Digital Green

REQUEST FOR
PROPOSAL
Quality Assessment Protocol

ISSUE DATE: 4 November 2014

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: 20 November 2014

Request for Proposals - Quality Assessment Protocol for Rabi and Kharif
2014-15
Contents
1.

About Digital Green ........................................................................................................................ 2

2.

Proposed Request for Proposal (RFP) Schedule ............................................................................. 3

3.

Description/Specification/Work Statement ................................................................................... 3

3.1.

Purpose ................................................................................................................................... 3

3.2. Suggested process for mediation observation and physical verification of adoption (of
package of practices shown in videos) ............................................................................................... 4
3.2.1.

Mediation observation of video disseminations ............................................................ 4

3.2.2.

Physical verification of adoption of practices ................................................................. 5

3.3.

Timelines for this assignment ................................................................................................. 6

3.4.

Geographic focus and sample size for third party quality assessment (QA) .......................... 7

3.5.

Instructions, Conditions and Notices to Proposers................................................................. 7

3.5.1.

AMENDMENTS TO SOLICITATIONS ................................................................................. 7

3.5.2.

SUBMISSION, MODIFICATION REVISION, AND WITHDRAWAL OF PROPOSALS ............. 8

3.5.3.

PROPOSAL FORMAT AND CONTENT ............................................................................... 8

1. About Digital Green

The Digital Green approach is a technology-enabled means of agricultural extension, which is costeffective, scalable, and brings together researchers, development practitioners, and farmers to
produce and share locally relevant information.
The Digital Green approach uses video as a medium for sharing improved agricultural practices, since
it is optimally designed for effecting interpersonal behavior change communication with small-scale
farmers, as it overcomes challenges posed by illiteracy. It can also serve as an intuitively accessible
technology, especially when local farmers convey the advice and information in the video. While
video provides a point of focus, it is people and social dynamics that ultimately make the approach
work. Local social networks are tapped to connect farmers with experts; the thrill of appearing on
video motivates farmers; and homophily is leveraged to minimize the distance between teacher
and learner.
The Digital Green approach operates through a hub and spoke model in which non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and public sector agencies, like the Government of Indias National Rural
Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), collaborate with Digital Green to train community intermediaries to
produce and screen locally tailored video content to social organizations, primarily women self-help
groups (SHGs). In a controlled evaluation, on a cost per adoption basis, the Digital Green approach
was shown to be at least 10 times more effective than a conventional approach to agricultural
extension with a seven-fold increase in the rate of behavior change .
Digital Greens partners are selected on the basis of their experience working with target
communities and their existing outreach networks. These partners identify and oversee community
intermediaries who produce and screen videos on agriculture, health, and nutrition related content.
The predominant forum for video screenings is existing womens SHGs, mobilized by partners
engaged in microfinance and livelihood development activities. Each group typically views one new
video every fortnight with a facilitator from the community who mediates these sessions.
In an assessment with two partners, PRADAN and VARRAT, in Odisha, it was found that the classical
extension systems that these NGOs operated had a cost per adoption of US$ 10-18 whereas the
Digital Green approach integrated with their existing extension operations had a cost per adoption
of US$ 3-4 an improvement of four to five times, per dollar spent. Additionally, an initial, limited
sample analysis found that in the first eight months in which the Digital Green approach had been
deployed resulted in an average cumulative increase in incomes of US$ 242 per farmer in two
clusters of villages in Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, relative to control villages in which its partners
operated their existing extension service as-is. In particular, the incomes of the smallholder farmers,
who primarily cultivated paddy, maize, and soybean during the winter (rabi) season, on average
increased by 21% from INR 15,579 (US$ 346) to INR 18,912 (US$ 420) and, during the monsoon
(kharif) season, incomes increased by an average of 59% from INR 7,828 (US$ 174) to INR 12,414
(US$ 256) for farmers who primarily cultivated maize and soybean. Based on these results, the
return of investment of this project was found to be approximately 14.4.

Till date, Digital Green has collaborated with over 20 partners, building the capacity of public
extension workers and community intermediaries to produce over 3,300 short videos on locallyrelevant agricultural, health and nutrition practices shared among more than 4,00,000 farmers in
over 5,000 villages across India, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania.

