Consultancy - Baseline Study - Pathways to Scale (P2S)

Terms of Reference - Baseline Study

Pathways to Scale (P2S)

Location: Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Rwanda

Duration of Contract: 3 Months (47 working days)

Reports to: MERL & Data Compliance Manager

Application Deadline: March 15, 2026

Expected Start Date: March 26, 2026

Level of Effort: 47 days

1. WUSC Background

WUSC is a leading Canadian international development organization committed to providing education, economic and empowerment opportunities to improve the lives of millions of disadvantaged youths around the world, particularly young women and refugees. WUSC’s vision is a world where all young people can thrive in safe, secure and supportive environments; have access to high-quality education opportunities from early childhood to adulthood; are able to secure fair, decent and fulfilling economic opportunities; and can actively participate in all aspects of their societies’ development. WUSC works as a facilitator and a convener, bringing together diverse resources and stakeholders to tackle complex challenges at a systems level. WUSC leverages a wide network of actors from civil society, post-secondary education, the private sector and youth themselves to design and implement initiatives that will bring lasting change for the benefit of youth. WUSC operates in over 25 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, The Caribbean and Latin America. WUSC has over 300 staff globally implementing many development projects in collaboration with donors, such as Global Affairs Canada, the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Mastercard Foundation. In partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, WUSC is expanding its operations across East and West Africa, supporting national development priorities through strategic collaboration with entrepreneurship support organizations and other key development stakeholders. WUSC has co-designed and is in the early stages of implementing an innovative program aimed at expanding women’s economic opportunities, with a specific focus on strengthening women-owned and women-led businesses to improve employment and entrepreneurship outcomes.

2. Pathways to Scale Background

Pathways to Scale (P2S) is a five-year (May 6, 2025 to April 30, 2030) young women-focused program of the Mastercard Foundation, implemented in partnership with World University Service of Canada (WUSC) and supported by Seedstars and local Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs). Operating in Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, and Rwanda. P2S strengthens women-owned and women-led enterprises through provision of gender-focused business development services and gender-responsive access to finance to unlock approximately 100,000 dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young women, contributing directly to the Mastercard Foundation’s goal of enabling 30 million young people in Africa to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030. The project focuses on supporting and empowering young rural women entrepreneurs, primarily those in agriculture and agribusiness, through tailored technology-driven skills training and access to finance with a strong emphasis on scalability of existing businesses. Building on this foundation, P2S will promote sustained growth among women entrepreneurs by providing advanced coaching and access to capital, ensuring they have the resources necessary for sustainable enterprise scaling while creating and maintaining dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for other young rural women. Specifically, the project will achieve its objective by: Expanding access to finance for women-owned and women-led enterprises through concessional loans and impact-linked grants. Delivering tailored technical assistance (TA) to enable targeted women entrepreneurs to achieve sustainable and impactful growth. Strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem by collaborating with a robust network of ESOs and strengthening their capacity to integrate gender, youth, Refugees and Displaced Persons (RDP), People with Disabilities (PWD), and rural development perspectives. To ensure continuity and build on existing investments, 80% of the project participants will be sourced from selected Mastercard Foundation programs in the implementation countries that closed before January 2023 or have closed cohorts for existing programs. The remaining 20% will be drawn from the broader market, with a deliberate focus on reaching new segments of women entrepreneurs who were not historically engaged through previous Mastercard Foundation programs. This approach balances the need to sustain momentum from past initiatives while expanding opportunities to underserved groups. WUSC is partnering with Seedstars and a network of local Enterprise Support Organizations (ESOs) to reach 12,605 women owned and led businesses in the agriculture, agribusiness and tourism space. Of these, 8,605 will have access to finance and business development support (BDS) to scale their businesses while the rest will only receive the projects’ tailored technical assistance (BDS). These businesses cut across the micro, small, medium and high group cadre. In line with the project focus, these businesses will receive tailored technical assistance, access to finance and ecosystem strengthening support that is expected to accelerate scale of supported businesses, create dignified and fulfilling work opportunities thereby resulting in improved well-being and resilience of young rural women in the countries of implementation.

