Individual Contractor, Social Protection, Monrovia, Liberia, (6 months - Remotely)

UNICEF Liberia seeks to hire a competent consultant to provide technical support to UNICEF Liberia towards the development of social policy programming contributing to the achievement of sustainable results as envisaged in the CPD 2020-2024.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.  Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.  And we never give up.

For every child, social protection is a priority!!

How can you make a difference?

Background:

Half of Liberia's estimated 4.9 million population lives below the poverty line (HIES 2016), which is deeply entrenched in rural (71.6 per cent) compared to urban (31.5 per cent) areas. In 2018, 71.2 per cent of Liberians experienced multi-dimensional poverty affecting children the most in a country where 51 per cent of the population is younger than 19 and 16 per cent are under five years. A 2018 Systematic Country Diagnosis paper by the World Bank described Liberia as a fragile post-conflict state with abundant natural resources, a rapidly growing population, and a unique legacy of entrenched inequality that undermines social and political stability. It further highlighted poor education and health indicators, inadequate and dilapidated physical infrastructure, limited transportation and communications connectivity, and weak public institutions as key bottlenecks preventing sustainable poverty reduction.

Within this very fragile context, when the county was still recovering from the EVD outbreak, the COVID-19 pandemic created additional pressure on the already weak and overburdened social service delivery systems, exacerbating the vulnerabilities of the affected populations. Response to the COVID-19 outbreak in Liberia focused specifically on COVID-19 prevention, care, and treatment interventions; the response did not particularly address the vulnerabilities of the populations by improving access to essential and basic social services, improving the resilience, therefore, improving resilience faster recovery of populations.

The Second Edition of the annual Liberia Economic Update by World Bank issued in November 2021, titled "Finding Fiscal Space", states that economic growth is expected to recover to 3.6 per cent in 2021 before rising gradually to an average of 5.2 per cent over 2022–2025. In the near term, growth will be driven by the expected recovery in the mining sector underpinned by the recent uptick in commodity prices. Having reached a peak of 31.3% in 2019, inflation declined significantly in 2020 and 2021 and is now down to single digit, mainly because of strong macroeconomic policies. But the macroeconomic policy was at the centre of the action, with tighter monetary and fiscal policies and the ensuing lower aggregate demand pressures helping to ease the self-reinforcing cycle of depreciation-inflation observed in late 2018 through 2019. The report recommends that "The Government must be commended for making tough policy choices that have resulted in this positive turnaround in macroeconomic fundamentals, especially under a challenging COVID-19 environment". The focus now should be on complementing the improved macroeconomic environment with critical structural and governance reforms that will help boost domestic and foreign private investment to create more jobs," he added. After successfully stabilising the macroeconomy, the Government needs to make enough fiscal space to finance the country's massive investment needs in physical infrastructure (power/energy, roads, rails, ports, and airports) and building social capital. Liberia needs to invest in its people and institutions, create an educated, skilled, and healthy labour force in the public and private sectors, and protect its economy and vulnerable population against repeated exogenous shocks, the Liberia Economic Update emphasised.

The 2021 PEFA reports that actual revenues have been lower than the planned estimates. For example, actual revenue was 92 per cent of budgeted revenues in 2017/18 and 2018/19. The Counties and Districts only receive information about annual transfers from the national government when the draft budget is published on the MFDP’s website, which deals with the development of their budgets and associated services. Additionally, there is insufficient information about service delivery to the public. Similarly, the horizontal allocation of transfers to Counties and Districts is not determined by transparent, rule-based systems. On the other hand, as expenditures are underfunded, planned resources are not provided as planned, leading to significant administrative reallocations. A framework of performance indicators relating to the outputs or outcomes is published by some Ministries, such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. There is insufficient information about service delivery to the public. Liberia’s draft national budget for the year 2022 is approximately US$ 785 million. The budget across the eleven sectors is higher than that of 2021. For example, there is an 11.3 per cent increment in allocation in the health sector, while the education sector has a draft increment of 12.3 per cent. These increments are expected to solve educational and health challenges while also helping to protect women and mothers from childbirth complications, issues of drugs and other administrative matters across hospitals, teachers, and direct spending on education. Social services, which are basically about development interventions, will see a climb of 174.7 per cent, equivalent to 26.3 million dollars. The expenditure composition is largely recurrent, mainly a sizeable portion for employee compensation (approximately 40 over the years). The other significant categories of expenditure are goods and services (20 per cent) and grants (10 per cent). The Government, in recent years, implemented the harmonization of the wage bill leading to the reduction of the wage bill.

