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Request for Proposal for Evaluation of BRLF
Organization: Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation
Apply By: 31 Mar 2020
The Background
BRLF came into existence in December 2013 through a union cabinet decision. It is registered under the Societies Registration Act and is an independent society set up by the Government of India to upscale civil society action in partnership with the Government. An MoU is signed between the Ministry of Rural Development and BRLF through which MoRD has committed to provide a corpus fund of Rs. 500 Cr in two instalments. The first instalment of Rs. 200 was released on signing the MoU in 2014. The mandate of BRLF is to transform the livelihoods and thus the lives of rural poor, with focus on women. The initial focus of BRLF is the Central Indian Tribal Belt (CITB), where more than 75% of the Indian tribal population is concentrated. About 1077 blocks in 190 districts that have more than 20% tribal population (as per 2011 census) in 10 states of CITB viz., Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are chosen as the initial geography for operations of BRLF. The aim is to support grassroots level action towards empowerment of people, particularly the Adivasis and scaling up of approaches that are innovative both in terms of programme content and strategy.
BRLF has strategically decided to focus on three critical verticals as per its mandate viz., Grant Support to Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Capacity Building and Research and Knowledge Management. BRLF engages actively with CSOs to reduce the gap between program outlays and outcomes through strengthening of democratic institutions of governance at the grass-roots, improved quality of implementation of programmes and scale up of successful models of interventions. Grant support to be provided under the program is mainly for the HR and operations cost of CSOs. This is particularly because CSOs often struggle to find sufficient and longer duration support for these budget components. More so, because these components often directly influence the efficiency and quality of impact of livelihoods interventions. For programmatic resources, strategically, each CSO supported by BRLF under the program attempts to leverage the vast resources made available by both banks and government institutions for a large number of national and/ or state level rural development and livelihood programmes/ schemes. BRLF, towards this end, enables and facilitates such institutional partnerships with the State Governments.
BRLF launched first call for proposals in 2014 and selected 22 CSOs following a robust due-diligence process for funding and facilitation support. The total funds committed by BRLF for these projects for a period of five years is INR 68.64 Cr. Through the second call for proposals, 15 more CSOs have been selected and have come on board since 1st May 2018. The committed funds for these 10 CSOs for a period of three years comes to INR 13.70 Cr with an estimated reach of 89,000 households. The work of 57 CSOs (including the ones onboarded in state partnership projects) has been concentrated in 6504 villages and 1798 Panchayats of 140 blocks of 63 districts in 8 states viz., Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and West Bengal, covering 5,93,018, households of which 4,68,352 belong to Adivasis, with 4,60,267, women participating in the program.
Besides giving funding support to CSOs, BRLF has moved on to forging large-scale state level partnerships recognizing the fact that partnership between state governments, which are in-charge of implementing many of the central flagship programs, and CSOs, is a win-win situation for both. This is because tremendous synergies are unleashed as they work together. Starting with the Springshed Rejuvenation program in four districts of West Bengal in partnership with MGNREGA, Govt of West Bengal; followed by Ushar Mukti (a mega-watershed program based on MGNREGA) in 55 blocks of 6 districts in West Bengal in partnership with the MGNREGA Cell, Dept of Rural Development, Government of West Bengal BRLF entered into a partnership with the Govt. of Chhattisgarh to implement a mega-watershed project in 26 blocks of 12 districts-co-financed by Axis Bank Foundation. Subsequently BRLF has forged a partnership with the Dept of Horticulture and Odisha Livelihoods Mission, Government of Odisha, for implementing an Agriculture Production Cluster project aiming at doubling the income of one lakh farmers in 40 backward blocks of Odisha.
The Capacity Building vertical has been responding to the capacity-gap challenge at the grassroots in partnership with the best development practitioners, academic institutions and experts. BRLF in collaboration with Indian Institute of Health Management and Research University has successfully completed four batches of its flagship Certificate Program in Rural Livelihoods with a collective strength of 116 tribal students graduating under it. The fifth and sixth batches with 58 more tribal youth are in progress.
The research vertical is focusing on knowledge creation and dissemination, learning from the pool of experience generated in the field by BRLF partners. Realizing that there are few academic/non-academic writings on the status of the tribes living in Central India, BRLF has initiated a Tribal Development Report (TDR) covering different themes on Human Development, Livelihoods, Language and Arts and Craft. The report is expected to be published in 2020. Besides the team has been involved in small research studies, case studies and facilitating base-line surveys for internal as well as external consumption. To know more about BRLF, please browse www.brlf.in.
The Evaluation
BRLF has completed six years of its existence by December 2019 though the actual operations began in 2015. At this juncture BRLF has decided to evaluate its operations and performance against its mandate and seek directions for the future through an external third-party evaluation. Hence BRLF would like to engage a consultant or an agency that could undertake the assignment, to be selected through a competitive bidding process.
The Purpose of the Evaluation: BRLF has completed six years of existence. Effectively the operations began five years ago. BRLF plans to undertake an evaluation to assess and ascertain the impact of BRLF in meeting its objectives and assess BRLF’s performance in fulfillment of the conditions in the MoU signed with MoRD, Government of India.
Objectives of the Evaluation (ToR for the Evaluation)
- To assess the performance of BRLF as against its mandate specified in the MoU with MoRD
- To assess the effectiveness of BRLF grant support, capacity building and research interventions
- Whether BRLF’s organizational structure effectively supports BRLF grant management, capacity building and research interventions?
- To what extent the programmatic deliverables are appropriate for fulfilling the development needs of the tribal communities in Central India.
- To assess the outcomes and impact of BRLF’s grant support and capacity building work on the beneficiaries
- To assess the Governance, Management, Structure and Internal Systems and policies of BRLF
- What are some of the existing challenges and bottlenecks within BRLF processes and what are the recommend changes required for strengthening BRLF’s work.
Time-Frame:
Four months from the date of issue of the contract.
The interested persons or agencies are requested to submit the Technical and Financial proposals for evaluation. The technical proposal should detail the methodology of evaluation, sample size, time-frame, composition and competencies of the evaluation team and other relevant details. The financial proposal should contain the proposed budget in detail for the evaluation including the remunerations for the team members, travel, lodging and boarding, communication etc. The capability statement of the agency along with last three-year Audited Statements should be attached to the proposal.
Assessment of the Proposals
The procurement of this Consultant services is being done on quality and cost-based selection (QCBS) basis. The evaluation criteria and marks assigned for each criterion is detailed below:
The technical and financial proposals would be evaluated by Consultant Evaluation Committee (CEC) of BRLF. The score assigned for technical proposal is 65 while the score assigned for financial proposal is 35. The Consultant which scores the highest weighted score on the combined technical and financial proposal would be considered lowest substantially responsive bidder for the contract. Only shortlisted Agencies may be invited to make a presentation on the proposal at BRLF Office through prior intimation.
Please send your detailed proposal (including both technical and financial proposal) against the RFP not later than 31st March 2020, either at info@brlf.in or submit the proposal in hard copy to BRLF’s Office at 2nd Floor, C-32, Neeti Bagh, New Delhi-110049 by or before due date. Please mention “proposal for evaluation of BRLF” in the subject line.
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