Terms of Reference for Bulambuli Midline Evaluation tender job at Spark Microgrants

Background

Since 2010, Spark Microgrants has built the civic and economic power of rural communities facing poverty in East and West Africa. Spark's innovative Facilitated Collective Action Process (FCAP) strengthens citizen engagement and improves rural livelihoods to drive sustainable development. Through the FCAP, Spark puts communities at the center of development, supporting them to find solutions to challenges, and increasing their control over the process. Facilitated village "town-hall style" weekly meetings are combined with a seed grant that enables citizens to launch a development project, practice self-organizing and empower them to make decisions about how to use resources for community benefit. 85% of projects are profit-generating, ranging from agricultural to transportation businesses with families seeing an over 200% increase in household asset values. Spark’s process isn’t just local, it’s inclusive with 56% of ideas coming from women and 100% of villages having youth in leadership.

Project goal

Bulambuli District and Spark are partnering with the vision to realize  “An empowered and self-sustaining community of Bulambuli district by 2026”. This project is expected to contribute to this vision with key indicators of success envisioned to be improved livelihoods, increased social cohesion and increased participation of village members in the local government annual village planning process.  

FCAP phases

The FCAP is a 2 year process that involves 4 phases; the planning phase, implementation phase, 2nd year planning and pathway follow ups, that has clearly designed activities and steps.

In the planning phase, villages sign partnership agreements with Spark and Bulambuli LG committing to get involved in the FCAP process, set goals for their villages that they intend to achieve by end of the project, select pathways that will help them to get to the set goal and develop a project proposal based on the pathway selected which is submitted to Spark and Bulambuli LG for review and approval before they can receive a seed grant (micro grant).

In the implementation phase, villages utilize the seed grant to implement the selected pathway. Every village member who is willing to be part of the FCAP process is fully involved in the project execution including decision making and day to day activities of the projects.

The second year planning phase is similar to the planning phase but considering that the communities already have experience from the first year, the second year planning is much shorter. This phase arises from the fact that the micro grant is disbursed to villages in 2 batches for quality control purposes. In the first year the villages receive 60% of the microgrant while in the second year, they receive 40%.

 Pathway follow up is the final phase of the FCAP before villages are graduated. In this phase villages build sustainability plans and Spark’s involvement is heavily reduced to allow the villages to operate on their own in preparation for graduation. 

Current Spark engagements with Bulambuli district

Spark microgrants entered into partnership with Bulambuli in the year 2019. The genesis of this partnership was to provide training to the Bulambuli local government staff in community mobilization, goals setting and pathway selection to empower them to train communities with knowledge and skills in planning and utilization of government funds allocated to them through the different funding baskets. The engagements with the District are through its Community Development department supervised by the Chief

Administrative Officer. The FCAP in Bulambuli is implemented through three components;

• Component 1: Village and local government capacity building at the district and

Parish levels facilitates village-driven development processes to enhance citizen engagement and improve rural livelihoods. This component also builds citizen capacity to engage in development planning and to manage village level subprojects.  

• Component 2: Microgrants finance priority sub projects identified in the Village Development Plans to improve livelihoods. Each target village is provided a grant amount dependent on the number of households in each village. The total amount given to a village is obtained by multiplying the number of households by US$100. The minimum grant size is capped at US$4,000 and the maximum at US$12,000. Village members make contributions in-kind through actively providing labor or any locally available resources needed to implement the projects. Microgrants are guaranteed for every target village provided eligibility conditions are met, including the election of a Village Leadership Committee, completion of the Village Development Plan and submission, and approval of a subproject proposal.
• Component 3: Spark provides overall project management support, monitoring and evaluation, and knowledge dissemination.

Evaluation of the Programme and Model

Spark is seeking an independent research partner to lead an assessment of the impact of the project that will a) identify and measure the impacts of the project interventions, b)  contribute to the evidence base for livelihoods-enhancing CDD projects and initiatives to enhance citizen engagement; and c) generate evidence to inform scale-up should Spark decide to expand its operations in Uganda.