Given the conte context above, UNICEF Liberia (LCO) entered a new Programme of Cooperation (2020 – 2024) with the Government of Liberia, targeting equity in three programme components: early learning and basic education; child protection; and child survival and development, which encompasses activities in the areas of health, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). The programmes contribute to national development priorities as per the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD), UNICEF Strategic Plan 2018-2021, Key Results for Children WCARO (West and Central Africa Regional Office), and the United Nations Sustainable Development Framework 2020-2024. Social Policy inclusive of social protection is a key part of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development. However, UNICEF Liberia did not adequately priorities its social protection interventions in the country's programme results and resources framework, and it did not develop an integrated architecture for its implementation. This raises concern of enhanced risk of misalignment between programme strategies, interventions undertaken and planned results.

Purpose of Assignment:

In such a scenario, as explained in the background, UNICEF Liberia plans to strengthen its programming and contribution to scaling up the existing social policy measures and introducing additional measures as one of the critical programmatic strategies. The strategy aims to address the vulnerabilities of the population and improve the resilience at the family and community levels. This strategy also contributes to building the capacity of the Government to deliver social protection programmes. The strategy requires stronger collaboration with the Government of Liberia, particularly with the Ministry of Gender Child and Social Protection (MoGCSP) and the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MoFDP). World Bank, International Monetary Fund etc., are the other development partners that are the key actors in the social protection programming in Liberia. The other key area of intervention is to address the issue of low fiscal space for the social sector in general and particularly for essential social services for children. UNICEF Liberia intends to support the Government in reviewing the public finance and fiscal space and identifying means for favorable allocation to key priority social services for children, particularly the most vulnerable, addressing the widespread equity challenges. Therefore, UNICEF Liberia intends to strengthen the programming in areas of social protection and public finance for Children.

Under the general guidance of the supervisor, the Individual Contractor (Social Policy) is expected to deliver on key tasks as identified under Scope of Work (4), providing coordination and technical support in assisting the various stages of social protection and public finance for children programming of UNICEF Liberia. This includes the following

• Undertake situation analysis of the Liberian context for developing programme strategies for UNICEF Liberia's social protection and public finance for children programming using the available literature, analysis from other partners like WB, IMF, USAID and the Government of Liberia.
• Conduct a comprehensive review and assessment of social protection systems in Liberia with policy options and recommendations.
• Develop programme strategy notes as per the UNICEF global guidelines for UNICEF Liberia's social protection and public finance for children programming
• Develop proposals aligned to the programme strategy as point 1, and support fundraising for social protection and public finance for children's programming
• Develop a plan of internal capacity development plan on Social Policy Programming for UNICEF Liberia Staff.  This encompasses both direct programmes work with government and civil society partners and linkages and support to teams working on education, nutrition, health, child protection, water, sanitation, etc. It also encompasses working with the social policy section of the West Central Africa Regional Office, tapping their expertise in social protection programming, including public finance for children.

Basic Objectives of Consultancy:

Objective- Provide technical support to UNICEF Liberia towards the development of social policy programming contributing to the achievement of sustainable results as envisaged in CPD 2020-2024.

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

Education:

• An Advanced University Degree in Social Sciences, Economics, Political Science, International Relations, or related disciplines.

Experience:

• Five (5) years of progressively responsible experience in the design, coordination, implementation, management, and monitoring of Social Policy programs.
• Familiarity with the UN system and earlier experience of engagement with a UN agency will be considered an asset.
• Familiarity with Social policy/ public finance context of Liberia and understanding of UN RBM
• Familiarity/experience of working engaging within Liberia of similar contexts

Language requirements:

• Strong English analytical writing and verbal communication.

For every child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA).

The UNICEF competencies required for this consultancy are:

1. Builds and maintains partnerships
2. Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
3. Drive to achieve results for impact
4. Innovates and embraces change
5. Manages ambiguity and complexity
6. Thanks and acts strategically
7. Nurtures, leads and manages people
8. Works collaboratively with others

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

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 be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

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.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. The candidate may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid).

For every child, a future!