Consultancy: Education & Child Protection Consultant – Child Protection Section, PG, NYHQ/Remote – Req # 546051

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, hope.

 

Consultancy Title: Education & Child Protection Consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station: Child Protection, Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, HQ New York (home-based, remote position)

Duration: 28 days between December 2021 to March 2022

 

About UNICEF

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. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

The UNICEF Child Protection Strategy 2021-2030 envisions a world where all children are free from violence, exploitation, abuse, neglect and harmful practices. The primary focus of this Strategy is prevention. Our ambition is to scale up evidence-based prevention approaches to the population level – not only in the core Child Protection sectors of Social Welfare and Justice, but also in Education, Health, Social Protection and other sectors with strong and clear accountabilities to deliver child protection outcomes. In addition to our core focus on universal prevention, UNICEF will ensure that no child is left behind: we will work with partners to target interventions on children at greatest risk of child protection violations. These include children in humanitarian/crisis settings, children with disabilities, children deprived of parental care, and children experiencing other forms of discrimination and exclusion. Where children are experiencing violations, UNICEF will work with partners to strengthen access to response services to prevent recurrence and provide care, support and justice. To deliver these Objectives, the Strategy adopts three core interlinking programming strategies: 1) To effectively address the behavioral, social, cultural and economic determinants of child protection violations at scale 2) To support inclusive and effective child protection systems in preventing and responding to child protection violations, and 3) To effectively prevent and respond to child protection violations in humanitarian situations.

UNICEF co-leads The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (the Alliance), a global network of operational agencies, academic institutions, policymakers, donors and practitioners that facilitates inter-agency technical collaboration on child protection in all humanitarian contexts. The Alliance sets standards and produces technical guidance for use by the various stakeholders, particularly field practitioners, in alignment with UNICEF’s Child Protection Strategy 2021-2030.

The Alliance’s work falls into five categories: Standard setting and guidance development; Capacity building, learning and development; Evidence and knowledge generation; Advocacy; and Convening, and its work is led by the secretariat, four working groups, six task forces and three initiatives. The Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPMS) Working Group is a permanent work stream focused on the technical standard setting and promotes the use and integration of the CPMS, while learning from their use and improving them. UNICEF also co-leads the CPMS Working Group together with Save the Children. This working group has the overall outcome of “Strengthened quality and accountability for children’s protection and well-being in humanitarian response”.

As the co-lead of the Child Protection Minimum Standards Working Group, UNICEF is seeking a research consultant. Pillar 4 of CPMS highlights the risks of education and other sectoral programming that is unaware of child protection risks, including the potential exposure of children to further harm, inefficient use of resources, and compromising sectoral outcomes.  However, there have been limited efforts to collect or where it exists, analyze evidence and data to demonstrate the benefits of child protection sensitive programming in education or other sectors. This consultancy will look specifically within the education sector, while building a methodology for planned work with other sectors.

As the Alliance moves forward under the strategic goal of strengthening and deepening cross-sectoral collaboration and moving towards programming that meets the needs of the whole child, it is imperative that decisions be based on evidence compiled across a variety of humanitarian contexts. The new Alliance Strategy necessitates building key evidence that allow the sector, and the various stakeholder groups that support or are meant to benefit from it, to better understand the impact of child protection sensitive programming to date as well as the gaps that have endured. This work is one part of a broader Child Protection in Humanitarian Action(CPHA) -Education in Emergencies(EiE) initiative that aims to best respond to both protection and education needs of children in crisis.

This research will produce a comprehensive analysis of the impact of child protection-sensitive education programming across diverse humanitarian settings.  Ideally, the review will quantify the potential financial costs of education programming that does not sufficiently take into account children’s protection and well-being.

Given the nature of evidence-building efforts to date, this work will accommodate primary and secondary research, impact evaluations, and grey literature.  Additional Key Informant Interviews may be required to support aspects of the review. 

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

Scope of Work

The consultant will work closely with the CPMS Working Group members and the co-leads, as well as the EiE-CPHA Focal Point and other colleagues in the Alliance, and is expected to achieve following deliverables:

• An Inception Report indicating methodology and workplan.
• A 15-20 page Evidence Review that encompasses a. education programming that does not explicitly acknowledge and address relevant child protection issues and b. education programming that is explicitly designed to be sensitive to child protection issues and c. potential consequences and considerations for the Alliance and the INEE.
• Differentiated materials for (15 minute) presentations to key stakeholders, including a. Education and Child Protection technical and management staff, b. donors, and c. CPHA and INEE Working Groups and Teams

Timeframe:

• This EiE-CPHA consultancy is being recruited for 28 working days, between December 2021 and March 2022. Dissemination of the Report will be completed by March 2022 as the final part of the consultancy.

Qualifications

(1) Education

• Masters degree in relevant field, including: education, international development, social work, sociology, psychology, public health and political economy

2) Work experience, knowledge and expertise required

Skills

• Developing and undertaking desk reviews of both academic and grey literature
• Writing for humanitarian actors at different levels
• A commitment to excellence & attention to detail
• Fluency in English

Knowledge and experiences

• Knowledge and experiences of using Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and INEE’s Minimum Standards for Education
• Experiences of using different approaches to calculate the financial impacts of programming, including prevention activities
• Experience of education and child protection programming in humanitarian settings is preferred
• At least 5-8 years of relevant professional experiences, including but not limited to research, evidence reviews, and cost-effectiveness analysis or any other tasks related to this consultancy. 

Requirements

Interested consultants are invited to submit:

• Expression of interest
• A resume or P11
• A daily rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference
  • Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
  • At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage
• Indication of your availability

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

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. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, race, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, appearance, socio-economic status, ability, age, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, 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.