Consultancy: Strengthening the Baseline for Sustainable and Development Goals (SDGs)

The Social Policy Section, UNICEF Thailand Country Office is seeking an individual national consultant to provide technical guidance and support to RTG for monitoring, implementing, public advocacy and networking to enhance UNICEF’s engagement in child-related SDG indicators.

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.

Work Assignment:

Under the supervisor of Chief of Social Policy, the consultant will work closely with National Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, Social Policy Monitoring and Evaluation (SPAME), and other program sections in UNICEF TCO in the following tasks:

Main Tasks:

1. Provide technical guidance and advice to UNICEF for strategic engagement on SDGs.
- Technical guidance on supporting the baseline of child-related SDG indicators.
- Technical guidance on improving regular data collection of child indicators, including revising Socio-Economic Survey (SES) and planning for Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 6.
- Technical guidance to engage in the process of strengthening the national and subnational statistical system to strengthen data collection and use for monitoring the SDGs.
- Technical advice on building national capacity and functions to evaluate the progress against SDGs.

Deliverables:
1.1. Meetings held and note for the record on plan of action.
1.2. Technical note available on improved data collection.
1.3. Technical note available on strengthening national and subnational stats system.
1.4. Technical note on key ways for building national capacity for evaluation of SDGs.
1.5. Consolidated recommendation brief on the ways forward and action plans based on all the meetings and Note for the Records (NFRs).

Main Tasks:

2. Advocacy and networking with the key government counterparts to build strong working relationship with UNICEF.
- Help facilitate the establishment of a strong functional relationship with third sub-committee of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), National Statistical Office (NSO), National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), Office of the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC) and key line ministries in order to strengthen the baseline for SDGs and to harmonize the statistical system.
- Help facilitate the establishment of a strong working relationship with NSO and the Ministry of Digital Economy (MDE) on improving data collection and use.
- Help facilitate the establishment of a strong working relationship with the NLA, OPDC, NESDB, Bureau of the Budget (BoB) to develop national evaluation policy and unit to evaluate the progress against the SDGs.

Deliverables:
2.1. NFR from meetings with respective partners with key decisions included for harmonization of statistical system.
2.2. NFR from meeting with NSO/MDE for improvement of data collection and use.
2.3. NFR from meetings with National Legislative Assembly (NLA) and partners on the implementation of national evaluation policy.

Main Tasks:

3.Facilitation of meetings with government counterparts.
- Convene a multi-stakeholder consultative meeting to discuss the roadmap to strengthen baseline data for the SDGs.
- Convene a multi-stakeholder consultative meeting to discuss the roadmap to strengthen statistical system to monitor child-related indicators.
- Facilitate the discussion to developing new indicators for SDG monitoring, including the multidimensional child poverty index.
- Facilitate discussions on the design of evaluation policy and implementation of the policy for the SDGs.

Deliverables:
3.1. Meeting report from discussion on SDG baseline data.
3.2. Meeting report from discussion on
strengthening statistical system to monitor child-related indicators.
3.3. Meeting report from discussion on new indicators for SDG monitoring, including MPI.
3.4. Meeting report on discussion of drafts of evaluation policy and its application for the SDGs.

Work Schedule:
No. 1
Advocacy Activities: Provide technical guidance and advice to UNICEF for strategic engagement on SDGs.
Timeline: 15 days

No. 2
Advocacy Activities: Advocacy and networking with the key government counterparts to build strong working relationship with UNICEF.
Timeline: 10 days

No. 3
Advocacy Activities: Facilitation of meetings with government counterparts.
Timeline: 5 days

Estimated Duration of Contract: 30 working days over the period of 1 December 2017 – 30 April 2018

Official Travel: As necessary

Qualifications or Specialized Knowledge/Experience Required:
• Thai National;
• At least Master’s degree in Statistics, Social Science, Social Development, public policy or related field;
• Minimum 15 years of professional experience in human resource management of medium-size organizations preferable in public sector;
• Held a very high senior position in the government agencies;
• Proven experience in high-level advocacy;
• Exceptional professional networking skills, able to make contacts with influential people and engage in public debates;
• Experience of working with officials from national Statistical offices, Department of Children and Youth, Ministry of Public Health (MOPH), Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) officials, and research and academia such as Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI);
• Extensive experience with advocacy for statistics reform;
• Proven communication, facilitation, and writing skills; and
• Excellent knowledge of English (oral and in writing) as well as fluency in written and spoken Thai.

Interested candidates are requested to submit CV or P-11, full contact information of minimum 2 references, a relevant work sample, availability, and proposed daily professional fee in THB by 14 November 2017.

 FORM P11.doc

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Only short listed candidates will be notified.