COCOBOD and Tree Crop Development Authority

Terms of Reference (TOR)

Baseline Survey for the Tree Crop Diversification Project in Ghana focused on Impact Evaluation

1. Introduction

The Government of Ghana aims to conduct a baseline survey for the Tree Crop Diversification Project (TCDP) which is managed by both the Tree Crops Development Authority (TCDA) and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD). The baseline is set up to allow for a design of Impact Evaluation of the project. The Project Development Objective (PDO) of TCDP is to improve economic, climate, and social resilience in four tree crop value chains in Ghana. These crops are cocoa, cashew, coconut, and rubber. Some of the PDO outcome indicators include Average yield (mt/ha) for all these crops, smallholder commercialization and value addition (sanitary and phytosanitary standards), adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices and ensuing reduction in greenhouse gases, child labour incidence and other livelihood and welfare implications.

The project embodies a suite of interventions including but not limited to rehabilitation of cocoa farms infested with the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease (CSSVD), crop diversification (agroforestry), digitalization and management information systems (MIS) for quality management, traceability, certification, input provision (climate-resilient seeds/seedlings, fertilizers, agrochemicals), post-harvest losses/storage and membership in farmer-based organizations (FBOs) and livelihood packages. TCDP wishes to evaluate several hypothesis relating to the impact of these interventions on several socioeconomic and crop agronomy outcomes: including agricultural production and yield of targeted tree crops, status of CSSV affected farms and impact of disease on farmer livelihoods and their living standards, seedling access and availability, access to agroinputs, market access and commercialization, income (poverty), livelihoods and welfare, job creation and labor mobility, rural employment, human capital development and child labour issues food and nutrition security, climate resilience, GhG emissions and carbon sequestration, afforestation/reforestation, challenges and others. Some of the research hypothesis that this project seems to evaluate are the following:

• The adoption of a bundle of farm inputs (climate-resilient seeds/seedlings, fertilizers, agrochemicals) increases tree crop production (cashew, coconut, rubber) with ensuing impacts on commercialization and consumption among smallholder farmers.
• Cashew production leads to immense gendered rural employment and job creation
• The cultivation of various tree crops (cocoa, cashew, coconut, rubber) and increased land area under these crops increases human capital development of children (education) use of children as farm labour and environmental issues.
• The cultivation of cashew, coconut and rubber offers carbon sequestration benefits on non-forested economies.
• The adoption of climate-resilient seeds/seedlings builds climate resilience and reduces GhG emissions in the tree crops sector.
• The rehabilitation of cocoa fields infested with CSSVD increases yields, livelihoods, and welfare of smallholder farmers.
• The rehabilitation of cocoa fields infested with CSSVD leads to rural employment and job creation effects.
• Institutional capacity strengthening and quality delivery of services has positive effect on the production, commercialization, and export of cocoa, cashew, coconut, and rubber.
• The integration of food crops into tree crop farms (cocoa, cashew, coconut, rubber) increases household income as well as food and nutrition security.
• The participation of farmers in collective action (FBOs) supports cocoa rehabilitation and increases smallholder welfare.
• The provision of competency-based training in tree crop farming through farmer-field schools positively correlates with increased productivity among farmers. The participation of farmers in collective action increases afforestation and reforestation
• Farmer based organizations are associated with increases in smallholder production and commercialization.
• The digitalization, traceability of certification of cocoa and other tree crops increases quality enhancement and reduce poverty.
• Supporting farm households with a livelihood package increases human capital development (increases school enrollment and participation while reducing child labour)
• The provision of matching grants to cashew, cocoa and coconut processors and small and medium size enterprises leads to (gendered) rural employment and increases dietary diversity for women and children.
• Rubber cultivation is an important diversification strategy for increasing household income for farm households.

