C4D Consultant

UNICEF Papua New Guinea is seeking to engage a consultant, to support PNG’s UNICEF, Government of PNG and partners to develop a Faith for Life tool of key messages on maternal and child survival and development for Papua New Guinea

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1. Background

The South Pacific country of Papua New Guinea (PNG), with a population of around 7,000,000, is one of the world most diverse countries – geographically, ethnically, linguistically and culturally. The country's location in the Pacific ring of fire makes it prone to natural disasters such a volcanic eruptions and earth quakes. Presently, PNG government with the support of partners is implementing an emergency response recovery effort following a major earthquake that hit the country in February 2018. This consultancy is part of this effort and will be implemented in the framework of providing critically needed key health messages to rural communities in PNG, including affected provinces, as a way of empowering them to take positive decisions for the health, survival and development of women and children.

Although Papua New Guinea is classified as a lower middle income nation, it is yet to make meaningful progress in achieving any of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The nation still faces high levels of poverty, child and maternal mortality and morbidity. Key contributing factors include poor access to health facilities and health seeking behaviours, low immunisation coverage, poor nutrition practices, limited access to clean water and sanitation and poor hygiene practices, including open defection, violence against women and children and limited opportunities for quality education for young people, especially girls.

Positive knowledge, attitudes and practices of mothers, care givers, fathers and communities, although not a sufficient condition, are however, a key element for the country to overcome these challenges.

However, communication and access information in most areas of PNG is often very difficult. This is due to several obstacles key among which are the mountainous and forested terrain of the country, numerous islands and languages (over 800 language spoken) and poverty which limits most people from having access to important communication and messages. Modern media consumption is limited - newspapers and TV, radio included, are largely accessible by populations in major towns. Thus, 80% of the population that live in rural areas is often unreached with key messaging needed for them to make important decisions. Furthermore, although PNG has a literacy rate of 63.4%, most rural populations and women are still not able to read, especially in the English language. Although of recent access to mobile phones and internet has been rising, it is still a small population in urban areas that have access and coverage in this nation of multiple Islands and numerous highlands or mountainous areas that limit reach of communications signals.

It is against this background that Christian churches, in PNG over 96% of the population profess Christianity as their religion, presents a viable complement as a potentially significant channel in communicating key messages to communities on maternal and child health, survival and development. Christian churches in PNG have historically played a critical role in providing education and health services and continue to influential in this area. In fact, churches and Christian leaders are regarded as influential and respected people in their communities, which can make effective as sources of information. In many provinces, churches have been used before in PNG to successfully communicate life-saving messages in many areas of the country.

It is against this backdrop that this consultancy seeks to support the development of a system and frame-work of systematically engaging and working with Christian churches to support dissemination of lifesaving messages to communities on health seeking behaviours; mother and child health care; mother and child nutrition; common childhood diseases; HIV and AIDS, and PMTCT; early stimulation, child protection and care; safe drinking water and cleanliness and violence against women and children. This initiative, which will be a joint effort by UNICEF and other civil society organisations with Government working with Christian organisations, will culminate in the production of a handbook called Faith For Life and a work plan for church leaders on how to effectively disseminate these messages.

2. Purpose / Objectives

To support UNICEF PNG, the Government of Papua New Guinea and partners in developing a manual  Faith for Life, for Christian church leaders and a long with an accompanying implementation plan. The process, which is intended to be highly participatory and consultative, will be as important as the end products of the consultancy, to ensure buy-in, support and effective implementation of the initiative by churches with the support of partners.

3. Justification

Christian churches in Papua New Guinea exert an influential hold on the lives of most people. Churches have historically played a key role in providing educational and health services in addition to uniting people across language and cultural differences and in advocating for peace. Church leaders and priests can play a key role, using their influential roles in their communities by communicating key messages on maternal and child health, survival and development in their catchment areas. IN PNG where much of the modern communication infrastructures are restricted to urban areas and many rural areas in the provinces are cut off from modern telecommunications, the church presents a viable and effective complement for disseminating life-saving communication for development messages and thereby supporting the realisation of improved health outcomes for maternal and child health. This is especially critical as PNG is presently implementing a recovery effort from the recent earth quake emergency that has caused considerable damage and adversely affected the lives of many people in many rural communities in multiple of ways.

How can you make a difference?

4. Specific Tasks

The consultant will perform the following tasks under the supervision of UNICEFs C4D Specialist based mainly in Hela and Southern Islands, the two provinces that have been the most adversely affected by the earth quake

1. Conduct consensus building meetings with stakeholders – including workshops, focus group discussions and In-depth interviews with the purpose of generating key inputs for the Faith For Life manual that will be used by church leaders in sensitizing their communities on child and maternal health survival and development.
2. Using a prototype that will be provided along with a UNICEF guideline and additional information, develop a PNG appropriate and specific Faith for Life for use by church leaders to communicate key lifesaving messages in the areas of health, child protection and education.
3. Working with the C4D specialist, develop a Faith for Life implementation plan that will guide church leaders on how to use the manual.
4. Provide support to earth recovery communication effort by working with church leaders in affected areas to incorporate key emergency response messages in their sermons during services in their churches.

The consultant will spend 5 weeks in PNG  one week in Port Moresby as part of the orientation and consensus building effort and 4 weeks in the field (Hela and Western Highlands) collecting information and conducting further consensus building meetings from provincial to community levels. The consultant will finalise the work remotely from his/her home country.

5. Duration of contract

The duration of the consultancy will be 3 months including 5 weeks of working in-country in PNG and the remainder of the time working remotely from the home country which will include writing and incorporating changes to the documents. Consultancy start date will be 15 May to 15 August 2018.

6. Expected Deliverables
7. Consensus buildings meetings report
8. Finalised Faith for Life Handbook for religious leaders
9. Work plan for church leaders for implementing the Faith for Life initiative
10.  
11. Expected background and Experience

• Advanced university degree in the social/behavioural/communication sciences (Master level)
• At least 5 years of experience in programme communication planning, implementation and evaluation across
• Demonstrated understanding of current developments in the field of communication for development theory and research, behavioural and social sciences, participatory planning and processes, media, strategic communication planning, behaviour analysis, formative research and evaluation of communication interventions.
• Experience in Adult Education and knowledge of Christian teachings
• Community work in developing country context
• A very good understanding of Papua New Guinea culture, including experience of working in rural Papua New Guinea in development context
• A good knowledge of knowledge of PNG Tokpisin
• different cultural contexts, with at least 6 years in developing countries.
• Ability to work independently and to meet deadlines.
• Ability to write clear and concise reports in English.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in
  *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• A minimum of [insert years] of relevant professional experience in
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The technical competencies required for this post are….

View our competency framework at

http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

Remarks:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.