Evaluation Design

Spark designed a cluster Randomized Controlled Trial with 2 arms i.e. Treatment and Control at baseline and therefore the midline will adopt the baseline design. The consultant is expected to use mixed methods to collect both qualitative and quantitative data to be able to generate both clear evidence of average ‘treatment’ effects, as well as explore a range of operational and policy questions. 

Sample Size

The consultant will be expected to collect data from all the households (1,763 households in 101 villages) that were surveyed at baseline. During implementation, 27/53 intervention villages were affected by landslides with 4 severely affected and the remaining 23 slightly affected. The consultant is therefore expected to provide a clear methodological  approach on sampling and analysis to account for this disaster.

Scope of the Evaluation

The midline evaluation will be conducted in Bulambuli District in 101 villages that were surveyed at baseline in 2023. Spark will provide a list of all villages (both treatment and control) that were surveyed at baseline. The midline evaluation is expected to take place between August and November 2025.     

Evaluation Questions 

 The evaluation should address the following broad research questions:

1. What is the impact of the FCAP on citizen participation in local development processes?
2. What is the impact of FCAP on livelihood and household well-being?
3. What is the Impact of the FCAP on Village-level social dynamics?
4. What influences/impacts does FCAP have on broader local governance processes?
5. What is the Impact of FCAP on Community Based Facilitators, private sector (Technical advisers and suppliers) and local government officials?
6. What are the gender and inclusion gains of the FCAP?

Citizen Participation in Local Development Processes: The measurement should examine the impact of the FCAP on citizen participation in the development processes of their villages, and in advocacy to local governments. The evaluation should explore how actively and meaningfully community members engage in identifying, planning, implementing, and monitoring development village priorities that affect their lives. The consultant should employ measures that adequately quantify citizen participation in decision making at community level, representation and inclusion across all population segments with the villages, transparency and accountability of the village/FCAP leaders to citizens and collective action and ownership of village projects. The consultant should also measure advocacy attempts, processes, and successes, as well as instances of residents taking collective action.

Household Livelihood and wellbeing: We hypothesize that the project improves the livelihoods and wellbeing of citizens through two principal channels - firstly by addressing the constraints alleviated by the selected Spark funded community project, and secondly through gains from improved social cohesion and citizen engagement. The consultant will examine and test this hypothesis of household livelihood  and wellbeing again specifically targeted to and designed to be able to disaggregate by traditionally marginalized groups, and assess differences in outcomes based on different profiles of village members (for example, considering gender, wealth status, local leadership status, profession/livelihood, etc.). 

The consultant is also expected to conduct anthropometric measurements to compute the effect of FCAP on stunting and wasting rates as additional measures of household wellbeing. 

Social impact: We hypothesize that through training for villagers (especially leaders), facilitated participatory planning activities, and facilitation of spaces for collaborative development planning and implementation, there will be increased social impact within target villages. This may be experienced as (but not exclusive to) a greater sense of shared collective identity, more inclusive and broad-based cooperation and advocacy within villages, and a greater sense of trust between village members. The consultant will examine and test this hypothesis, developing a methodology to define and measure social impact relevant to the intervention scope and context, and aligned with broader industry literature.

Impacts on Broader Local Governance: Local governments in Uganda undertake an annual village planning process to prepare communities for projects to be implemented through support of government funds like the DDEG. This is a participatory planning process where households are involved and present a need for the village. It is then discussed in the technical planning committee at sub county level and taken to executive committee where councilors give their input before the ideas are forwarded to the district and ministry of finance for funding. 

In the past the Bulambuli Local government has struggled to mobilize people to participate in this process. With the introduction of FCAP, the intention was to shift participation in the Village planning process to be inclusive so that every village member has an opportunity to benefit from the projects undertaken through this initiative. The FCAP is also anticipated to act as a mobilization tool for the Local Government Officials especially from the Community Development Office in their outreach programs.

The consultant is therefore expected to measure the level of citizen participation in this process, what motivates/demotivates citizens to be a part of the process and how it varies across the society segments like gender and different age groups and how it (FCAP) is aiding the officials to reach out to the citizens. 

