RFP - Lead the Adaptive Learning Process

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About the Organization

BRAC International is a leading nonprofit organisation with a mission to empower people and communities in situations of poverty, illiteracy, disease, and social injustice. Our approach is grounded in the conviction that people living in vulnerable situations can be agents of change if they are empowered with the tools, skills, and hope they need to change their lives. We design proven, scalable solutions that equip people with the support and confidence they need to achieve their potential. BRAC’s institutional expertise on successfully implemented programmes is applied across 10 countries, touching the lives of over 130 million people, where our models are adapted according to the country’s context.

About the Proposal

Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS), a semi-autonomous body under the Department of Rural Development, Government of Bihar is implementing JEEViKA, a large-scale livelihoods focused program aimed at social and economic empowerment of the rural poor. The program works exclusively with rural women in Bihar, mobilizing them into Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and their federations, and building their collective capacity for increased access to finance, diversified livelihoods opportunities, skills, market linkages, and entitlements. The program has nurtured over a million women SHGs in Bihar, representing over 12 million rural households.

In 2018, JEEViKA piloted the approach of Targeting the Hardcore Poor (THP) which later turned into a large-scale state funded program called the Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana (SJY). The SJY program replicated elements of the Graduation approach, while bringing in new contextual design changes, enabling the delivery of the program at scale through community institutions. The program specifically targets ultra-poor households identified by women SHG federations through a participatory approach, followed by tranche-based asset transfer, intensive handholding support, and access to key entitlements, enabling the ultra poor households to sustainably graduate out of extreme poverty. JEEViKA in combination with the SJY program aspires to fully saturate coverage of rural poor households in Bihar under socio-economic inclusion programs.

Similar to the SJY program in rural Bihar, there is a felt need for a graduation approach program in urban areas of Bihar. Through JEEViKA and SJY, the Government of Bihar has extensive experience in implementing the Graduation program in rural settings. The Bihar Urban Poor Graduation Program (BUPGP) will build on this knowledge and partner with key stakeholders in urban Bihar to pilot a Graduation program in an urban context. The Bihar Skills Development Mission is leading the design and implementation of India's first urban graduation program with support from other departments within the state government and several civil society organizations. . The BUPGP will be piloted from July 2023 - July 2024 in two urban wards each of Patna and Gaya.

BUPGP is proposed to have four pillars: (1) facilitating entitlement linkages for participants to support basic income security and address immediate needs, such as food consumption support, crisis relief, and access to health, and education to enable effective participation of participants in BUPGP; (2) livelihoods promotion consisting of an asset transfer, skills training, or a cash transfer to access self-employment opportunities; (3) financial inclusion to ensure direct access to convenient, formal or informal financial services, accompanied with financial literacy training; and (4) social empowerment through regular check-ins with Graduation coaches and life- skills support that build the confidence and resilience of individual participants, and strengthen their connections to their wider communities. The pilot will have different modules, each covering a different target population for example homeless population and slum dwellers.

To maximize learning and refinements of the approach for an urban population during the pilot phase, the BUPGP is calling for a firm or organization that will lead the adaptive learning process of the program. The adaptive learning component will inform the Project Management Unit (PMU) and government departments on strategic and operational best practices and learnings.

Considering the first phase of the pilot of six months, the firm or organization has to ensure rapid iterations of key program activities, with rigorous testing and robust feedback mechanisms to enable quick learning and adapting. This will include ethnographic observations in field sites as the pilot rolls out, participant and coaches interviews, tracking progress of participants and other research methods deemed appropriate. Rapid synthesis of insights and data to provide insights to the project team in digestible forms will be required, as well as well designed and facilitated processes that can help the project management team to ideate and take decisions as insights emerge. By the end of the pilot, the learnings will feed into the program design for the scaled program and the firm will create a prototype for each module. The idea is to bring human-centered design approaches to help design for scale. The firm will help the pilot by cross-pollinating across different program components and ensure learning across diverse departmental strengths: coaching, livelihoods, skilling, nutrition, maternal and child health, housing, and WASH. Where useful, the firm will embed storytelling and gameplay techniques within the coaches curriculum, though the curriculum development itself will not be the firm’s responsibility.

The firm or organization will closely work with the PMU housed at the Bihar Skill Development Mission (BSDM) and key government departments including the State Urban Livelihood Mission (NULM), the Urban Development and Housing Department (UDHD), and JEEViKA.

Scope of Work

The firm or organization will be responsible for the adaptive learning component of the BUPGP. The team will be responsible for designing and implementing a learning agenda for the pilot phase in close collaboration with the PMU, key government departments, and CSOs.

The main assessment areas include but are not limited to: design a Graduation program in an urban context, design of an effective skills development pathway, and considerations for designing a government led program.

Eligibility

The firm or organization needs to have extensive experience in designing and implementing strategic adaptive learning processes. Additionally, working on large scale, complex community-based initiatives as well as experience working with governments and urban contexts is required. Experience in the Development Sector, Livelihoods, Social Protection, and Graduation programming is an advantage.

How to Apply

Interested parties should submit a proposal with the following information:

• Cover Page: Organizational Profile (1 page)
• Proposal Summary: Brief summary of the proposal (1 page)
• Proposal Overview: (2-4 pages)
• Design and implement an adaptive learning agenda
• Define recommendations to scale the Bihar Urban Poor Graduation Program
• Budget: Include a full budget with a price proposal (in US$) (2 pages)
• Team Bios: CVs of the team members (max 2 pages per CV)
• Copy of updated registration certificate
• Copy of e-tin certificate
• Copy of organizational constitution / Memorandum & Article of Association
• Copy of audit report (last two years)
• Copy of annual reports (last two years

Complete proposals should be sent to Francis Ngugi (francis.ngugi@brac.net) , Grant Manager at BRAC UPGI no later than June 11, 2023. For any questions or clarifications regarding the proposal, you may contact Shweta Banerjee (shweta.banerjee@brac.net), BRAC UPGI’s Country Lead for India.

No calls, emails, visits, or recruiters associated with this position, please. Only soft copy applications will be considered, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

BRAC values a diverse workforce and is an Equal Opportunity employer. Personnel are chosen on the basis of ability without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation.

Tags Food, Agriculture and Nutrition Healthcare and Healthtech Livelihood Others