3. Objective of the study

The purpose of the baseline study for Pathways to Scale is to establish a reference point against which progress and impact will be measured throughout the project lifecycle. This assessment will provide critical data on the initial status of targeted project participants, institutions, and systems prior to the commencement of full-scale implementation of the project across the four countries. Specifically, the baseline will generate evidence to benchmark key performance indicators related to women-owned enterprises while also identifying contextual factors, challenges, and opportunities that may influence project success. Findings from the baseline study will serve as both a benchmark for monitoring change and a learning tool for refining program strategies, ensuring alignment with donor requirements, and project goals. Specific objectives will include but are not limited to:

• Establish a benchmark of the project participants and context prior to full scale implementation to track change over time and measure progress toward outputs, outcomes, and impact.
• Refine the indicators in the Performance Measurement Framework (PMF) to ensure they are realistic, context-specific and achievable.
• To generate evidence that validates the assumptions underpinning the project’s Theory of Change and informs adaptive implementation, including the revision and refinement of the project’s implementation strategy as necessary. Key assumptions include the following:

- Women-led enterprises hire more young rural women than male-led enterprises;

- Impact-linked incentives drive greater focus on young rural women employment; - Concessional finance + TA combination outperforms standalone interventions

• Assess the current capacity of ESOs to deliver gender-responsive, disability-inclusive, and rural-focused services.
• Analyze gender norms, power relations, and social inclusion factors to strengthen the P2S safeguarding and inclusion strategy.

4.Scope of the Study
Pathways to Scale project participants are distributed across East (Ethiopia and Rwanda) and West (Ghana and Nigeria) Africa, with the largest concentration located in Nigeria and Ethiopia. The consultant will be required to design the study to reflect this geographic spread, focusing on priority implementation locations and collecting data from key ecosystem actors including women owned and women led enterprises, Entrepreneur Support Organizations, financial service providers, and other relevant stakeholders identified in collaboration with the P2S project team. The study will place significant emphasis on women entrepreneurs aged 15 to 35 which constitute about 60 percent of the study population, RDPs and PWDs. Although Nigeria and Ethiopia represent the highest concentration of target participants, key project assumptions should be validated and refined through baseline findings across all implementation countries. The assessment will disaggregate findings by enterprise typology, including micro, small and dynamic, medium, and high-growth businesses in line with the project tailored support approach. The baseline study will also set the benchmark to effectively address the P2S learning questions:

• What types of support are required to enable ESOs to meet the needs of different segments of women entrepreneurs, including young rural women?
• What combinations of financial and non-financial support help various segments of women entrepreneurs, including young rural women, RDPs, and PWDs, scale their businesses?
• What are the benefits and drawbacks of impact-based financing, (including SIINCS) for women entrepreneurs?? How effective is this approach?
• In what ways will women-owned/led businesses supported by P2S contribute to inclusive economic development, specifically with respect to the creation of fulfilling and dignified employment of young rural women, PWDs and RDPs?
• How can data platforms be designed to provide valuable and customized support to P2S target entrepreneurs?

The project is currently updating its Performance Measurement Framework (PMF), which will be shared with the selected consultant. The consultant should, however, anticipate responsibility for establishing baselines and/or validating targeting criteria for several pre-identified outcome indicators included in the PMF.

The key result areas and corresponding indicators that will guide the study design include:

Result Area/ Indicators Impact

Improved wellbeing and resilience of young rural women in East and West Africa through increased access to dignified and fulfilling work resulting from impact driven enterprise growth support
Indicators

- Share of individuals reporting improvements in their own well-being (access to high-quality key services, life satisfaction, food security and safety)

- Individuals' own assessment of their resilience (capacities to survive, cope, and thrive and their response or coping strategy to shocks & stresses)

- Instances of young people and their households reporting sustainable livelihoods

Outcome

1- Accelerated scale-up of women owned and led (including young rural women) enterprises impacting young rural women
Indicators

- % and stories of Foundation supported youth accessing work in higher end value chains/sub sectors (prioritized by in Roadmaps/ Strategies)

- % of enterprises showing growth through increased revenue

- % of supported women enterprises that have scaled their businesses within 6 to 24 months of receiving project support

- % of enterprises showing growth through market expansion / diversification - Average # of work opportunities accessed by youth from Foundation-supported enterprises

- Number of employed youth (wage and self-employment)

- % of Youth accessing Dignified & Fulfilling Work

- Youth experiences in accessing dignified & fulfilling work

2- Improved support provided to women owned and led enterprises by their ecosystems leading to impact on young, rural women Indicators

- Ways in which social and cultural norms have been supported by Foundation initiatives to enable inclusive youth participation in education, work and decision-making.

