation (Man)

Module O: Social Safety Nets / Social Protection (Man)

Module P: Migration and Remittances (Man)

Module Q: Water and Energy Security (Woman)

Module R: Food Security (Woman)

Module S: Digital Inclusiveness (Man)

Module T: Access to Facilities (Man)

Module U: Women’s empowerment

Module V: Subjective Wellbeing and Mental Health

Module W – Nutrition knowledge and information (Woman)

Module Y. Anthropometric measures (children 1-18 years, one man, one woman)

Module X: Enumerator’s evaluation

Sample

The survey sample should contain a minimum of 5000 respondents (households) and must be representative at the national level, and at the rural/urban/estate level, and ideally also at the provincial level if feasible. IFPRI researchers will work with the survey firm to design the sampling method and identify the sampling strata.

Timing

The survey should be completed between August 15^th 2024 and December 15^th 2024. Note that the survey firm will likely need to cease surveys in the weeks before the national election. It is therefore likely that the 5000 households would need to be surveyed in a 3-month period, at a maximum.

Appreciation to respondents

We expect each respondent will receive a minimum of 1000 rupees per household as an appreciation for their participation in the phone survey. We will also ask the survey firm to hand over a signed certificate of participation to each household as further acknowledgement and appreciation of their contributions to the project.

Scope of work

IFPRI will ensure questionnaire development, translation into Sinhala and Tamil, pretesting and CATI programming (SurveyCTO), training of trainers, and will conduct additional data checks during and after data collection. At any time, dedicated international IFPRI staff and local collaborators will be available to support the survey company and to solve any issues that may arise.

The survey company is responsible for:

– Enumerator recruiting

– Enumerator training – assisted by IFPRI and local collaborators

– Enumerator pilot training

– Conducting of surveys according to questionnaires provided, following the suggested sampling method, including providing the necessary working materials (tablets, headsets or other necessary equipment) to the enumerators and including sending the token of appreciation to the respondents

– Obtaining access to anthropometric measurement equipment for measuring height and weight, with at least kits as a minimum

– Conducting anthropometric measurements of respondents (height, weight, arm and waste circumference), including children and one male and one female adult

– Quality control, including follow-up visits or phone calls to correct significant errors.

– Delivering a full dataset and survey report

Survey firm requirements

Only firms with a strong track record in conducting large-scale high quality socioeconomic surveys in Sri Lanka will be considered, ideally using SurveyCTO. The survey firm must have the capacity to conduct a large-scale survey (5000 households) in a relatively short time period (2.5 months). Firms that have experience in conducting anthropometric measurements will also be given preference.

Application

The application should include information on key criteria for selection, including:

1 *The survey firm’s organization, an history conducting household surveys in Sri Lanka and using the SurveyCTO platform

2 *List of key management and research personnel

3 *proposed implementation plan

4 *proposed timeline of key events (i.e., enumerator training, data collection start date, data collection end date, delivery of dataset and survey report)

5 *indicative budget (Details below)

Budget

Applicants should submit a detailed budget, including relevant information from the sample budget table below.