Individual Consultancy: Cash Programmes to support access to Education, Lebanon, Beirut

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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, fair access to Education programs

BACKGROUND (RATIONALE AND CONTEXT):

As schools gradually re-open, and given the aggravating economic crisis, children in Lebanon are facing multiple financial and learning barriers in returning to school. As a result, a growing number of children are at risk of dropping out of school, adding to the already very high number of out of school refugee children in Lebanon. For the most vulnerable Lebanese and non-Lebanese children, education risks becoming less relevant as families struggle to meet basic needs. Amidst the unfolding crisis, the Lebanese Pound lost 90% of its value with poverty and vulnerability levels amongst refugee populations and Lebanese sharply on the rise. Currently 91% of Syrian families are living below the poverty line on less than USD 3.84 a day. An estimated 55% of Lebanese also live below the poverty line throughout the country and three-quarters are income vulnerable. Given the situation in Lebanon with the ongoing political crisis coupled with the yet unresolved COVID-19 crisis, the status of the school year 2021-22 is still difficult to predict in terms of hybrid, distance learning or fully in person learning modality.

To respond to growing vulnerabilities among Lebanese and non-Lebanese populations, UNICEF Lebanon has refreshed its cash assistance strategy towards children in education to enable the most vulnerable children to access, attend and remain in school and in Education programmes, in line with global best practices and the Ministry of Higher Education (MEHE) draft Education Sector Plan.

The new cash for education programme is a monetised assistance programme designed to reach vulnerable children in formal schooling and other learning opportunities, address financial barriers to attendance, provide additional support to stay in school and learning, and ultimately increase attendance and retention. It builds on UNICEF Lebanon’s extensive experience in providing such assistance, including the Min Ila programme of 2016-2018 which was accompanied by a rigorous impact evaluation which demonstrated significant multidimensional impacts on children’s education and other factors such as health and food security. UNICEF Lebanon considers that monetised assistance (i.e. transferring cash to recipients instead of buying books, stationary and providing transportation) is significantly more effective and efficient than providing that assistance in kind. This also builds on UNICEF prior experience in moving from direct bus service to a cash modality starting in 2018. That strategic shift allowed to increase program cost efficiencies while empowering families to best decide on the use of the cash and chose the transportation modality that suits them best. The validity of this shift was supported by a third-party post-distribution qualitative and quantitative monitoring of the program conducted in July 2018.

A cash for education programme complements more holistic social assistance programmes – such as UNICEF’s child grant known as ‘Haddi’ – which aims to provide broader support to overall child wellbeing (health, education, protection etc.) for some of the most vulnerable children in Lebanon, including those with disabilities, at risk of child labour and especially those excluded from learning. UNICEF’s global work on social safety nets and cash assistance has documented two key lessons learnt that the cash for education programme must build on, (i) that cash alone is not sufficient and must be completed by additional integrated services, i.e. in this case education provision but also follow-up and effective referral of household members, and (ii) that targeting using a detailed set of criteria or a formula is largely inaccurate without up-to-date household survey data to estimate it, which does not exist in Lebanon; causes significant exclusion errors; and is much harder for households to understand thereby creating challenges with accountability and support. Given the high levels of vulnerabilities in Lebanon today and given these challenges with proxy targeting, UNICEF advocates the use of broad, transparent, and easily verified categories.

How can you make a difference?

• Submission of an approved mapping of the cash transfer and payment delivery modalities.
• Submission of an approved methodology plan with a set of predetermined vulnerability detection indicators or a clear categorical approach.
• Submission of an approved assistance amount and feasibility assessment.
• Submission of an approved design of the monitoring and evaluation framework.
• Inputs provided to the wider proposal to mobilise resources for cash programmes.
• Workplan to be developed based on the key deliverables.
• Weekly debrief on progress with a monthly written report on progress against work plan at the end of each month.

DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENT:

Under the supervision of the Chief Education, the incumbent will support the UNICEF Lebanon in designing the Cash for Education programme with a clear monitoring and evaluation framework, in collaboration with the Government and partners, including:

• Assess the various education cash transfer and payment delivery modalities that are available and accessible for Lebanese and Non-Lebanese, including the World Bank National Poverty Targeting Programme (NPTP) and the Emergency Crisis and Covid-19 Response Social Safety Net Project (ESSN); with the aim to inform and operationalize improved digital transfer systems to distribute assistance to beneficiaries, recognizing and acknowledging the added value of providing access to digital financial services and financial inclusion to vulnerable populations.
• Develop a multidimensional vulnerability targeting methodology that will be used to identify vulnerable households and children, and subsequently determine their eligibility - through a set of predetermined vulnerability detection indicators or using a clear, transparent categorical approach (i.e. all children of X age with disabilities) - to UNICEF’s education cash transfer programmes.
• Enhance the educational components of the Education cash transfer programmes, detailing adequate assistance amounts of various education related expenses based on evidence, and assess the feasibility of integration with complementary social services to provide a comprehensive package of educational interventions.
• Design the framework for monitoring and evaluation of UNICEF’s Education cash transfer programmes, including through baseline and post-distribution monitoring reports, to ensure that data and evidence is generated on a consistent basis to assess the impact of the support and to inform potential changes and improvements to the Education cash transfer programmes.
• Support in developing a wider proposal in line with total target and funding gap identified.

The International Consultant is expected to coordinate and work closely with the Education Manager and Education Specialist for the deliverables. In agreement with the Supervisor, the International Consultant will draft a work plan based on the key deliverables upon initiating the consultancy. Depending on the rapidly changing needs, some adjustments may be required to the deliverables. Additionally, the International Consultant will draw experience from UNICEF’s Haddi programme to inform the planning stage.

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

• Education: An Advanced University Degree in one or more of the following areas: economics, social policy, social protection, public policy, or other relevant disciplines.
• Minimum of five years of relevant work experience in particular of designing, implementing and management of social transfers or cash transfer programmes.
• Experience working in the UN system agency or organization is an asset. Familiarity with emergency response is an asset.
• Technical knowledge/competencies:
• Strong knowledge of social protection policy debates and evidence is required
• Ability to work well with people from diverse knowledge and background and at different levels of the organization. Excellent communication and analytical skills.
• Language: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of French and/or Arabic will be considered as an advantage.

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are:

Integrity and Accountability

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

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:

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

Qualified candidates are requested to submit:

1. Cover letter/application.
2. Financial quote as lump sum for professional fees, and lump sum for travel/administrative/subsistence, in case in-country mission is requested.
3. CV.
4. At least 2 Referees.