ENGAGE seeks to contract an external polling agency that will organize and oversee field stage of the survey and deliver raw data with preliminary conclusions.
I. BACKGROUND
Pact is an International NGO with offices throughout the world with a mission to enable systematic solutions that allow those who are poor and marginalized to earn a dignified living, be healthy and take part in the benefits that nature provides. Pact accomplishes this by strengthening local capacity, forging effective governance systems and transforming markets into a force for development. Pact has worked in Ukraine since 2006 in the areas of governance, capacity development, and health. Building on a decade of experience, we address key challenges facing civil society organizations in Ukraine.
This Request for Quotation (RFQ) is a part of the Activity to Enhance Non-Governmental Actors and Grassroots Engagement (ENGAGE). The purpose of ENGAGE is to increase citizen awareness of and engagement in civic activities at the national, subnational, and local level. Pact conducts regular public opinion monitoring to assess changes in citizens’ awareness of and engagement in civil society activities and civic education. For this activity, Pact aims to select a polling agency for a year-and-a-half contract.
With the extension of the ENGAGE mandate, Pact will continue to conduct the Civic Engagement Poll (CEP), its biannual flagship civil society awareness, engagement, and participation public opinion poll.
In addition to the traditional scope of gauging citizen awareness of and engagement in civil society activities, the poll will consider inter alia citizen participation during wartime, attitudes towards IDPs in new hosting communities, anti-corruption, civic literacy, as well as issues of program interest.
The collected data will serve as a foundation for data-driven decision-making, adapting ENGAGE and its partners’ programming. The information will also be widely shared with the stakeholders through collaborative learning events, coordination meetings, and other public communication channels.
In response to the mass emigration of Ukrainians abroad due to the war hostilities, ENGAGE will reach out to the Ukrainian protection-seekers in Europe in addition to the regular samples of national population and project participants.
To enrich CEP with qualitative data to make analysis more accurate and provide additional context and insights for our programming, ENGAGE will complement the quantitative research with focus groups to get a better understanding of the audiences’ views and perception about civil society, local activism, reforms and anti-corruption citizens’ roles and responsibilities.
To this end, Pact seeks to contract an external polling agency that will organize and oversee field stage of the survey and deliver raw data with preliminary conclusions.
II. SCOPE OF WORK
a. Place of Performance
All services required under this solicitation will be performed in Ukraine and EU countries.
b. Period of Performance
Pact aims at selecting the polling agency for a two years contract. All services required under this solicitation will be delivered from July 2023 and will conclude by September 2025.
c. Scope of Work
The Contract will entail provision of the following services:
- Five representative public opinion polls throughout Ukraine (24 oblasts and Kyiv city, excluding temporarily occupied territories) and EU with a set of population samples (2,000 respondents to be provided by the polling agency, and up to 1,500 respondents provided by Pact, 1000 Ukrainian protection seekers in the European countries provided by the polling agency) in August 2023, February 2024, August 2024, February 2024 and June 2025. The main objective of the public opinion polls is to measure civil society awareness, engagement, and participation. The poll includes up to 100 questions concerning citizen awareness of and engagement in civil society life, involvement in war-related activities, perception and attitudes towards reforms process, corruption, etc. Some questions could contain visuals (graphics, charts). The survey sample should be representative of and disaggregated by region, gender, age, rural vs. urban areas, activist status.
- Online focus group discussions of the results of the quantitative stage with the representatives of the target groups from public opinion polls or any other group of the donor or ENGAGE’s interest to enrich potential analytical interpretations.
- The final design and timeline for all tasks will be agreed upon final selection of the polling agency.
Tasks
Task 1: To conduct five representative public opinion polls throughout Ukraine with a set of population samples (2,000 respondents to be provided by the polling agency, and up to 1,500 respondents provided by Pact, 1000 Ukrainian protection seekers in the European countries provided by the polling agency) from August 2023 to August 2025.
