International Consultancy: PHC - Community Empowerment Strategy in select districts, Kampala, Uganda, 40 Days (Remote/ Work from home)

Contract

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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, a fair chance

Uganda is one of the over 190 countries and territories around the world where we work to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease, and discrimination place in a child’s path. Together with the Government of Uganda and partners we work towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, the objectives of the Uganda National Development Plan, and the planned outcomes of the United Nations Development Assistance Framework.

Visit this link for more information on Uganda Country Office https://www.unicef.org/uganda/

How can you make a difference?

Background

Children and women in Uganda face multiple deprivations and challenges, many rooted in poverty and inequality, with millions of Ugandan children vulnerable to disease and malnutrition. Underlying this, the primary health care system is severely hindered, with bottlenecks in service delivery, lack of necessary commodities, equipment and skilled and motivated workers; challenges in access in remote areas, including lack of delivery points and a referral system; the cost and perceived poor quality of services; lack of awareness of service availability; and inadequate community mobilization. Malnutrition is a direct or underlying cause of 54 per cent of all deaths of under-five children with 29% of children are stunted. Access to drinking water in both rural and urban areas have stagnated around 68% and 70% respectively for the last four years and 15% of water systems are down at any given point of time. Only 18% pf the population use basic sanitation services in rural areas.

The PHC -Community Empowerment initiative linked to Parish Development Model by the Government of Uganda

Vulnerable children tend to suffer from multiple overlapping deprivations that are often mutually reinforcing. Many studies have demonstrated persistent disparities in child deprivation between and within countries, in particular between rich and poor, rural and urban, educated and less educated population groups. Systemic bottlenecks are responsible for the slower progress across countries and sectors: weak decentralization; verticalization and fragmentation of initiatives and interventions; limited geographic access to services; poor quality of services; child-unfriendly social norms; and inadequate community engagement for ownership, leadership and mutual accountability.

Country experiences have identified a number of effective strategies and approaches to strengthen decentralization, engage communities, overcome inappropriate social norms, improve multi-sectoral convergence, and reduce geographical barriers; resulting in increased access to social services and better outcomes for children.

The PHC-Community Initiative converges and builds upon these promising practices by providing a framework and a process to strengthen the delivery of interventions for mothers and children at community level. The approach aims to achieve the rights of all children in vulnerable communities as articulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, with gender equality as a core dimension of equity that informs behaviours and provision of services. It maintains an equity focus through its prioritization of vulnerable communities ensuring that each child counts. It offers a practical way to accelerate the achievement of the objectives of national plans and, therefore, the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Government of Uganda has initiated a Parish Development Model which aims at decentralizing planning and decision making for improving the overall well being of the community. This provide an opportunity to empower community to make informed choices and take action at their level and also demand services.

It is proposed to hire an international consultant of repute with requisite experience in similar work to support UNICEF and District Government to develop a conceptual framework and an operational plan taking into consideration the programming environment around Health , Nutrition and WASH and the opportunities available to bring synergy amongst these sectors for a sustainable results related to Child survival and development issues.

Purpose

The main objective of this consultancy will be to assist UNICEF Uganda CSD team in developing a programme framework with an operational plan for initiating ).

The expected results of the consultancy are:

1. PHC-Community Empowerment Programme Framework (“what”)

2. PHC Community Empowerment Operational Plan (“how”)

   Description of the assignment

The assignment will be conducted under the supervision of the Chief, CSD. The main tasks and deliverables for the consultant as part of this assignment will be:

• Develop CFCI programme framework and incorporate feedback.
• Framework to reflect rationale, vision, main pillars of CFCI, strategic objectives, results matrix, outcome indicators, monitoring, and model costing.
• Develop CFCI roll-out strategy with operational plan and incorporate feedback.
• Roll-out strategy to reflect requirements for stakeholder engagement, capacity building, real-time monitoring, sequencing of locations, and benchmarks for expansion.

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

Education requirements: Advanced degree in social sciences (Public Administration, Sociology, Anthropology, or Development). An advanced university degree or equivalent in social sciences, project/programme management or other relevant disciplines, with specialized training in areas such as planning, monitoring and evaluation.

• At least 10 years of relevant experience and proven expertise with programme design, theory of change, planning, monitoring and evaluation, including strong understanding of UNICEF’s Country Programme frameworks, Equity, Gender Equality, HRBA, Capacity Development, Environmental Sustainability and RBM. UNICEF Senior management position an added advantage.
• Experience in Child Friendly Communities initiatives.
• Ability to provide quality products, with minimum supervision and to meet tight deadlines
• Ability to work with government counterparts and other partners at regional, district and sub-district level
• Excellent writing skills, verbal and analytical skills as well as good computer skills.
• Fluency in English.
• Previous experience in Uganda and Africa an asset.
• Experience in working with teams and team processes.

Estimated duration of consultancy: The assignment will be for up to 40 working days during the period January 2022 to March 2022. The majority of the assignment can be conducted remotely, using skype and email communication, with one in-country mission for a maximum of 2 weeks with timing to be agreed between the consultant and supervisor

Application Procedure/Call for Proposals

Interested candidates are required to submit a technical proposal on how they intend to approach the work. The proposal should include a timeline, and methodology, based on the Terms of Reference. The proposal must also include detailed CV of the consultant, as well as a financial proposal, clearly indicating daily rate for professional fees. The financial proposal must be all-inclusive of all costs (consultancy fees and where applicable air fares, airport transfers, daily living expenses). This is an international level consultancy and competitive market rates should apply.

Evaluation of Candidate:

The consultant will be competitively selected from a list of applicants based on their past experience of doing similar work (extensive experience in writing donor reports, in compiling and editing annual reports for various UNICEF offices).

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.

The competencies required for this post are….

View our competency framework at

http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

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, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Remarks:

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