2. Proposed Request for Proposal (RFP) Schedule

4 November 2014

Requests for Proposals (RFP) distributed and posted at

http://www.digitalgreen.org/blog/

13 November 2014

Deadline for Notice of Intent and written questions on RFP

Notice of Intent and written questions should be directed to: Swati Gaur | swati@digitalgreen.org
17 November 2014

Answers to written questions provided by email to respondents

20 November 2014

Deadline for proposals

Tentative Schedule:
24 November 2014

Start Interviews with Top Proposers

28 November 2014

Select Vendor

3. Description/Specification/Work Statement
3.1.Purpose
The purpose of third party quality assessment is to procure services of an independent agency to
cross validate data collected by our partner organisation on progress of our intervention and
also to assess quality of our service delivery.
Our intervention has three main elements, namely, video production (agriculture, animal
husbandry and health), dissemination of these videos to groups of women and capturing
adoption of practices shown via videos.

There are quality controls along each of these three elements. Third party QA will focus
on quality of video dissemination and reported adoption of practices by farmers.
Scope of work for third party also includes collecting basic profiling information, based
on Human Development Index, from farmers in our intervention area. This will be done
on a sample basis using a household survey.
We would also like to measure benefits accrued to farmers who have adopted
new/improved method of agricultural practices in Rabi and Kharif 2014-15. This will
entail household survey to measure awareness of farmers (about package of practices)
attending DG video screenings and yield measurement during harvest season on a
sample basis.
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3.2.Suggested process for mediation observation and physical

verification of adoption (of package of practices shown in videos)
3.2.1. Mediation observation of video disseminations
3.2.1.1.
What is mediation? Local community resource persons screen videos on
specific livelihood practices that are locally relevant to small groups of farming
community. They are trained on facilitation skills and oriented to the technical
aspect of each practice including the negotiable and non-negotiable adoption
points. While conducting mediated disseminations, the farmers are encouraged
to ask questions and resolve their doubts about the video screened. The farmers
provide feedback on the content of the videos and if the message in the video
was clear enough and if they would be willing to adopt the practice. The
mediated screenings are conducted at local group levels i.e. SHGs, farmer clubs,
and other CBO levels, at pre-determined location and time convenient to the
group members (mostly late evenings). As part of the dissemination process,
mediators also fill in dissemination observation forms towards the end of the
screening that captures information such as attendance, expressed past
adoptions, interest on adopting disseminated practice, and questions and
feedback from the farmers.
These disseminations are observed for quality on a random sample basis by
the partners as well as Digital Green regional staff, through field visits using
the related dissemination observation forms.
3.2.1.2.
Variables of mediation which will be observed for assessing quality
The following aspects of disseminations are usually observed for assessing their quality:

Effective use of equipment during screenings

Regularity of mediated screening
Attendance at the screenings
Quality of facilitation by the community mediator/facilitator and the response of the
participants
Process to record attendance and interests of farmers to adopt the practices, details
of previous adoptions, during screenings (use of dissemination observation forms)

3.2.1.3.
Analysis plan for Mediation observation
Detailed analysis plan for mediation observation TBD with the selected vendor.
However, following items need to be considered:

DG uses a standard mediation observation tool. The key variables captured in the
mediation observation tools are:
o Equipment setup and handling
o Context setting and facilitation
o Subject knowledge
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o Documentation
DG has protocol, guidelines and tools developed in-house to conduct mediation
observation. Third party quality assessment process will include selection of random
sample of dissemination events and using DG tools to capture quality of these
disseminations.

3.2.2. Physical verification of adoption of practices

After a dissemination event1 the next step in the sequence is verification of package of
practices by farmers.
Reported adoptions are recorded using dissemination observation forms wherein the
farmers have expressed that they have adopted a practice. The mediators are expected to
verify all these expressed adoptions by visiting the actual site of adoption and/or household
level interactions, using adoption verification form. Further, adoptions are considered as
valid only if all the non-negotiable adoption points have been practiced. Partial adoption of
disseminated practices / videos is not considered an adoption. Adoptions verified by
mediators / local community resource persons are further verified through random sample
checks by partner staff as well as Digital Green staff. Once the verification and validation
process is complete, adoption figures are uploaded on COCO. COCO (Connect Online
Connect Offline) is our in-house data input system. Data related to video dissemination and
adoption of agricultural practices is entered in COCO by our partner organisations.
This third party quality assessment is expected to inform Digital Green staff how effectively
these two activities are implemented so that they can further be strengthened and the
training strategy accordingly amended.
3.2.2.1.
Process of analysis for physical verification
Data on dissemination and adoption will be taken from COCO.
Third party will physically verify practices which can be physically verified (TBD) per
video
We will decide on the list of videos to be included in QA for Rabi and Kharif. DG will
provide list of non-negotiables and physically verifiable items (and months when
these can be verified)
DG will provide all data (from COCO) required for third party QAThird party will also
use a household survey to check knowledge retention amongst people who have
seen the video in Rabi 2014 and Kharif 2015. Farmer profiling can also be done
during this household survey.
Steps for analysis of video seen:
>>Single source of data used will be coco. In this case two cases are possible:

