Consultant, Documentation of best practices and lessons learned for child protection and education

Under the supervision of the Child Protection Specialist, the consultant will document best practices and lessons learned. In particular, the consultant will: 1. Conduct a review of programme documents related to the programmes that will be documented. 2. Conduct interviews with country office staff and implementing partners as redeemed necessary. 3. Produce four documentation reports of the lessons learned from each programmes. 4. Produce a final report of the consultancy including observations and proposed way forward from each programmes and with annexes of each documentation report.

Within the framework of the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2018–2021 and in line with the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) Managing for Results initiative, the ESA Regional Management Team has identified the following five programmatic priorities to focus cross-country action and learning and to reinforce joint accountability: (1) enabling children to survive and thrive; (2) reducing stunting to provide opportunities for children to realize their full potential; (3) improving education quality and learning outcomes to prepare children for the future; (4) achieving adolescent development, protection and participation and; (5) scaling up social protection interventions to reduce child poverty and other vulnerabilities that impede the full realization of child rights.

Several crosscutting factors have been considered in the five Regional Priorities:

• The gender dimension is an important factor in all UNICEF programmes in Eastern and Southern Africa. UNICEF studies the patterns of gender inequality, including through sex-disaggregated data and gender analysis, and responds with gender-equitable programmes to help fulfil the rights of all children.
• Child poverty, measured in terms of multiple deprivations, and high levels of inequality affect many aspects of UNICEF work for children, and these factors are relevant across all the Regional Priorities.
• Multiple fragile contexts and frequent emergencies in the Eastern and Southern Africa region necessitate risk-informed programming, emergency preparedness and resilience-building activities in the Regional Priorities. At times of emergency, UNICEF works with partners to deliver humanitarian action in line with the Core Commitments for Children.
• Systems strengthening, communication for development (C4D), evidence generation, advocacy, and public finance for children define the critical actions and related strategies, i.e. the ‘hows’ of the Regional Priorities.

An important aspect of moving the agenda forward of the Regional Priorities is knowledge management, and in particular, documenting best practices of implementation of programmes that appear promising to yield results and that could be shared with other country offices.

Against this background, the purpose of this assignment is to increase knowledge management of the implementation of the Regional Priorities through the development of lessons learned documents in the areas of: a) multi-sectoral programming for young people in Eswatini (former Swaziland) b) child marriage and data mapping in Ethiopia b) school-related violence against children (VAC) and the extent to which schools serve as “protective environments” for vulnerable girls, boys and those with disabilities in Uganda c) multi-sectoral collaboration in the prevention and response to VAC including in schools in Uganda d) The use of 7% thematic funds for the Protection against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in relation to the GBV integration process in Ethiopia and South Sudan e) Birth registration in humanitarian settings including displaced population in Ethiopia, Uganda and South Sudan and f) Diversion scheme in Tanzania and Zambia

Scope of Work

Under the supervision of the Child Protection Specialist, the consultant will document best practices and lessons learned. In particular, the consultant will:

1. Conduct a review of programme documents related to the programmes that will be documented.
2. Conduct interviews with country office staff and implementing partners as redeemed necessary. 
3. Produce four documentation reports of the lessons learned from each programmes.
4. Produce a final report of the consultancy including observations and proposed way forward from each programmes and with annexes of each documentation report.

Outputs/deliverables

To facilitate progress and ensure timely delivery of outputs, the consultant will submit an initial inception report, including timeframe for interviews and desk review and a final report including annexes of the lessons learned documents, observations and way forward as well as a summary list of outputs/deliverables.

Payment Schedule

Payment is made upon receipt of draft and final material delivered as follows:

• 1^st payment               10%
• 2^nd payment               25%
• 3^rd payment               30%
• 4^th payment                              25%
• 5^th payment                               10%

Deliverables that meet UNICEF’s quality standard.

Duration:  Tentative start date is September, 2018 and ending in March 2019

Desired Qualification, experience, specialised skills and knowledge

Education/Experience

• Advanced University Degree in Social Development, International Relations, Social Work or other relevant field
• Eight years or more of relevant work experience at national and international levels
• Knowledge and experience of child protection related programming is considered an asset
• Excellent writing skills
• Ability to collect, collate and analyse data in a scientific and effective manner
• Analytical, methodical and precise style of writing
• Excellent communication and presentation skills in English
• Analyses and integrates diverse and complex quantitative and qualitative data from a wide range of sources.

Administrative Issues

The Consultant will work under the direct supervision of UNICEF ESARO Child Protection Specialist.

Conditions

As per UNICEF DFAM policy, payment is made against approved deliverables. No advance payment is allowed unless in exceptional circumstances against bank guarantee, subject to a maximum of 30 per cent of the total contract value in cases where advance purchases, for example for supplies or travel, may be necessary.

The selected Consultant will be governed by, and subject to UNICEF’s General Terms and Conditions for individual contracts.

Risks

There are no risks anticipated to the successful delivery of this assignment.

Ethical Considerations

All products and data developed or collected for this agreement are the intellectual property of UNICEF. The consultant may not publish or disseminate the final report or any other documents produced from this work without the express permission of and acknowledgement of UNICEF.

How to Apply

Qualified candidates are requested to submit a cover letter, CV, and financial proposal with their application.

Interested consultants to indicate ability, availability and all-inclusive (cost for completion of the work and travel) financial proposal to undertake the terms of reference.

Applications submitted without a fee/ rate will not be considered.