RFQ: Research Firms in South and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa
Position Overview
Position Summary
Women’s World Banking is seeking qualified research firms to conduct several surveys of customers of our Financial Service Provider (FSP) partners in our priority markets. This work will explore financial inclusion and economic empowerment in multiple settings with samples of women customers. The survey work under this effort is expected to be conducted in South and Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa via low-cost data collection channels such as interactive voice response (IVR), phone surveys, and WhatsApp surveys.
About the survey
The survey work is expected to be conducted with pre-identified women customers of financial service provider (FSP) partners in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Kenya, and Nigeria.
Survey Details:
- Surveys are expected to start in January 2025 and will be deployed throughout the subsequent year, with the potential for additional surveys beyond this window.
- Survey deployments will have an average of 25 questions estimated to require 7-10 minutes to complete.
- Each iteration of the survey will include 250 to 500 women customers, ensuring a robust sample size across different contexts.
The specific geographic locations for the study will depend on the areas where the FSPs operate and where their customers are located within the aforementioned countries. Responding firms should consider the differential costs across locations when assembling cost tables and focus on those locations where they have the capacity to undertake the work.
Roles and Responsibilities
The responsibilities of selected firms include (but are not limited to):
- Implementing and overseeing data collection activities, including:
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- Provide input on the questionnaire developed by Women’s World Banking.
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- Translate survey into local languages.
- Where applicable, program the surveys into software (e.g., SurveyCTO) to administer computer-assisted personal interviews.
- Where applicable, develop relevant documentation for survey work, including manuals, interviewer guidelines and other research tools.
- Where applicable, hiring, training, and supervising survey teams, including:
- Select, hire and train a team of surveyors to collect the data (meeting gender, age and language requirements).
- NOTE: Women’s World Banking research team may participate in some aspect of the training (e.g., discuss training plan with field coordinator).
- Provide research plan that describes the training, number of interviews to be conducted per day, strategy to ensure data quality.
- Contacting all research respondents, including:
- Engage participants for surveys using provided customer contact information.
- Assign a unique ID (not a national ID) for all respondents.
- Set appropriate survey participant compensation/incentives.
- Sharing data, including:
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- Clean and code collected data.
- Provide final survey tool in English and local language, complete and clean dataset with coding scheme, and any data files associated with the survey.
Preferred Qualifications
The ideal survey organizations will have skills and competencies in the following areas:
- Experience conducting individual-level surveys with expertise in multiple survey methodologies, including IVR, phone surveys, and WhatsApp surveys.
- Ability to conduct surveys in regional languages of one or several of India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Kenya, and Nigeria.
- Experience conducting research with low-income participants and participants with limited to no literacy, particularly with a focus on women.
How to Apply
How to Apply
Applications must be received no later than October 30, 2024 at midnight EST.
Your application should be no more than 6 pages (excluding annex of detailed cost table), and must include the elements below:
- Organizational Capacity and Experience
- Provide a brief statement of your organization’s capacity to complete this work
- Identify the regions under your consideration.
- List your experience with similar projects, particularly those involving IVR, phone, WhatsApp surveys in the relevant regions.
- Highlight any relevant experience in financial inclusion, women’s economic empowerment, or other related topics.
- Team Structure
- Describe the proposed team required, including team leaders, supervisors, and enumerators for fieldwork and how they will be organized, data management staff, and any other others who will be involved in the work.
- Organization of Work
- Outline how you will organize deployment in each applicable region.
- Describe your system for data collection, entry, and quality control.
- Availability
- Indicate the number of days required to prepare and begin fieldwork for each survey method (IVR, phone, WhatsApp) after receiving a Notice to Proceed.
- If there are any periods during which your organization may have limited availability, please specify these dates.
- Timeline
- Provide an estimated timeline for completion of 250 and 500 surveys using each method (IVR, phone, WhatsApp surveys) within each appropriate geography.
- Illustrative cost table
- Provide basic cost estimations for surveys of 500 women in each region under consideration for each survey method.
- Provide an annex that includes a detailed cost table in USD that includes estimates in each region under consideration for:
- Survey administration (e.g., IVR, phone, WhatsApp surveys).
- Hiring and training enumerators, translation of materials, and fieldwork coordination.
- Quality control measures, including supervision and data management.
- Include in annex budget options for scaling the survey to cover sample sizes of 250 and 500 women across the regions under consideration.
- Include in annex budget any additional costs to arrive at total expected costs, including those associated with data cleaning, coding, and management.
Applicants may submit their question(s) in writing until October 21, 2024, to ja@womensworldbanking.org. Please include in the e-mail the subject line “Questions: WEE Survey RFQ”.
This RFP/RFQ does not guarantee or commit Women’s World Banking to proceed with the above-described work. Due to the overwhelming responses, not all candidates will be contacted.
Women’s World Banking is an equal opportunity employer for all regardless of race, color, citizenship, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran or reservist status or any other category protected by federal, state or local law.
Women’s World Banking will be unable to contract with any individual who is a US citizen or resident without an LLC or LP or similar structure.
About Women's World Banking
We believe in being a force for the greater good, devoted to accelerating and growing the financial inclusion of women. With rapidly changing markets, influenced by technology and social behavioral expectations, we are embarking on a new chapter to transform the way we design and implement solutions.
For over 40 years, Women’s World Banking has partnered with financial institutions, showing them the benefit of investing in women as customers. We equip these institutions with in-depth research and data driven insights to develop financial products and educational programs. While our clients are financial service providers, our mission is to engage consumers – women who are marginalized by financial systems.
Women’s World Banking and WWB Asset Management is an equal employment opportunity for all regardless of race, color, citizenship, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran or reservist status or any other category protected by federal, state or local law.
