MONITORING AND EVALUATION

Contracts

Consulting services contract to "Avag Solutions" LLC was signed conduct Water Users Association (WUA) and water users' survey to evaluate the Institutional Strengthening sub-activity of the Water to Market activity. The contract is aimed at collecting necessary baseline and time-series data on WUA administration and water users. The data will be mostly used for evaluating the Institutional Strengthening component. The consultant will collect baseline and time series data both on the WUA administration and WUA water users. Therefore, the consultant's key responsibilities will include the development and administration of appropriate survey instruments and sample will be responsible for the questionnaire pre-test and revision, interviewer training, sample verification, data processing and preparation of data files documentation, data analysis and reporting.
The contract value is AMD 66,946,644. The date of contract signature is May 14, 2009. The term of the contract is till September 29, 2011.

Winning individual consultant for carrying out the update of poverty projections is Mr. Melik Gasparyan. The consultant will review the Economic Rates of Return of the MCA-Armenia program and update the Poverty Projections used in the program.
The contract value is AMD 2,400,000. Duration - 3 months from the date of contract signing (December 11, 2008).

Consulting Services contract was signed with AVAG Solutions LLC to provide an assessment of the agricultural sections of the Armenian National Statistical Service's (NSS) 2004 and 2007 Integrated Survey of Living Standards, compare data from the agricultural sections of the two data sources, and compare findings from the 2004 survey with those of other data sources from the same period to be performed by the Consultant.

The contract value is AMD 12,345.500. The term of the contract is five months from the date of its signature (September 16, 2008).

Consulting services contract to Jen Consult in consortium with AREG NGO was signed to implement the follow-on Farming Practices Survey (FPS) as a key data source for the impact evaluation of the On-farm Water Management (OFWM) training of the Water to Market Activity (WtM) and a continuation of the baseline FPS implemented in 2007.
The Farming Practices Survey (FPS) will collect data from a minimum of 5,000 farming households in approximately 223 villages across 10 marzes in Armenia (excluding Yerevan) and 223 village mayors.

The contract value is USD 400.000.

Gorana Krstic was hired as a consultant to evaluate the Integrated Survey of Living Standards (ISLS) poverty verifications, in particular with regard to the calculation of consumption aggregate, calculation of the poverty line and the main poverty indicators.
Additionally, the consultant will support to the National Statistical Service annual publication summarizing the key poverty and economic indicators in Armenia, "Social Snapshot and Poverty in Armenia" will be provided.

The contract value is USD 35,789. The assignment will be implemented within three years - from July 2008 to July 2011. The date of contract signature is June 30, 2008.

A contract with Economic Development and Research Center NGO (EDRC) Armenia-based consulting is signed to provide services of Data Quality Review (Local DQR) to MCA-Armenia. The Local DQR will be tasked with the following key responsibilities: (a) familiarization with the MCA-Armenia's Monitoring and Evaluation System and Data Collection-Data Reporting Cycle, and (b) development and implementation of a well-designed Data Quality Review, creation of Data Quality Profile.

The contract value is AMD 13,287,000. The term of the contract is 18 months, signed on April 2008.

Closed out contracts

Jen Consult in consortium with AREG NGO conducted the Farming Practices Survey to inform the impact evaluation of the on-farm water management training of the Water-to-Market activity.
The Consultant performed the following tasks under this contract:

- Develop the survey questionnaire and pre-test it;
- Train the interviewers;
- Field the survey and collect the data;
- Input the data, do variable aggregation and documentation of the dataset;
- Summarize the data and present the results to MCA-Armenia and MCC.

The survey data will be provided to Mathehmatica Policy Research, a US based company specializing in impact evaluations, to use the data to evaluate the program.
The contract value is USD 89 thousand for one year period starting from September 7, 2007.