A Call for Proposals: WASH Unit Cost Data Consultancy

Search, Compilation, and Analysis of Unit Costs of WASH Services in Liberia

WaterAid Liberia is seeking the service of a consultant or firm to conduct a research analysis on the unit cost of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) in Liberia.

About WaterAid

WaterAid is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping people break free from poverty and disease, unlock their potential, and change their lives for good through improved access to clean water, decent toilets, and good hygiene. As a country programme in Liberia, we have successfully implemented water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) projects since 2009, predominantly in rural areas, benefiting some of the poorest and most vulnerable communities across 5 Counties. WaterAid’s rural programme initially focused on the Southeast (Maryland, River Gee, and Grand Kru) Counties. Since 2013, we initiated projects along the Sierra Leone border in Gbarpolu and Grand Cape Mount Counties. WaterAid is a trusted and respected partner, influencing government and stakeholders to scale up evidence-based models. For the past five years, we have expanded to the urban space and WASH in health, mainly in Montserrado and Grand Cape counties. Overall, we reached 109,350 people with clean water, 72,450 people with improved sanitation and 115,500 people with hygiene promotion in 440 Communities, 78 Schools and 25 Healthcare Facilities.

Background of the consultancy

Liberia loses US$ 17.5 million annually due to poor WASH services (World Bank Report 2012). Basic access to water is 75 per cent, basic sanitation is 18 per cent, and Hygiene is 3 per cent. Also, open defecation-free (ODF) status is only at 38 per cent, while 95 per cent of health facilities still need to meet standards in terms of water quantity for all purposes.

Financial gaps have been a critical hindrance in Liberia’s WASH sector.

In 2016, a WASH Sector Performance Assessment Report suggested that the Government of Liberia must invest US$ 201 million per year (baseline estimate of 2015) to achieve SDG targets 6.1 and 6.2 (WB, Hutton & Varughese, 2016). Annual domestic and donor financing is far from meeting the national or international targets for WASH. The annual allocation for the WASH sector, including Government of Liberia (GoL) and donor funds in 2016 and 2017, was US$ 44.8 million and US$ 42.7 million, respectively, or only 22 percent of what was required to meet the targets. Poor sanitation costs Liberia an estimated US$17.5 million a year. However, there is a US$ 5 return on each US$1 investment in WASH (World Bank, 2012). The Government of Liberia (GoL) made “improved WASH sector financing mechanisms” one of the four outcomes of the WASH Compact (2011). The WASH sector is also essential for achieving the GoL’s national development agenda. The Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD) states that by 2023, the government aims to have equitable, safe, affordable, and sustainable water supply and sanitation services for all Liberians. This aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 6 target.

Sector analyses confirmed through stakeholder consultations during the 2023-28 WaterAid’s new Country Programme Strategy development showed that mobilising sufficient quantity and quality of financing is a potential game changer for the WASH sector in Liberia. WaterAid Liberia supports the advocacy of civil society and citizens at national and grassroots levels for a substantially increased budgetary allocation for WASH from the national government and increased investments from bilateral and multilateral donors and the private sector. The initiative will support strengthening accountability mechanisms, policy change, systems, and procedures for WASH spending. The right data and information are always relevant for decision-making, planning, and evidence-based advocacy. WaterAid will see that by 2028, at least an additional US$13 million will be mobilized annually to increase funding to support the government’s WASH priorities and ensure access for more citizens.

For this reason, WaterAid is seeking the service of a consultant or a firm to conduct a unit cost data analysis about WASH in Liberia.

Objective

This consultancy aims to present unit costs of WASH services for households, healthcare facilities, and schools based on secondary data. The unit cost data will be used for a national WASH costing exercise and a cost-benefit analysis in Liberia.

Key activities

• Conduct outreach to sector stakeholders and carry out Internet/Sharepoint search of studies that contain WASH cost data (see Sampling below)
• Design data entry tables (in Excel), including formulae for data adjustments to meet specifications (see Compilation below)
• Extract data and compile in the Excel file, and make appropriate data adjustments to meet specifications (see Compilation below)
• Where multiple data are available for the same setting (e.g., rural household sanitation), indicate which unit cost data are most likely to be nationally representative, with an explanation
• Finalise data report and submit to WaterAid

Key Outputs/Deliverables

1. Design data entry tables (in Excel)
2. Data set/collection and compilation in Excel File
3. Summary of documents and database reviewed, which provides unit costs of WASH Services
4. Presentation of results, recommendations, and conclusion to WaterAid

Methodology and sampling

This is a mix method study involving qualitative and quantitative approaches.

The consultant will search the following sources for unit cost data:

• Internet search, identifying any published and grey literature relating to Liberia.
• Sector documents provided by WaterAid, and any SharePoint sites used by sector partners.
• Email request to the mailing list of WASH sector partners.
• Personal follow-up of key selected partners: relevant Government line ministries responsible for WASH, USAID, the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the most active bilateral aid agencies in the WASH sector in Liberia, and NGOs with a national presence and/or implementing projects on the ground.
• Follow up on relevant references in any documents sourced from the above methods.
• Have one-on-one discussions with key resource persons.
• Conduct Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) and in-depth Interviews (IDIs) with national and international stakeholders from the outset and tailoring the unit cost data to specific local needs.

Stakeholders’ involvement

Key stakeholders’ involvement will comprise WASH-sensitive ministries, agencies and commissions of the government, development partners and INGOs, school and health administrations, community leaders and heads of households, CSOs and service providers, and the WASH Legislative Caucus, and other resource parties deemed relevant.

