Consultancy - Review of Methods and Approaches to Measure Child Poverty in Fragile Contexts Consultant, Data and Analytics Team (DAT), DAPM NYHQ (remote-based)

Contract

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Consultancy Title: Review of Methods and Approaches to Measure Child Poverty in Fragile Contexts Consultant

Section/Division: Data & Analytics Team (DAT), DAPM, NYHQ (remote-based)

Duration: 30 November 2023 to 13 April 2024 (4 months)

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.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment

Provide guidance on child poverty measurement in fragile context in order to calculate outcome-level baseline in selected countries

Scope of Work:

1. Reviewing the literature on child poverty measurement in fragile context identifying validated and robust approaches to identify multiple vulnerabilities among children of different age groups.
2. Conducting diagnostics of available data sources and measurement tools (different types of data) using several chosen fragile countries in the context of recurrent climatic shocks (case studies).
3. Providing recommendations for estimating child poverty and vulnerability baselines across chosen countries (selected in collaboration with evaluation teams) including methodological recommendations on integrating different data sources (mobile, administrative, satellite and other data) and data collection approaches.

Terms of Reference/Deliverables

Task 1:

Review existing literature about child poverty and its measurement in fragile contexts. Synthesis of approaches and conceptualization.

Deliverables

20-30 pages long literature review of published articles (and grey literature, if available) on child poverty measurement and analysis in fragile contexts. Output should be of quality to be publish.

Timeline: 30 December 2023

Task 2

Explore different possible alternative and complimentary data sources to estimate child poverty in fragile contexts (with special focus on potential case studies).

Deliverables

Assessment, based partly on the first deliverable, of data sources for estimating child poverty in fragile context making a distinction between types of fragility and whether it affect the whole county or only sub-nationally (including the possibility it may spill over to another county). This assessment will be done in tabular format.

Timeline:15 February 2024

Task 3

Make recommendations in terms of approaches and practical steps to estimate child poverty baselines in the case studies.

Deliverables

Technical guidance notes (10-15 pages) with options to estimate child poverty in fragile context. The note should include advantages and disadvantages of alternative options as well as a preferred option (or a ranking of alternatives).

Timeline: 13 April 2024

Qualifications

(1) Education

• An Advanced University degree (Master’s or higher) in Economics, Social Science, Computational Sociology, Complex Systems or similar, or equivalent work experience - a Ph.D. would be an asset.
• A minimum of five years of relevant professional experience in developing scoring systems or similar.
• Strong methodological knowledge and skills in data analysis, statistics, and reporting for development programmes.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct independent research.
• Knowledge of open-source software for analyzing data (I.e. R or Python).

2) Work experience

• Experience designing socio-economic indices and working with statistical and survey data.
• Familiarity with emerging methods like computational social science and non-traditional data sources like social media, or satellite imagery
• Experience working with a multidisciplinary team of designers, engineers, researchers.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.

3) Competencies

• Good verbal and communication skills.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

NO TRAVEL

Requirements****:

• Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system
• Upload copy of academic credentials
• Financial proposal that will include:
• the costs per each deliverable and the total all-inclusive (lump-sum) fees for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability
• 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.

Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

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:

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. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.