Individual consultancy: Real Time Evaluation of the Social Protection response to Covid-19 in Mozambique

Consultant Monitoring & Evaluation Programme & Policy Finance & Economy

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Programme description

Following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the Government of Mozambique decided to mitigate the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 through the scale up of social protection benefits. As co-chair of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of the sector’s response to COVID-19, UNICEF has supported the activation of shock-responsive social protection by drafting a joint concept note with the World Food Programme (WFP), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Bank (WB); facilitating joint communications with the Government of Mozambique, in particular, with Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Action (MGCAS) and National Institute of Social Action (INAS); and contributing to a Joint Operational Plan in which UN agencies are able to support Government for implementation.

Both Government and partners have agreed to prioritize urgent support to urban and peri-urban areas, where the effects of the slowdown of economic activities and disruptions in the functioning of urban economies are expected to be severe and immediate. Current social protection response include:

• Horizontal expansion in urban and peri-urban areas through a rapid registration of approximately 990,000 new beneficiaries. This will be done in two phases, with phase one (fully funded) covering 280,000 households and phase two (funding to be confirmed) covering 710,000 households. The selected programme for expansion (PASD-PE Pandemics) will deliver MZN 1500 (equivalent to approximately USD 25) monthly for 6 months to each household, starting in October 2020. The areas (‘bairros’) of intervention were selected through geographical targeting using multidimensional poverty maps developed by MEF using 2017 census data. Within the selected areas, INAS applies vulnerability prioritization criteria. All transfers are expected to be done using Mobile money, outsourcing payments through financial service providers for swift operationalization of cash transfers and reduction of health risks.
• Vertical expansion consisting of a top-up equivalent to three-months of regular benefits to all existing social protection beneficiaries (approximately, 530,000 households) in all country, paid through regular ‘cash in hand’ approach.

UN agencies (UNICEF and WFP) have made their resources and capacities available to Government of Mozambique to provide technical support to INAS during identification, enrolment, monitoring, communication to beneficiaries and payments; as well as to enrol, monitor, communicate and pay to beneficiaries in specific geographic locations where UN could complement Government efforts. The latter would have UN agencies working within the Government plan and sharing beneficiary information with INAS monitoring and information system (e-INAS).

As part of this national response strategy, UNICEF and WFP will jointly reach approximately 80,000 households with cash transfers in selected areas in Tete and Zambezia provinces following the Government’s PASD-PE Pandemics design. The programme adopts a ‘cash plus’ approach in which cash transfers will be complemented with a C4D intervention and referrals to adequate services to address sexual exploitation and abuse cases and gender-based violence cases.

The goal of the social protection response is to increase resilience of the most vulnerable population in Mozambique, with a focus on children, women and people with disabilities, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. For this purpose, unconditional cash transfers (MZN 1500 per month for six months, delivered in two payments) and key messages on nutrition, gender and protection will be delivered to poor and vulnerable households in urban and peri urban areas.

It is expected that cash transfers will allow families to access food and basic services (including nutrition and sexual and reproductive; water/sanitation and protection services) and decrease overall household stress and disputes over limited economic resources. By the end of the program, beneficiary households will have maintained or improved pre-COVID19 nutritional status and general wellbeing, including prevention and recourse in cases of gender-based violence.

It is expected that C4D messages delivered to household heads/main recipients of the cash transfer and reinforced through community mobilization efforts (as much as possible in the pandemics context) will provide households with key information on good nutritional practices, self-care and health seeking behaviours, gender roles and gender-based violence. By the end of the program, beneficiary households will have increased knowledge about nutrition, gender and gender-based violence and improved access to services in relation to these matters.

Programme Stakeholders

The main users for this evaluation are UNICEF, WFP and the Government of Mozambique (MGCAS and INAS). The primary stakeholders are the agencies’ and Government staff responsible for executing and managing the response, including staff based in Provincial offices. The evaluation team/consultant will interview both the agencies’ staff and the staff of key partners.

Definition of roles and responsibilities will guide the joint implementation of the two UN agencies. This will be operationalized through clear channels of communication, with a Focal Point (FP) of this programme in each organization to whom communication from the other agency should be directed.

Real Time Evaluation Purpose, Objectives and Scope

The overall goal of this evaluation is to assess the appropriateness, effectiveness, coordination and cohesion of the shock responsive cash transfers during the 2020 COVID emergency. It will have a strong learning purpose that a) assure that a short feedback loop (between collection, treatment and communication of results) enabling decision-makers to adapt implementation according to identified issues and act accordingly in the early phases of the response; b) identifying operational and programmatic lessons that will help to improve preparedness, response and planning for shock-responsive social protection; c) strengthen UNICEF and WFP accountability towards the programme beneficiaries and their communities, partners and other key stakeholders. Finally, it will stimulate institutionalisation of real time monitoring efforts within ongoing and future social protection programmes in Mozambique.

The primary objectives of this real time evaluation are:

1. Assess the extent to which the proposed targeting mechanism and programme design (cash plus modality) is relevant and appropriate to vulnerable individuals’ needs (e.g. exclusion and inclusion error) and identified community priorities (geographical targeting);
2. Assess the degree to which gender sensitive strategies were effective to reach differential results for woman, men, girls and boys in vulnerable populations;
3. Understand the extent to which shock-responsive social protection (PASD-PE) is able to or has potential to deliver intended short and mid-term outcomes, in particular, to deliver a gender sensitive and/or transformative intervention
4. Examine the coherence and coordination of shock responsive social protection efforts and their alignment and complementarity to government and partners’ strategies;
5. Highlight implementation lessons and make recommendations for improving the design of the shock-responsive social protection with sensitivity to women and children.