Dissemination event is screening of a video by a Village Resource Person(VRP employee of DG partner

organisation) to Self Help Group members.
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a) COCO data says that farmer has seen the video and farmer says he has not seen the
video. Third party will survey such individuals and note down this discrepancy and report
it to us. No further analysis is required for such cases.
b) COCO data says that farmer has seen the video and farmer confirms it. Third party will
survey these individuals and cross validate retention of knowledge for these cases.
Detailed analysis can be performed on this set check if retention of knowledge and
actual adoption matches, profiling of these people to find out what is the reason that
retention is accurate, how accurate is the rentention, combine data from mediation
observation and retention.
Steps for analysis for reported adoptions:
>>Single source of data used will be COCO. In this case two cases are possible:
a) COCO data reports adoption and physical verification says adoption has happened but
not to the desired standards as proposed by DG. These cases will be analysed for
reasons why adoption was not according to our processes, what is the deviation, what
are the barriers to adoption that the farmer faced. This set of farmers must have viewed
video in the same season.
b) COCO data reports adoption and physical verification confirms the degree of adoption as
per DG standards.

3.3.Timelines for this assignment

Highlighted below are activities to be undertaken by organisation conducting third party
assessment for Digital Green. Applicants for this ToR are required to submit timelines and cost
estimates (this refers to general part, technical and cost part as mentioned in Section 3.5) for the
following activities included in this assignment:
1. Rabi 2015:
Mediation observation
Physical verification of adoption of package of agricultural practices as shown in videos
during dissemination events
Basic HDI to be collected by conducting a household survey on a sample basis
2. Kharif 2015-16
Mediation observation
Physical verification of adoption of package of agricultural practices as shown in videos
during dissemination events
Basic HDI to be collected by conducting a household survey on a sample basis
3. Measurement of yield in Rabi and Kharif:
Measurement of yield2 of SRI to be done on a sample basis in five districts of Patna, namely,
Muzzafarpur, Madhubani, Purnia, Nalanda and Khagaria
This is to be done during harvest season for Rabi and Kharif crops respectively
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Please refer to http://tinyurl.com/mdxartl for suggested methodology for measurement of yield

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Deliverables for third party QA include:

An inception report
Monthly progress report on assessment activities
Quality Assessment report with dataset at the end of Rabi crop season. A powerpoint
presentation (based on the QA report) to DG program team
Quality Assessment report with dataset at the end of Kharif crop season. A powerpoint
presentation (based on the QA report) to DG program team

3.4.Geographic focus and sample size for third party quality assessment
(QA)
Third party QA will focus on DG and Jeevika Partnership in Bihar.
The Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (BRLPS) also known as JEEViKA is an autonomous
society under the Government of Bihar, responsible for implementing the mandate of NRLM.
JEEViKA targets the rural poor and women, working for their social and economic empowerment,
with a focus on four key themes: institution and capacity building, social development, microfinance,
and livelihoods.
In 2012, we partnered with JEEViKA to leverage its extensive social organization by introducing ICT
enabled extension to promote livelihoods and institution-building practices. We currently operate in
five district in Bihar:
Muzaffarpur
Madbubani
Nalanda
Purnia
Khagaria
Digital Green and selected vendor for third party QA will work on the methodology to select a
random sample from total households covered in five districts in Bihar. To obtain cost estimates for
this RFP we can assume that the total sample size will be approximately 2000 households for
physical verification of adoptions and household survey for HDI. For mediation observation of video
dissemination sample size will be no more than 200 video dissemination events.

3.5.Instructions, Conditions and Notices to Proposers

3.5.1. AMENDMENTS TO SOLICITATIONS
If this solicitation is amended, all terms and conditions that are not amended remain unchanged.
Proposers shall acknowledge receipt of any amendment to this solicitation in Proposers cover letter.

3.5.2. SUBMISSION, MODIFICATION REVISION, AND WITHDRAWAL OF

PROPOSALS
3.5.2.1.

Deadline for proposals is 20 November 2014

3.5.2.2.

