Terms of Reference for the Recruitment of a Consultant to Conduct the Endline Assessment of the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Project in Gasabo District, Rwanda

Terms of Reference for the recruitment of a consultant to perform the Endline Assessment of the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Project in Gasabo District, Rwanda

Background

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Rwanda (RSOG), in partnership with the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), has been implementing the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Project in Gasabo District in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC).

The project contributes to improving the enjoyment of health-related human rights among women, adolescent girls and children through strengthened delivery of gender-responsive, inclusive and accountable SRHR services.

The project has focused on three complementary areas:

• strengthening the knowledge and skills of healthcare providers and health facility administrators in EmONC, family planning, GBV and adolescent-friendly SRHR services;
• improving health facility readiness through mentorship, tools, equipment and quality improvement assist; and
• strengthening RSOG's institutional capacity to assist evidence-based SRHR programming and advocacy.

At project inception, a comprehensive baseline assessment was conducted across 15 public Health Centers and Kibagabaga Level Teaching Hospital in Gasabo District to establish baseline values for service availability, provider competencies, facility readiness and SRHR service utilization. As the project concludes, RSOG seeks to perform an endline assessment to measure changes achieved over the implementation period, compare findings with the baseline, document good practices and lessons learned, and deliver evidence to inform future programming.

Purpose 

The purpose of the endline assessment is to determine the extent to which the SRHR Project has contributed to improvements in provider capacity, health facility readiness, quality of SRHR services, and institutional strengthening in Gasabo District by comparing endline findings with the baseline assessment. The assessment will also detect remaining gaps, document lessons learned and generate recommendations for sustaining and scaling successful interventions.

Objectives

The consultant will assess progress against the project's expected outcomes by:

1. Assessing changes in the availability and capacity of healthcare providers delivering SRHR services.
2. Measuring changes in providers' knowledge and competencies in EmONC, Essential Newborn Care (ENC), Family Planning, comprehensive abortion care, GBV response, gender equality and rights-based approaches.
3. Assessing improvements in health facility readiness, including availability of equipment, commodities, guidelines and decision-assist tools.
4. Examining changes in the availability, accessibility and utilization of SRHR services among women and adolescent girls.
5. Assessing implementation of mentorship, post-training follow-up and quality improvement interventions.
6. Assessing RSOG's strengthened institutional capacity to assist SRHR programming and evidence-based advocacy.
7. Documenting good practices, challenges, lessons learned and recommendations for future programming.

Scope of Work

The assessment will be conducted in Gasabo District, Kigali, covering all public Health Centers and Kibagabaga District Hospital supported by the project, over the life of the project. The assessment will engage key stakeholders across the health system, including healthcare providers, health facility administrators, district health management teams, RSOG leadership and members, women and adolescent girls accessing SRHR services, and relevant representatives from the Ministry of Health and the Rwanda Biomedical Centre.

The assessment should compare endline findings with the April 2023 baseline across the same 16 facilities and project indicators wherever comparable data are available. The inception report should detect baseline sources, indicator definitions, denominators, data collection periods and any changes in facility coverage or methods. Where a direct comparison is not possible, the consultant should explain the limitations and present the most appropriate alternative.

Evaluation Questions

1. How have provider knowledge, competencies and application of training changed since the baseline, and what evidence supports these changes?
2. How have facility readiness, service availability, quality and use of SRHR services changed across the supported facilities? Do changes differ across facilities or population groups?
3. To what extent have mentorship, post-training follow-up and quality improvement supported changes in routine practice?
4. How has RSOG’s capacity to guide training, mentorship, SRHR programming and evidence-based advocacy changed?
5. Which improvements are likely to be sustained after project completion, what gaps remain, and what practical steps should RSOG and health-system partners prioritize?
6. What plausible contribution has the project made to observed changes, and what other factors or data limitations should be considered?

Methodology

The consultant is expected to adopt a mixed-methods approach that ensures comparability with the baseline assessment while generating both quantitative and qualitative evidence. The methodology should include a evaluate and adaptation of the baseline tools, health facility assessments, provider knowledge assessments, routine service data evaluate, key informant interviews with relevant stakeholders, focus group discussions where appropriate, and observations of service delivery environments. The consultant should keep the same methodological approach used during the baseline wherever feasible to enable direct comparison of findings and clearly justify any proposed methodological changes in the inception report.

The consultant should triangulate baseline and endline findings with routine service data, training and mentorship records, stakeholder perspectives and facility observations. The analysis should distinguish observed change from the project’s plausible contribution, consider other influences on outcomes, and report missing data, inconsistencies and methodological limitations. Findings should be disaggregated where feasible and appropriate, including by facility and relevant participant characteristics.

Data Quality and Ethical Considerations

The consultant will be tasked with ensuring that the endline assessment is conducted in accordance with applicable ethical standards and national research requirements. This includes obtaining all necessary ethical and administrative approvals prior to data collection, securing informed consent from all participants, and protecting the confidentiality and anonymity of respondents throughout the assessment process. Where adolescents participate in the assessment, appropriate consent and assent procedures must be followed in line with national guidelines.

The consultant is expected to apply gender-sensitive and rights-based approaches during data collection to make sure that interviews and discussions are conducted respectfully and inclusively. To keep high data quality, the consultant shall establish appropriate quality assurance measures, including training of data collectors, piloting of data collection tools, routine field supervision, and systematic data verification and cleaning before analysis.

Deliverables

The successful consultant will be expected to produce the following deliverables within the agreed timeline.

The final report should include an executive summary, methodology, findings, baseline-endline comparisons, conclusions, recommendations, lessons learned and annexes containing data collection tools and supporting materials.

Review and Validation

RSOG and SOGC will evaluate the inception report and draft endline report and deliver consolidated comments. The consultant will present preliminary findings for discussion with project partners, document material feedback, and explain how comments were addressed in the final report. The detailed evaluate and validation dates will be agreed in the inception report.

The consultant will submit the final report, presentation, data collection tools, clean de-identified datasets and codebook in editable electronic formats.

Duration

The assignment is expected to be completed within30 working days over a period of approximately seven weeks, including planning, fieldwork, data analysis, reporting and presentation of findings.

Required Qualifications

The consultant or consulting firm should demonstrate:

• Master's degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, Monitoring and Evaluation, Demography, Social Sciences or related field;
• at least 7 years of experience conducting health evaluations;
• demonstrated experience in SRHR, MNCH, Family Planning or EmONC evaluations;
• experience with mixed-methods research;
• experience working with MoH, RBC or development partners in Rwanda;
• strong quantitative analysis skills (Stata, SPSS, R or similar);
• excellent qualitative analysis and report-writing skills in English.

Demonstrated experience with results-based management, baseline-to-endline comparison and contribution analysis; experience evaluating training, mentorship and institutional capacity strengthening; and ability to perform or supervise Kinyarwanda-language data collection and produce a clear English-language report.

Submission Procedure: Interested and qualified candidates should submit their applications, including a signed motivation letter, updated CV, academic qualifications, and any other supporting document related to the application field to HR-RSOG@rsog.org.rw by no later than Friday, 9th October 2026 at 1pm.

Please include the subject line:Application for Consultancy to perform the Endline Assessment of the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Project in Gasabo District.Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.