Timeframe

The entire process of designing, conducting the data analysis, and submitting the final report will last 23 working days, staggered over 5 weeks from signing the contract.

Proposed budget

The consulting firm or individual consultant will provide an estimated, realistic and itemized budget in order to produce the expected outputs.

Compilation

Any document dated since 2015 should be included.

Where a document or database provides unit costs of WASH services or elements of cost that can be used, the consultant will document in summary form in an Excel file what data are available from which source, in terms of:

(a) The service provided (water, sanitation or hygiene, and basic or safely managed).

(b) Whether at household, health facility, or school level.

(c) The nature of the technology/hardware/infrastructure.

(d) Whether rural, urban, or both.

(e) The year of the document and the year that the costs refer to.

(f) The cost data themselves, including the currency and year of data.

(g) Names and location of implementing institution.

(h) The estimated number of beneficiaries (if applicable disaggregated by gender).

This documentation exercise aims to prepare the data to be entered into the final output table.

Depending on what form the costs are available, the consultant should understand and analyse the data so that the cost of each service (water, sanitation, or hygiene) and each service level (basic or safely managed) is presented in the following way:

1. For households:
   1. Capital cost per household and cost per person by rural/urban location.
   2. Programme, software and direct support cost per household and cost per person needed at investment phase, by rural/urban location (if available).
   3. Capital maintenance cost per household and per person by rural/urban location (if available).
   4. Annual operating cost per household and person by rural/urban location.
   5. Programme, software and direct support cost per household and cost per person needed annually, by rural/urban location (if available).

The final form of the unit cost should be cost per person (see Annex 1), which is calculated by dividing the cost per household by the average household size (by rural or urban area).

1. For schools:
   1. Capital cost per school and student in rural/urban locations.
   2. Programme, software and direct support cost per school needed at investment phase, by rural/urban location (if available).
   3. Capital maintenance cost per school, by rural/urban location (if available).
   4. Annual operating cost per school and per student by rural/urban location.
   5. Programme, software and direct support cost per school needed annually, by rural/urban location (if available).

For each of these, it should be noted which type of school the costs refer to (level and size), by rural/urban location.

1. For healthcare facilities:
   1. Capital cost per healthcare facility and the average cost per patient by rural/urban location.
   2. Programme, software and direct support cost per healthcare facility needed at investment phase, by rural/urban location (if available).
   3. Capital maintenance cost per healthcare facility by rural/urban location (if available).
   4. Annual operating cost per healthcare facility and average cost per patient by rural/urban location.
   5. Programme, software and direct support cost per healthcare facility needed annually, by rural/urban location (if available).

For each of these, it should be noted which type of healthcare facility the costs refer to (level and size), by rural/urban location.

Costs should be presented under two scenarios. This requires two complete versions.

1. The technologies currently in use in Liberia.
2. Technologies currently being considered to provide greater climate resilience in Liberia.

Once the final unit costs have been estimated, in agreement with WaterAid, the costs should be updated to 2023 prices using the GDP deflator from the year of data to the target year of 2023.

In addition, the consultant should provide the following:

• The useful life (in years) of an overall service before the hardware needs to be completely replaced.
• The period (in years) after which the hardware needs restorative maintenance or rehabilitation in order to extend to its useful life above.
• Drawing on the national policy, or if absent, the current practices: provide the percentage (%) of costs that need to be recovered from tariffs:
  • For capital costs
  • For capital maintenance costs
  • For operations costs

Skills and competencies of the consultant or consulting firm

• Postgraduate qualifications in social sciences research; Public Health (health promotion) social work, finance, Business Management, or Behaviour Change Communication and use of qualitative research methods
• At least 10 years of relevant leadership experience, including serving as team leader.
• Basic training and senior- level experience in conducting formative research using qualitative methods.
• Demonstrated experience of conducting similar data analysis or work, including financial gap assessment, formative research, and assessment to inform policy decision-making and advocacy and planning in the last five years
• Demonstrated experience as lead person/s of using qualitative research methods.
• Demonstrated experience in developing data analysis tools and interpreting and simplifying research data.
• Excellent communication and good report writing skills, especially the ability to write very well in English.
• Excellent knowledge of issues in water and generally in WASH (focusing on safe water use and other hygiene behaviour change) as well as social and environmental health behaviour change programming in Liberia.
• Timely delivery of expected outputs from the assessment
• Knowledge and experience in using statistical packages for the analysis of data

Application process and submission

Interested candidates (individual consultants or firms) are required to submit the following documentation:

• Technical and financial proposals with specific focus addressing the purpose and objectives of the assignment, methodology to be used, key selection criteria and draft data collection tools and interview guides.
• Initial work plan based on the methodology outlined.
• Company or individual profile or CV including a minimum of 3 references.
• Detailed budget breakdown.
• The CVs of key support staff (case of a firm)
• Proposals should be submitted to recruitmentwli@wateraid.org The subject line of your email should read “Application – Unit Cost WASH Data Analysis”

The deadline for submission of both technical and financial proposals is 24th July 2023. Proposals should be submitted to recruitmentwli@wateraid.org The subject line of your email should read “Application – Unit Cost WASH Data Analysis”

Please note: Applications will be reviewed on rolling bases till deadline date.You can download the pdf version of this advert by clicking the apply button below.