- Instances of new collaborations (numbers, types and ways) and investments have been catalyzed by the Foundation and/or its Partners among ecosystem actors that strengthen practices and programs to accelerate and scale inclusive access to dignified and fulfilling work for youth.

- Instances of partner institutional strengthening demonstrating stronger, more inclusive and sustainable systems

5. Study approach and methodology

In alignment with WUSC’s Monitoring and Evaluation policy, the study must intentionally apply gender-responsive, youth-focused, and disability-inclusive research approaches, and should demonstrate the use of participatory methods where appropriate. Given the nature of the outcome indicators, the study will require both qualitative and quantitative evidence. Accordingly, it is anticipated that the study will establish a robust baseline to enable a before-and-after evaluation design, employing a mixed-methods approach to data collection. The consultant is expected to clearly articulate the proposed study design and methodological approach, including a detailed justification for the selected methods, demonstrating their appropriateness for generating reliable, valid, and actionable evidence aligned with the study objectives. The geographical scope of the study should reflect the distribution of project participants, and this should be fully integrated into the sampling design and site selection. The sampling approach should also take into account the project’s sectoral focus in each country, as well as the emerging project safeguarding and inclusion strategy, which will be shared with the selected consultant at the start of the assignment. Based on a review of the Performance Measurement Framework and other relevant project documents, the consultant is encouraged to recommend alternative or supplementary methodologies where appropriate, particularly where they may enhance the validity, relevance, or rigor of findings. Potential methods for data collection may include but are not limited to participant surveys, document and literature review and key informant interviews, if necessary. Quantitative data must be digitized, while qualitative data should be recorded, transcribed, and organized for analysis. All raw data sets and associated documentation will be shared with the P2S MERL Team. The consultant should clearly outline in their proposal the analytical techniques to be applied, including the rationale for each. The proposal must also specify the criteria and process for selecting respondents for each data collection method, including the sampling approach for quantitative data and the selection framework for qualitative data. In addition, the consultant should describe how ethical considerations will be integrated throughout the research process, including data collection, analysis, storage, and dissemination. This should address, at minimum, informed consent, confidentiality, data security, safeguarding, and strategies to mitigate potential risks to participants.

6. Key Activities and Deliverables

The selected consultant will be fully responsible for the design and execution of the study, ensuring high-quality outputs and timely delivery of all agreed deliverables. This includes developing the study methodology, leading data collection, conducting data analysis, and preparing the final report. The key activities and deliverables expected from the consultant for the assignment are as follows:

• Document Review: Appraisal of relevant documents, studies and other secondary data sources regarding approaches to scale women owned and led entrepreneurs in the implementation countries and how they affect the project design and performance indicators identified in the project Performance Measurement Framework.
• Participate in an inception meeting: This meeting is needed to clarify expectations of the mandate and provide context information necessary to produce the inception report and workplan.
• Inception report and workplan: a detailed inception report and work plan is to be produced including the following elements:

- Baseline study design highlighting methodology to gather quantitative and qualitative data, ensuring representative coverage and credible analysis - A sampling strategy that demonstrates a representative and inclusive framework to capture all target groups, including PWDs and RDPs, enabling meaningful engagement of relevant groups and project stakeholders. - Detailed work plan that includes all tasks by the Consultant and team members and incorporating the overall study timelines. - Revised level of effort for the study if applicable - Detailed study budget, including professional fees, expected reimbursable, etc. - Draft quantitative and qualitative data collection tools