These hypotheses will be evaluated using quasi-experimental impact evaluation techniques such as matching, weighting, and double robust estimators, switching regressions, panel, and pseudo panel fixed effect regressions or randomized control techniques (RCTs). Given these, a baseline survey is planned which would be followed up two times to form a panel (The same farmers will be interviewed after significant intervention has been carried at mid-term and penultimate year before the project ends). For this purpose, TCDP seeks to hire a survey firm to conduct a baseline survey through a competitive bidding process. The selected survey firm would support TCDP by administering the survey and all the accompanying process that come with data collection and preparation. The survey will include two relatively large survey instruments: farmer household,  processor and community-level information. The survey is envisaged to be a relatively large household survey covering about 2000 -3000 households spread across different regions and districts. For instance, cocoa in Western North (districts of Essam and Adabokrom) and Eastern regions (Asamankese ); cashew in Bole and Sawla-Tuna-Kalba of the Savannah region, Wenchi and Tain in Bono region, Techiman Municipal and Techiman North in Bono East; Coconut in Upper West Akim and Suhum of Eastern Region and Rubber in Upper West Akim. This household survey aims to collect comprehensive information related to all the above interventions and socioeconomic outcomes using a standard questionnaire that covers all the data elements of performance indicators formatted to collect panel data. The firm will be expected to suggest additional data collection approaches and interim assessments and special studies and surveys to gather more information about the targeted beneficiaries.

2. Scope of Work

The survey would cover about 2000-3000 households covering all the four crops and the various geographical areas of focus. The household questionnaire will be designed to take approximately an hour on average and will be addressed to the main decision maker of the household. The survey is envisaged to take place August to Mid-December 2025.

The selected firm will be expected to conduct the following tasks:

• The selected survey firm will be responsible for obtaining local administrative approvals for conducting all fieldwork activities (including pre-test, pilot, and main survey).
• The questionnaires will be developed in English and the selected survey firm will be expected to translate them into local language (if necessary). All translations will then be checked by TCDP staff.
• The selected survey firm is expected to recruit enumerators, supervisors and quality controllers and train them. The training will be scheduled in consultation with TCDP and TCDP Project Coordinators and M&E Experts will attend and guide the training.

• After training the enumerators, the survey firm is responsible for ground transportation and/or lodging of enumerators and supervisors and coordinating and managing related logistical operations.
• The selected survey firm will be expected to deliver copies of all training materials used in preparing for the survey. Other documents developed to manage the fieldwork samples may include interviewer assignment sheets and fieldwork achievement sheets.
• The survey firm will program the survey instrument using a CAPI system.
• The selected survey firm will take the lead in pre-testing and piloting the survey. The pilot will be conducted to provide a final check on the questionnaires’ design and CAPI programming, as well as length of the interview.
• The selected survey firm will be expected to use a CAPI system for data-entry and is responsible for programming the questionnaire, including basic consistency checks.
• The data collection will be conducted using CAPI and tablets.
• The selected survey firm will also be required to incorporate use of this system and the tablets in the various training sessions, including how to solve duplicate cases, how to review the work accomplished, and how to upload the data etc.
• The selected survey firm will report any issues or questions that arise during the survey to the TCDP contact person and documented in the fieldwork report.
• Conduct go (call)-backs and quality checks.
• The selected survey firm will be expected to submit the raw data (as originally entered CAPI at the time of the interview), a cleaned and labeled dataset, and full documentation (including do files) of how the raw data was processed.
• Within 1 month after the fieldwork completion and data delivery, the selected survey firm will on a continuous basis make sure to discuss with TCDP initial findings from the data analysis.
• Perform any other tasks related to making the survey a success as well as the ensuing the quality of data collected from it.

