International consultant to design and Implement Winter Preparedness and Shock-responsive Social Protection Pilot in Mongolia

Inviting qualified international consultants for 32 working days consultancy

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For every child, advocate

Mongolia faces unique challenges related to its vast territory, dispersed population and extreme weather conditions. It is the second-largest landlocked country in the world and exposed to winter temperatures as low as -40°C during the cold season that lasts from approximately October till April. The situation is worsened by environmental degradation and climate change that is already affecting Mongolia and fundamentally undermining the lives of children in rural Mongolia. Mongolian rural herder families and their children are nomadic and heavily dependent on their livestock as their main and often only source of income and a key contributor to their diet. Especially during the winter, herder families are at significant risk of losing their livestock bringing them into poverty, resulting in more malnourished children, and more children dropping out of school.

UNICEF, with support of an international consultant, assessed the current situation of the country’s overall capacity for climate-resilient social protection, availability of financial resources including government budget allocation, commitment from Government, effectiveness and suitability of the cash transfer for resilience building and humanitarian situations in terms of reducing a negative impact of a specific climate-hazard such as dzud on child health and development outputs. The assessment also included the capacity of the existing markets and services, assessment of the national capacity and systems in place, mapping of financial service providers, assessment of the existing cash transfer mechanism and delivery system and coordination for delivery of the cash.

Based on the comprehensive assessment of the current situation the consultant has proposed pilot options for winter preparedness and shock-responsive social protection (SRSP) program in order to demonstrate the value of mainstreaming SRSP into the national social protection system and to generate lessons on whether and how to scale up the pilot programme.

The next steps to implement the pilots during 2019/2020 include the following:

1. Coordination from development and humanitarian partners around support for the government to mainstream SRSP into the revision of the Social Welfare Law and umbrella strategy document.
2. Presentation of pilot options to development partners to seek partnerships in the implementation of the pilot and the impact evaluation, as well as to identify other potential complementarities or opportunities for collaboration.
3. Presentation of the pilot options to the government and get a formal agreement to implement with the MLSP.
4. Design of a rigorous impact evaluation together with UNICEF Office of Research.
5. Development of an operations manual and data collection forms together with the MLSP.
6. Hiring of Pilot Team.
7. Training of MLSP Officers on operations manual to implement the pilot, along with technical assistance from Pilot team.
8. Start of Pilot Planning/Operational Cycle.

Purpose of the Consultancy: 

 The purpose of this consultancy is to support design and implementation of Winter Preparedness and Shock-responsive Social Protection Pilots, proposed options of which include the following: 

Option 1: Dzud Preparedness Top-up

This option proposes a top-up to the monthly CMP payment in late November or early December, with the objective of helping households living in areas identified as being at highest risk of dzud (according to the October and November dzud risk mapping) to invest in preparedness measures to minimize the negative impact of dzud on their children.

Option 2: Early Shock Response Top-up

This option proposes a top-up to the monthly CMP payment around the time of the wool/cashmere sales when household incomes fall short of what was previously expected, and in many cases borrowed against, the previous year.

Option 3: Combination of Preparedness and Early Response Top-ups

The third option proposes a combination of the first two options, with a preparedness top-up to help households mitigate risks before dzud and an early response top-up to help households avoid negative coping strategies harmful to children.

All options will be delivered alongside strong messaging around the purpose of the transfer, as well as alongside measure that address livestock needs/risks to mitigate the risk that households will spend the cash on other things.

Contract duration: 28^th August 2019 – 31^st October 2019 (32 working days)

How can you make a difference?

To achieve the purpose of this consultancy, the consultant will be expected to perform the following tasks:

 Pilot Preparation (Home-based) 

• Develop a costing model and user guideline that will allow to determine how many children / households can be targeted with a given amount of available funds for the program, in order to develop a targeting strategy based on progressive inclusion of different age groups (i.e. 0 to 5, 0 to 12, 0 to 17) (2 days);
• Write TORs for the minimum team required to be hired by UNICEF to provide support and technical assistance to MLSP to implement the winter preparedness and shock-responsive top-up of the CMP pilot program (1.5 days);
• Draft an operational manual (OM) for the pilot, including a detailed description of the sequenced processes to implement the pilot program as well as any forms or lists required for data collection or data sharing (5 days);
• Draft a data management strategy and any software requirements for a basic, minimum information system for the pilot (2 days);
• Draft technical inputs for the MoU to be signed between UNICEF (and any other relevant development partners) and the MLSP to govern sharing of data required for pilot planning and implementation (1 day);
• Draft a work plan for pilot preparation and pilot implementation (1 day);
• Integrate feedback from UNICEF into key documents (OM, MoU, Data Management Strategy, Costing Model, Targeting Strategy, Work Plan (1 day);
• Meet with key actors in Ulaanbaatar (MLSP, State Bank and Khan Bank, CMP IT Unit, others involved in CMP funds management) to develop options for the flow of funds from UNICEF into beneficiary CMP accounts (2 days);
• Draft a guideline for the flow of funds from UNICEF to the GoM to beneficiary CMP accounts to govern the process during the pilot, based on the preferred option from UNICEF& integrate any feedback from UNICEF/other actors (2 days);
• Developing a briefing note on the above to summarize the approach to the MLSP and any other relevant stakeholders (2 days)

Shock-responsive Social Protection Workshop (3rd week Sept) (Home and Ulaanbaatar based)

• Prepare a briefing note and presentation on how UNICEF (and any other relevant development partners) seek to support the GoM via the CMP of the MSLP to implement a winter preparedness and shock-responsive top-up pilot and how this will contribute to a longer-term vision of mainstreaming shock-responsiveness into the national social protection system (4 days);
• Integrate feedback from UNICEF (2 days);
• Present UNICEF pilot to MLSP and other stakeholders during the September workshop (1 day);
• Other meetings to fill in gaps in OM/process development or to obtain data (3 days);

• Finalize the design by integrating feedbacks from all stakeholders (2,5 days).

Deliverables and Timeframe: 

 Direct supervisor: Chief of Social Policy, UNICEF Mongolia

Frequency of performance review: Formal performance assessment shall be conducted at the end of contract payment.

Travel and work arrangements: Home based with one mission to Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar city and selected provinces). The office will cover the local transportation cost. About one week in country travel to the selected province is planned in September. The cost of travel to Mongolia should be included in consultant’s financial proposal as travel lump sum which includes economy round trip ticket cost, daily allowance for about a week, visa and all types of insurance related costs.

1. Payment schedule:
   

UNICEF reserves the right to withhold up to 30% of the total fee in the case that the deliverables are not submitted on schedule or do not meet the required standard. Copyright and ownership of all documents produced will remain with UNICEF.

Type of support to be provided by UNICEF:

Discussions on contract work assignments and deliverables will be held with the contract supervisor who will be available, as/when required, to provide comments to submitted outputs in a timely manner. 

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

1. An advanced university degree (Master, PhD) in the field of finance, economics, environment, climate change or other relevant field
2. Relevant working experience in climate resilient social protection, humanitarian cash transfer or related field
3. Demonstrated experience in conducting analyses or similar studies, and design or recommend social protection measures/cash transfer programmes
4. Proven track record on successful delivery of high-quality reports and recommendations
5. At least 10 years relevant work experience in developing countries
6. Previous work with the UN  and/or UNICEF will be considered an asset
7. Demonstrated analytical, negotiating, advocacy, reporting and writing skills.

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.

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.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Remarks:

Interested parties must submit daily professional fee in USD and travel lump sum as part of the financial proposal. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.