- Test, finalize and obtain Pact’s approval of the survey questionnaire in Ukrainian based on the English master version.
- Design representative survey methodology ensuring that the margin of error is +/-2%.
- Organize, conduct and oversee the field interviews.
- Code and key the respondents in SPSS and CSV data files.
- Develop tabulated XLS report of cross-tables for each variable.
- Research passport (description of methodology), code book for online publishing.
- Disaggregate data based on regions, gender, age, rural vs. urban areas, activist status
- Prepare a draft PPT presentation on the survey results in English and Ukrainian.
Task 2: To conduct online focus group discussions of the results of the quantitative stage with the representatives of the target groups in Task 1 or any other group of the donor or ENGAGE interest to enrich potential analytical interpretations.
For each round of focus group discussions:
- Develop the focus group design, including the selection procedure of participants. Each focus group should be comprised of at least six participants.
- Develop a focus group guide for interviewers that include topics and questions for discussion thematically connected with the CEP questionnaire.
- Conduct up to 10 focus group discussions.
- Conduct video or audio recording of focus group discussions.
- Transcribe all focus group data in Ukrainian or Russian
- Provide research passport (description of methodology)
- Prepare a draft PPT presentation with the report and analysis on the focus group results in English and Ukrainian
d. Deliverables
Task 1:
- Questionnaire finalized and approved by Pact (in English and Ukrainian).
- Data in SPSS and CSV format, codebook, narrative research description in English and Ukrainian.
- Description of methodology provided in English.
- Cross-tabulated data tables for each variable.
- Presentation on survey results in English and Ukrainian.
Due dates: Poll 1 – August 2023, Poll 2 – February 2024, Poll 3 – August 2024, Poll 4 – February 2024, Poll 5 – June 2025.
Task 2:
- Final design of the focus groups approved by Pact, including selection of participants and focus group guides
- Transcribed record of the focus group discussions along with the original record files
- Research passport (description of methodology)
- PPT presentation on the results in English and Ukrainian.
Due dates: August 2023- August 2024
III. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
A. Submission of Questions: All questions or clarifications regarding this RFP must be in writing and submitted to tenders.engage@pactworld.org no later than 17:00 hours on May 19, 2023, Kyiv time. Questions and requests for clarification, and the responses thereto, will be circulated to all RFP recipients who have indicated an interest in this RFP.
B. Technical Proposal
Please find the demands to technical proposal in Annex 2 (RFP for Conducting Civic Engagement Polling).
C. Cost Proposal
Cost proposals will be evaluated separately from technical proposals. The cost proposal shall include a detailed budget that reflects clearly the costs necessary to implement the proposed contract and must include all taxes that are required to provide the services requested. Costs should be represented in USD or UAH (whichever is preferable to the vendor). The anticipated award will be an all-inclusive Firm Fixed Price. No profit, fees, taxes, or additional costs can be added after award. The cost proposal must be valid for at least 90 days. USAID/ENGAGE is an international technical aid project, thus, the offerors who are VAT payers should indicate their agreement to comply with the VAT exemption proceedings.
Please find full demands to cost proposal in Annex 2 (RFP for Conducting Civic Engagement Polling) and Cost Proposal form.
D. Submission of Proposals: The deadline for submission of proposals is June 5, 2023, 24:00 hours, Kyiv time. Submissions must be forwarded in electronic format only (either PDF or Microsoft Word and Excel) to tenders.engage@pactworld.org with the “RFP P4767-2023-13” in the subject line.
Please find clarifications and additional information to the procedure in Annex 4 (Answers to the questions to the RFP No. P4767-2023-13 «Civic Engagement Polling Services»).
IV. EVALUATION CRITERIA
Only proposals conforming to the solicitation requirements will be considered. This RFP will use the tradeoff process to determine best value. That means that each proposal will be evaluated and scored against the evaluation criteria below:
- Technical and Previous Experience
- Quality of Services
- References (quality and relevance)