3. Deliverables

The main deliverables (in English) are as follows:

• Inception report
• Sampling technique for the collecting data and design of impact evaluation.
• A completely developed questionnaire with sections addressing all the interventions and outcomes as stated above
• Training manual containing detailed modules for the training of enumerators and facilitators of rapid appraisal techniques.
• A CAPI version of the questionnaire either on survey CTO, Survey solution or Kobo toolbox
• An uncleaned data set of all the sections of the survey instrument (questionnaire)
• A clean data set of all the sections of the survey instrument
• A merged data set of all the sections of the survey instrument
• A STATA do file documenting all the codes used to clean the different sections of the data and arrive at the cleaned merged data
• A metadata describing the data and the attributes of all that it contains
• List of all sampled households in the data
• Survey evaluation report detailing all the data collection processes and activities, and evaluation report of describing the sample (by crop etc.)

Contract payments will be made against deliverables.

4. Time Frame for the Assignment, payment, and delivery schedule

The assignment is expected to take place within 4.5months (16-18 weeks) period upon signing of the contract as per Table 1 below. The assignment is expected to commence by April 2025 and be completed by end of August 2025.

Table 1: Proposed Timetable

The proposed timetable is subject to modification only upon consultation and approval from both TCDA and COCOBOD. At each deliverable stage payment is subject to review until client (TCDA and COCOBOD) and Supervising Entity (World Bank) is materially satisfied with the quality of the deliverable. Each deliverable may be subject to multiple reviews.

1. Selection Criteria

The survey firm selection will be based on TCDP’s assessment of potential to deliver high quality data at a reasonable cost, as indicated by survey firm elaboration of their data quality procedures, experience, and references.

5.1 Required qualifications:

• Demonstrated experience in conducting large quantitative household and processor and community surveys.
• Demonstrated experience in effective interaction and coordination with collaborators and project partners.
• Experience in managing livelihood, agriculture, rural development, nutrition, and/or food security surveys.
• Experience in administering and carrying out impact evaluations, experiments using randomized control trials (RCTs)
• Experience with programing surveys and data entry and CAPI software packages (Survey CTO, Survey Solutions and Kobo Toolbox) and experience in using STATA
• Demonstrated experience with obtaining appropriate local administrative permits and approvals.
• Demonstrated local presence and existing networks in the different counties in Ghana.
• Experience in collecting data in rural and forested settings.
• Strong project management skills
• Value for money

2. Tender dossier requirements

The Tender Dossier must include:

1. A proposal that describes the tenderer’s:
   • Questionnaire translation services and samples
   • Recruitment processes and procedures for supervisors, interviewers, and quality controllers.
   • The type of tablets and survey programming used.
   • Trainings plan and design
   • Pretest plan and design
   • Main data collection plan and design
   • Quality control standards and procedures for data collection
   • Data cleaning and tabulation processes, standards, and procedures
   • A detailed timeline, with a mention of the firm’s exact availability during the contracting period
   • All facilities and equipment to be provided by the tenderer (e.g., venue for training, tablets, etc.)
   • Financial proposal, including a detailed budget describing cost across various items.

Proposals should not exceed 15 pages.

• A list of referees that may be contacted.
• 3-5 Past performance write-ups (1 page each)
• Other relevant documents.

3. Reporting

The survey firm will work closely with the TCDP team and stakeholders in COCOBOD and TCDA especially the M&E Specialists, with reviews from the World Bank. They report to the Project Coordinators from COCOBOD and TCDA

4. Special Terms & Conditions

Confidentiality Statement:

All data and information received from COCOBOD, TCDA and or partners for the purpose of this assignment are to be treated confidentially and are only to be used in connection with the execution of these Terms of Reference. All intellectual property rights arising from the execution of these Terms of Reference are assigned to COCOBOD and TCDA. The contents of written materials obtained and used in this assignment may not be disclosed to any third parties without the expressed advance written authorization of COCOBOD and TCDA.

Ownership of Materials:

Any deliverables including raw data from respondents under this assignment in any form will be the property of COCOBOD and TCDA including any communications material developed. All project deliverables, including reports and other creative work called for by these Terms of Reference, in written, graphic, audio, visual, electronic or other forms shall acknowledge the support of COCOBOD, TCDA and local partners. World Bank can use the accumulated experience of this project to support other projects in any other countries in the world.

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