Request for Proposals – External Program Evaluation (Тендер)

Learn to Discern in Education (L2D-Ed), Decision Makers component, implemented by IREX, aims to spread media literacy, conscious engagement with information, and development of critical thinking through Ukrainian society by conducting educational activities on media literacy among educators, journalists, thought leaders, and youth.  This includes educating more than 300 Decision Makers from the government sector on how to analyze information, identify disinformation and propaganda, make data-informed decisions, and effectively communicate based on analysis.

Learn more information about the project.

IREX is looking for a vendor to conduct an external evaluation of the program component for Decision Makers. L2D-Ed defines decision makers to be representatives of local and national state administrations, ministries, and elected offices, who preferably have leadership positions and are in charge of the governance.

1. IREX expects that the selected vendor will achieve the following goals within the evaluation:

Goal 1: The research will increase understanding of the attitudes and characteristics of decision makers to design more tailored interventions to increase their resilience to disinformation through IREX’s L2D approach. The methodology might include but not be limited to below milestones:

Target audience:

TA 1: Decision makers at national and local government levels in Ukraine that have not been covered by the project activities.

TA2: Decision makers at local and national government levels in Ukraine project participants, in total, 300 participants were trained (database will be provided by IREX).

• Conduct desk research to identify different groups of decision makers;
• Identify similarities and differences in information consumption among different groups of decision makers in Ukraine and assess their CIC skills;
• Explore vulnerable and resilient audiences to disinformation among decision makers;
• Study data-informed decision making among DMs: what practices does this refer to? What could it mean?
• Identify areas and needs in which DMs want to be trained on topics related to information consumption, propaganda and misinformation and data-informed decision making
• Disaggregate all the results by gender, different groups of decision makers, regions, and by two target audience.
• Test IREX’s approach on promotion of CIC and media literacy. (Provide M&E data that compares DM trainees and control group)
• Test IREX’s approach on promotion of data-informed decision making.

Goal 2: The research will assess the efficiency of the L2D-Ed training program and collect ideas and recommendations for improvement of the training program.

• Identify the topics of the trainings that have influenced the participants’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices in daily work and initiatives.
• Identify areas of the L2D-Ed program that need revision and adjustments.

Target audience: Decision makers at local and national government levels in Ukraine that are project participants. The number of trained DM is 300.

1. Scope of work

IREX expects the selected vendor to facilitate the following tasks:

• Develop the methodology to address the two goals of the evaluation. Develop design of the survey, including a sampling plan (sample size, quotas, method of recruitment).
• Develop all sociological tools and instruments for the two goals of the evaluation in English and translate them into Ukrainian.
• Conduct pre-test of interviews with a sample of potential respondents to address potential issues.
• Conduct fieldwork to achieve two goals of the announcement.
• Prepare a database in Excel (xls/csv) or SPPS (sav) if quantitative methodology is used.
• Prepare transcripts in language of respondents and translate them into English if qualitative methodology is used.
• Prepare an analytical report.

Deliverables 

• Methodology and sociological tools that can assess the two goals of evaluation. 
• Sociological tools and instruments in English and Ukrainian.
• Piloting report (up to 1 page)
• Technical report for survey (including sampling procedures, fieldwork description, response rate, etc.).
• Database with coded open question and codebook for the survey in Excel (xls/csv) or SPPS (sav) in English and Ukrainian if quantitative methodology is used.
• Analytical report in PowerPoint in English and Ukrainian.
  • Transcripts in language of respondents, translated into English if qualitative methodology is used.
• A short summary report of the evaluation with key findings and recommendations for two goals.

Timing/duration. Work should be completed by March 1, 2022.

• Proposal requirements

In preparing the Proposal, interested vendor is expected to examine the RFP in detail (it may be downloaded here).

Proposal should be sent to [email protected] no later than 16:59 December 29^th, 2021. 

Any clarification questions regarding to the RfP should be submitted to [email protected] not later than 16:59 December 23^th.

IREX will hold a briefing on December 24 at 13:00 via MS Teams. The link for the meeting will be sent to all the companies that express interest to apply for the proposal.

The vendor will be selected by January 5^th, 2022. All companies that apply will be informed about the selection results.