Knowledge generated by the real-time evaluation (RTE) and embedded monitoring efforts will also inform the broader Government plan, allowing INAS to learn and adapt programming within a very short time based on UN and Government’s experience in the response. The results of the RTE will contribute to institutional learning in Mozambique and in the global shock-responsive community of practice.

The RTE team/consultant should identify lessons learned and recommendations based on its findings. The conclusions and the underlying findings should be based on triangulated data and evidence that the team has gathered through different sources . The team should make no more than five to ten primary recommendations at the national (country offices) and sub-national level (field offices)s. Any recommendations for the implementation team should be discussed with them before the finalization of the report. Similarly, any recommendations for UNICEF and WFP country offices should be validated through a discussion before the report is finalised.

Scope

The RTE will build on the agile monitoring efforts set up as a part of overall real time learning strategy. It will cover the Social Protection Response to Covid-19 components led by UNICEF and WFP. The geographic coverage comprises urban and border districts targeted by UNICEF and WFP joint implementation: Moatize (Tete) and Quelimane and Milange (Zambezia).

The evaluation will have to incorporate gender sensitive and human rights informed lenses throughout all stages of the evaluation process.

Specific Tasks, Deliverables and Timeline

The key stages of this evaluation and tentative timeline will be the following:

Timeline

2 weeks after the start of the contract

Activity

Inception phase

• Preparation of draft inception report and data collection tools;
• Engagement with stakeholders on formulating and agreeing evaluation questions;
• Preparation of instruments for data collection,
• Ethical approval process

Finalization of inception report, and translation into Portuguese

Deliverable 1

• Draft inception report and instruments

Recipients: members of the evaluation reference group

• Presentation of the draft inception report and instruments – in person or via video link – to the Evaluation Reference Group and wider group of partners and UNICEF staff;
• Final inception report (plus completed revision trail addressing all comments)

Recipients: members of the evaluation reference group, UNICEF and WFP staff managing evaluation.

Payment: 20% of the total contract value

Timeline

3 weeks after the inception phase

Activity

Data collection phase

• Pre-testing and piloting of instruments
• Enumerator training
• Field work plan
• Preparation of interview transcripts
• Population of evaluation matrix.

Deliverable 2

De-brief/feedback with UNICEF staff after each round of data collection with emerging findings and lessons learned on the evaluation process.

Payment: 30% of the total contract value

Timeline

3 weeks after the data collection phase

Activity

Drafting, validation and completion phase

• Data analysis and drafting
• Preparation of a PowerPoint presentation on emerging findings, conclusions and recommendations
• Engagement with stakeholders on draft report review.
• Preparation of evaluation and policy briefs.

Deliverable 3

• Validation of Preliminary findings, conclusions and recommendations – in person or via video link with key evaluation stakeholders, including the Evaluation Reference Group.

Recipients: members of the evaluation reference group

• A complete first draft evaluation report

Recipients: members of the evaluation reference group

Timeline

1 week after last round of comments

Activity

Final approval

• Finalization of report: before approval report will go through at least two revision rounds by an external party against UNICEF GEROS quality criteria.
• Preparation of summary PowerPoint presentation

Deliverable 4

• A final evaluation report (plus completed audit trail addressing all comments). The main findings should be visualised through graphs and and infographics. Gender should also be included as a cross-cutting theme throughout the findings. The approval process for the final report included at least two rounds of revisions with UNICEF MCO and UNICEF ESARO

Recipients: members of the evaluation reference group

• Final PowerPoint presentation that summarizes the evaluation findings.

Recipients: members of the evaluation reference group and wider group of partners

• Evaluation brief. A summary of the key evaluation points, with a maximum of 4 pages, illustrated with data and infographics.

Recipients: members of the evaluation reference group.

• Support in UNICEF dissemination efforts. Presenting and sharing the results in a web-based conference and supporting wider communication efforts upon request.

Recipients: national and international stakeholders.

Payment: 50% of the total contract value

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

Required qualifications

Academic qualifications: Graduate degree in Social Science or relevant discipline (economics, sociology, psychology, international relations, evaluation).

Work Experience

5-year experience in conducting evaluations in emergency contexts, preferably with an UN agency

• Experience in conducting and managing multi-disciplinary evaluations, including evaluating rapid onset emergencies for UNICEF, other UN agencies or other international partners at the global, regional or country levels.
• Verified experience in evaluation in Mozambique, preferably in emergency contexts.
• Experience working in cooperative and rapid changing environment.
• Knowledge of latest methods and approaches in humanitarian evaluation, especially participatory methods and accountability to affected populations, and RTEs
• Verified knowledge of qualitative and quantitative methods and specific experience in remote data collection methodologies (previous experience with RapidPro is considered an asset)

• Experience with the ethics of evidence generation; experience collecting data from vulnerable groups; familiarity with ethical safeguards

  Specific knowledge, competencies, and skills required

  knowledge of UNICEF’s programmes in emergency contexts highly desirable, and of UNICEF’s corporate emergency procedures preferred.

• Social protection or other technical expertise relevant to UNICEF’s emergency operations.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills (in English and Portuguese)

  Annex 3 - Real Time Evaluation of the Social Protection response to Covid-19 in Mozambique.docx

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

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.

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Added 3 years ago - Updated 2 years ago - Source: unicef.org