Foreign economic-aid-related services

Tender description

FCDO are driving the global research agenda on Early Childhood Development. FCDO will fund new rigorous and operationally relevant research over 57 months on the most effective approaches to implementing Early Childhood Development (ECD) at scale in LMIC contexts. FCDO will appoint a Research Programme Consortium (RPC) to design, manage and implement a GBP 15 725 000 multi-country, interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral research programme on ECD, and foster significant uptake of the research findings. The intended impact of the programme is to improve early childhood developmental outcomes for children aged 0-8 living in LMICs, through a better understanding of how to implement quality ECD interventions at scale within and across sectors. FCDO is seeking to appoint a dynamic and collaborative Research Programme Consortium (RPC) to design, manage and implement a GBP 15 725 000 multi-country, interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral research programme on ECD, and foster significant uptake of the research findings. The programme will run for four years and nine months (April 2021 to December 2025) with the potential to extend for a further 3 all the ECD domains of the Nurturing Care Framework (NCF) – and develop understanding on how to build coherent multi-sectoral ECD systems which can enable the delivery of quality ECD in a sustainable manner for all children. This programme is co-funded by FCDO (GBP 14.75 million) and New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) (GBP 975 000). The aim for the THRIVE RPC will be to generate, disseminate and maximise uptake of robust and rigorous evidence on how to implement quality ECD programming at scale. This will be done through: (a) Increasing the global evidence base on quality ECD programming at scale through rigorous and robust implementation research in five countries. Confirmed countries are Tanzania, Sierra Leone, South-Sudan, Lebanon, and a Pacific island to be confirmed. (b) Increasing national and subnational government capacity to deliver evidence based ECD policies and programming, through the provision of high quality, relevant research and a small technical assistance (TA) component. (c) Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of FCDO’s and MFAT’s ECD programming in five countries by providing clear and evidence-based recommendations to strengthen programme implementation, reach marginalised communities and support scale-up while retaining effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. (d) Strengthening the academic and research community of interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral ECD practice.