• Review/finalization of data collection tools. Development of quantitative and qualitative tools for data collection. These tools will be reviewed during the inception phase and must be included in the inception report/work plan.
• Develop Enumerator Guidelines and Protocols for Data Collection
• Coordinate/Conduct Enumerators Training following a detailed agenda and outlining study protocols (this agenda should be included in the inception report)
• Coordinate/conduct/supervise data collection, as per the agreed methodology
• Ensure Data Quality by supervising data collection and reviewing data entry, where applicable
• Ensure full compliance with applicable national data protection and privacy laws, as well as relevant regulatory and institutional requirements, throughout the assessment cycle.
• Analyze qualitative and quantitative data collected while applying an intersectional lens (considering age, disability status, RDP status and typology of businesses). It is also expected that the consultant will do a critical analysis of the data through statistical treatment and triangulation with other sources and literature reviews.
• Sense-making workshop: Actively participate in the assessment’s sense-making workshop that will convene key stakeholders in order to collectively review, interpret, and validate the preliminary findings from the baseline study. The workshop will support shared reflection on emerging insights, examine their implications for program design and delivery, and ensure alignment between the data, project assumptions, and intended outcomes.
• Draft and final Study Report, including Executive Summary and Full Consolidated Report. The final report is to be submitted in both Word and PDF versions. The Table of Contents will be decided on during the inception phase and included in the inception report.
• Copies of original and cleaned data sets including any field notes are to be submitted to the P2S MEL team with the draft report.

Expected key deliverables are listed below:

• Inception report, containing detailed methodology and timeline, data collection tools and protocols, enumerators training tools, data analysis plan, informed consent forms.
• Presentation of preliminary findings at the sense making workshop.
• All raw data, recordings and notes from both the quantitative and qualitative data collection processes.
• Draft and Final report with key findings and recommendations;

7. Time Frame and Level of Effort
The period of the contract is expected to be from March to May 2026 with an expected contribution of approximately 47 working days over two months. The consultant is expected to carry out all the preparation required to roll out the study as per the tentative sequence suggested. The consultant is encouraged to modify the table as needed - modifications to major tasks should be done in consultation with the project MEL team. The consultant is also free to outline an appropriate level of effort for each member of his/her team and for enumerators alike. The time frame provided should fall within the study period outlined at the beginning of this section.
Task Days Timeline

Document and literature review 2

Inception Meeting 0.5

Submission of draft inception report, including detailed work plan 6

Submission of final inception report (integrate comments from WUSC) 1

Preparation for enumerators/data collectors training in preparation with P2S project team 1.5

Enumerators Training and Pilot 3

Data Collection 20

Data cleaning, transcription and analysis 4

Presentation of preliminary findings at sense making workshop 1

Draft Report (following report structure outlined in inception report) 6

Incorporate feedback and comments and submit final Report (along with originals and copies of all data sets) 2
Total 47

The final timeline will be discussed and agreed upon during the inception meeting. In developing the schedule, the project’s geographic coverage will be carefully considered, with data collection conducted concurrently across all countries to optimize efficiency and ensure timely completion of the assignment.

8. Consultant(s)/Firm Qualifications
The Lead consultant will have the following qualifications:
At least 10 years of relevant experience (international development MEL/research. The consulting team should comprise experts in gender and women’s empowerment, youth with disability and refugee inclusion etc. Demonstrated experience in designing and implementing evaluation studies, including proven experience in a mixed method approach, sampling, tools development, enumerators training, etc especially across P2S implementation countries. Excellent knowledge in the use of digital data collection and analysis tools. Ability to recruit and manage enumerators for qualitative and quantitative components across the four countries within the specified timeframe. Experience integrating safeguarding and inclusion into MEL approaches, including engagement of young women, PWDs and RDPs. Ability to produce high quality work under tight deadlines. Strong analytical skills for both qualitative and quantitative data. Familiarity with women economic empowerment approaches across Africa Familiarity with Mastercard Foundation’s shared measures is desirable. Demonstrated capacity to mobilize to the field within a limited timeframe.

9. Application Packages and Procedures
Qualified and interested applicants are asked to submit the following:

• A technical proposal of not more than six pages clearly describing the proposed methodology to be used and a detailed outline of the relevant qualifications and experience of members of the research team.
• A detailed financial proposal inclusive of a detailed breakdown of costs for the study. A work plan stating deliverable, level of effort of members of the research team, expected timeframe, unit and total cost, summary of proposed cost, and proposed payment schedule.
• Evidence of previous work: The consultant must provide evidence of relevant previous assignments, including baseline studies, evaluations, or research of similar scope and complexity. This should include brief descriptions of past work, roles and responsibilities, methodologies applied, client references, and, where available, samples of completed reports or links to published outputs.
  

Please click on apply to present your proposal The deadline for the submission of applications is 15 March 2026 at the close of business 5:00pm (GMT). #LI-Remote