Proposals by electronic copy must be submitted to:

Attn: Swati Gaur
Email: swati@digitalgreen.org

3.5.2.3.
Proposals and modifications to proposals may be submitted via
electronic copy in PDF or MS Word format by 20 November 2014 to
swati@digitalgreen.org
3.5.3. PROPOSAL FORMAT AND CONTENT
3.5.3.1.
General (Part)
Proposals should be prepared simply and economically, providing a straightforward, concise
description of the vendors ability to meet the requirements of the work outlined in this RFP.
Proposers should use the following outline in organizing the content of their proposals:
3.5.3.1.1.
Cover Letter
The letter of transmittal shall, at a minimum, contain the following:
Identification of the Proposer, including business name, address, and telephone number;
Name, title, address, telephone number, fax number, and email address of a contact person during
the period of proposal evaluation;
A statement that the proposal shall remain valid for a period not fewer than ninety (90) days from
the due date of proposals;
The signature and typed name of the person authorized to bind the offering firm to the terms of the
proposal
3.5.3.1.2.
Table of Contents
Insert a complete table of contents for material included in the proposal, including page numbers.
3.5.3.1.3.

Qualifications, Related Experience and References

3.5.3.1.4.
Overview
This section should establish the ability of the Proposer to satisfactorily perform the work described
in the Scope of Work (Section 2 of this RFP) by reasons of: demonstrated competence in the services
to be provided; the nature and relevance of similar work currently being performed or recently
completed; record of meeting schedules and deadlines of other clients; competitive advantages over
other firms in the same industry; strength and stability as a business concern; and supportive client
references. Information should be furnished for both the Proposer and any subcontractors included
in the offer.
3.5.3.1.5.
Furnish background information
Furnish background information about your firm, including date of founding, legal form (i.e. sole
proprietorship, LLC, corporation/state of incorporation), number and location of offices, principle
lines of business, number of employees, day/hours of operation and other pertinent data. Disclose
any conditions (e.g. bankruptcy or other financial problems, pending litigation, planned office
closures, impending mergers) that may affect the Proposers ability to perform in accordance with a
resulting contract. Certify that the firm is not debarred, suspended or otherwise declared ineligible
to contract by any federal, state, or local public agency.
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3.5.3.1.6.
Describe your firms most noteworthy qualifications
Describe your firms most noteworthy qualifications for providing the required services to DG,
including years of experience providing like services. Specifically highlight those qualifications that
distinguish you from others.
Provide examples of quality assurance or social audits conducted in Livelihood by your
organisation.
Does your organisation have expertise in Livelihood activities, specifically in farm activities?
Support with CVs.
Provide examples of quantitative and qualitative impact assessment studies conducted by
your organisation.
Identify at least three (3) former clients that DG may contact as references and who can
independently evaluate the Proposers expertise in this area. Describe the work performed
for the client and include the name, job title, address, and phone number of a contact
person for each reference.
Describe other lines of business in which your organisation is engaged.
If your organization is a subsidiary or division of a parent firm, provide similar background
information on the parent company and identify any other affiliated companies.
Disclose any existing or potential conflicts of interest between the scope of work required by
DG and your firms other business activity.
3.5.3.2.
Work Plan / Technical Approach (Technical Part)
This section should demonstrate the Proposers understanding of DGs objectives and
requirements, demonstrate the proposers ability to meet those requirements and
outline clearly and concisely the plan for accomplishing the specified work. Please
include proposed timelines for each activity. Please be concise. No more than 2-3 pages.

Describe succinctly how your firm would accomplish the work and
satisfy DGs objectives as described in this RFP.

Describe the steps and details of implementation plan for this third
party assessment process including a standard timeline for completion.

Describe qualitative and quantitative methods which can be used to

cross validate data reported in COCO and check the quality of
dissemination events

3.5.3.3.
Cost (Cost Part)
This section should disclose all charges that will be assessed to DG as a result of the
services provided by Proposer.

Quote an estimated total fee and total hourly fees for completing all requirements
outlined in the Scope of Work.

Quote rates for additional, optional consulting hours that may be required for
special projects/consulting work.

State your preference for how payments should be made (e.g. monthly, quarterly).
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For all fees listed above, provide quotes for the initial term. The total fees shall
include all expenses and costs, including direct labor, supplies, travel, indirect costs
and profit.

Exceptions / Deviations - State any exceptions or deviations from the requirements

stated in this RFP. If your firm wishes to present alternative approaches to meet
DGs work requirements, these should be thoroughly explained.

3.5.3.4.
Appendices (Additional Part)
Furnish as appendices supporting documents requested in the preceding instructions.
Include any additional information you deem essential to proper evaluation of your proposal and
which is not solicited in any of the preceding sections.

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