Consultancy ROSTER: Consultancy to develop programming guidance on menstrual health - WASH, PD - NYHQ, Requisition# 506737

The purpose of this consultancy is to develop guidance for UNICEF staff on menstrual health in development contexts.

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

Background & Rationale

Around the globe, UNICEF has increasingly incorporated menstruation and MHM into its WASH and WinS programmes in order to help girls and women overcome the stigma and marginalization associated with hygiene issues. Integrating MHM into WinS has the potential to empower students and teachers, and especially encourages girls and female teachers.

Because of this potential, MHM is one of UNICEF’s five interlinked priorities for adolescent girls in the Gender Action Plan (2018-2021), which reflects an organizational commitment to ensure that girls grow up healthy and reach their full potential. These priorities, implemented together and at scale, can dismantle some of the most stubborn barriers to gender equality and transform the lives of adolescent girls, supporting them to become healthy, educated and empowered women, able to direct the course of their own lives.

UNICEF envisions a world where every girl can learn, play, and safeguard her own health without experiencing stress, shame, or unnecessary barriers to information or supplies during menstruation. UNICEF’s strategy is to work with partners to expand MHM initiatives to reduce barriers to education for girls, fight stigma, and contribute to positive health and well-being outcomes for girls and women. Partnering with governments, United Nations agencies, civil society, communities and the private sector, UNICEF brings critical menstrual health information, facilities and supplies to adolescent girls in low-resource and crisis-affected environments around the world. UNICEF works with governments to ensure girl-friendly policies and services, while demonstrating results on the ground primarily through water, sanitation, and hygiene programmes in schools. Programming aspects include the fostering of multi-sectoral partnerships and action on MHM, support for formative research, capacity building and engagement with government and partners on building enabling environments. Engagement across sectors and co-location of interventions relating to policy, implementation and monitoring is especially effective for promoting and reinforcing behaviour change; allowing governments to support the promotion of critical behaviours through a wide range of channels.

There is now a need to synthesize the lessons and recommendations from existing programmes, and develop UNICEF-wide guidance to assist colleagues in country offices to scale up their support to menstrual health.  

There has also been increasing attention to support MHM in humanitarian responses, particularly around the provision of supplies. A forthcoming toolkit for supporting MHM in humanitarian response, expected to be launched in October 2017, offers extensive guidance that is not expected to be duplicated by this consultancy assignment.

Purpose

The purpose of this consultancy is to develop guidance for UNICEF staff on menstrual health in development contexts.

Scope of work

To undertake this assignment, the consultant is expected to:

• Review UNICEF’s Strategic Plan (2018-2021) and accompanying Gender Action Plan and resource documents;
• Carry out a desk review UNICEF’s current programming in menstrual hygiene management and adolescent health and summarize these in a concise overview of menstrual health and hygiene –related initiatives;
• Conduct key informant interviews with UNICEF staff in country, regional, and headquarters offices, and key partners and resource persons as suggested by UNICEF;
• Write concise programming guidance for addressing menstrual health across UNICEF-supported programmes in WASH, education, health, adolescent development and participation, and other sectors in line with UNICEF’s Strategic Plan (2018-2021), Strategy for WASH (2016-2030), and other guiding strategies;
• Develop a field note template for country offices to use when documenting menstrual health programmes.

The consultant will work closely with WASH UNICEF staff in the regional office and country offices. 

Expected results:

The consultant is expected to deliver:

1. Inception report which summarizes the review of documentation undertaken by the consultant and specifies the methodology and timeline for developing the guidance, a proposed outline of the guidance, and a proposed method for describing current menstrual health initiatives. The body of the report is not expected to exceed six pages, excluding tables of documents or lists of individuals to be interviewed. 
2. A summary of current UNICEF menstrual health initiatives supported by UNICEF country offices, presented as a word or excel document that describes each initiative by key attributes to be proposed by the consultant.
3. Final guidance on menstrual health programming for use by UNICEF and its partners that offers an overall framework and programmatic entry points.
4. A field note template for country offices to use in documenting their work.

Payment will be made on the acceptance of deliverables by UNICEF. After delivery of each draft, UNICEF is expected to reply to the consultant with comments within two weeks.

Duty Station

The consultant will be home-based for the duration of the contract.

Timeframe

The consultant will work remotely for 40 days.

Start date: 1 September 2017                     

End date: 31 December 2017 

Key competences, technical background, and experience required Deadline

• Advanced University degree in engineering, public health or social sciences.
• Minimum relevant working experience of 8 years (senior level expertise)
• Considerable familiarity with the issue of menstrual hygiene, including knowledge of programming and capacity building related to MHM and the typical organisations and practitioners working on MHM in the field  
• Significant demonstrable experience of producing high quality reports 
• Understanding of the work of the UN, and UNICEF an advantage.

To view our competency framework, please click here. 

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable).  Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

Remarks

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.