To measure engagement in broader local government processes (beyond annual village planning), the consultant will rely on both directly observed outcomes as well as survey measures. To measure norms, the consultant will use incentivized survey items to assess the extent to which there is consensus between empirical and social expectations with respect to accountability, transparency and monitoring behavior. Attempts should be made within the survey instruments to understand the causality between the knowledge, awareness and behavior of local government officials and the resulting effects on citizen participation.

Community Based Facilitators and Local government officials: CBFs play a key role in the FCAP, undergoing intensive training and mentoring by local government officials, supported by Spark, in the FCAP process. The intended role of CBFs is, through skilled facilitation, to present new concepts, bring up new ideas, and support the village in making collective decisions. CBFs - 1 per village - are always elected by their community to lead the village through the FCAP. The consultant should assess the acquisition of new skills/capacity over time, and the direct impacts and immediately identifiable effect of the acquisition of new skills and leadership roles on the CBFs and their families, before and after the FCAP. Considering that the CBFs are recruited at the start of the projects, this research question will be studied at Midline and Endline but not at baseline.

On the other hand, Parish chiefs and/or Community Development Officers (CDOs) at sub-county level are trained as supervisors for the CBFs. Their capacity is built in soft skills of facilitation, project management and supervision. This is to ensure that they are well equipped to support CBFs during FCAP implementation within their areas of jurisdiction. 

Gender and inclusion: At the core of the FCAP model is emphasis on inclusion of all participants within the community. The consultant is expected to generate clear evidence of how the FCAP has fared in reaching out to all population segments within the communities in Bulambuli based on gender, age, poverty rates, disability status, education level and any other aspects of inclusion that the consultant is able to identify.

Outcomes to be measured

Within explorations of the research questions above, the consultant must ensure the inclusion of assessments against the indicators in the results framework below (noting that the full scope of the assignment is expected to go beyond the result framework, but must cover these outcome areas). 

The consultant will also have core responsibilities to work with Spark to clearly define all terms laid out above within the research questions prior to any survey instrument being designed.

Role of Spark

• Spark will provide the baseline dataset and report.
• Spark will support the consultant to receive government approval to work in all identified treatment and control areas. It will be the responsibility of the consultant to ultimately get this approval.
• All project sign offs, approvals and liaison between the consultant and Spark will be through the M&E Director
• Spark will work with the consultant to clearly define all terms laid out within the research question prior to any field work being conducted
• Help the consultant to access the communities where the evaluation will be conducted by providing contacts of leaders in the respective villages
• Participate in the training of enumerators to ensure that they are briefed about the FCAP and taken through code of conduct when engaging with communities.

Activities

The expected activities to achieve this are as follows:

All deliverables must be reviewed, verified and approved by the Spark M&E Director.

Application Details:

Applications are welcomed from individuals, or teams, who are able to demonstrate the capacity to deliver the piece of work set out above, within the Ugandan context.

The following skills and experiences are essential criteria for all applicants:

• Expert knowledge of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs)
• Expert understanding of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods
• Significant experience in conducting and/or managing similar or comparable assignments in both methodology and scale within the Ugandan context.
• Experience in applying for, and securing approval IRB approvals in Uganda
• Demonstrated ability to bring together inputs into clear and concise summaries or recommendations
• Expert knowledge of the Social Cohesion, Livelihoods, Civic Engagement and Social Accountability field(s) within international development
• A strong academic background in the effects of government centralisation and decentralization programmes.

Interested parties should submit a proposal to Spark Microgrants to include:

• A cover letter demonstrating how you meet the criteria above
• A draft work plan and associated budget to include the daily rates of all individuals involved and a description of the roles they each play within the team.
• CVs for all individuals listed
• Maximum two examples of previous work that demonstrates the skills or experience relevant to this assignment.

Please send completed proposals to enock@sparkmicrogrants.org by end of 8/08/2025

Please note that we will be unable to give feedback to unsuccessful applicants.