International Consultancy: Systems innovation for Social Protection across the humanitarian-development nexus

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, Safety...

Underlying poverty and vulnerability to repeated shocks are severely affecting the lives and economic prospects of millions of Malawians. The 2017 Integrated Household Survey (IHS 4, 2017) estimated that more than half of the Malawian population (51.5%) is living below the national poverty line. In rural areas, this percentage rises to 59.5%. As compared to 2010, the IHS 4 reported an increase of national poverty levels (by 0.8 %) while ultra-poverty declined from 24.5 % to 20.1 %.

Poverty is multidimensional, and determined not only by income, but also by deprivation and vulnerabilities. 56.1% of the Malawian population are multi-dimensionally poor, and an additional 27.2% live near multi-dimensional poverty (Human Development Report 2016). 63% of children are multidimensionally poor in Malawi, which is higher than the monetary poverty rates for both children and adults. Frequent shocks in Malawi including floods, droughts, macroeconomic instability and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic, are contributing to aggravate this situation. Every year, for the last 10 years, close to 2 million people in Malawi have been in need of emergency food assistance. And in 2021, a caseload of nearly 200,000 households was added due to emerging needs in urban areas related to the socio-economic effects of COVID-19.

The 2022/23 food insecurity report has over 600,000 people who are food insecure live in urban areas, unlike previous years where food insecurity was mostly in rural areas. The total number of food insecure households are over 3.8 million in both areas and the government reached out to various stakeholders for a harmonized response to the affected population. During the cluster meetings and in the final lean season response plan, the government has stressed upon leveraging on existing social protection programmes and integration of systems to be able to reach out to all the households. Social protection systems have been increasedly being used for humanitarian responses due to their reliability , transparency and accountability.

One notable example is the usage of the Covid-19 Urban Cash Intervention (CUCI) MIS to target the urban beneficiaries for the LSR 22/23. The Government will use the MIS that was built as part of the COVID-19 response with support from UNICEF and other donors to reduce targeting costs. The CUCI MIS which is also linked to the national Call Center has also been linked to the Grievance and Redress Mechanisms (GRM) MIS and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) processes. This integration is very beneficial for emergency interventions and in line with the humanitarian-development nexus. It is against this background that a consultant will be engaged to further support systems strengthening for social protection programmes (both horizontal and vertical expansions), ensuring continuous innovation across the nexus.

How can you make a difference?

The consultant will be required to deliver on the following:

• Develop and operations manual from targeting to payments of the urban cash lean season response (2022/23).
• Produce guidelines and e-version questionnaire for data collection in the urban LSR.
• Produce a detailed report on the CUCI MIS and E-MIS on the targeting and payments of the households.
• Provide technical backstopping for the national Call Centre operations.
• Provide technical Backstopping of Surveys using the Call Centre
• Conceptualize and build linkages with the Education sectors.
• Produce a Final Report.

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

Academic qualification:

Advanced degree in Political Science, Public Administration, Development, Humanitarian Affairs, Economics or related disciplines.

Work experience:

• A minimum of 10 years’ professional experience in social protection and/or humanitarian affairs, better if applied to areas related to beneficiary databases or Management Information Systems (MIS), Grievance & Redress Mechanisms (GRM) and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems for social protection interventions.
• In depth understanding of the concept of shock-sensitive social protection and the challenges for its operational implementation in developing countries, with at least 5 years of experience related to shock-sensitive social protection in Southern Africa. A minimum of 3 years of experience in Malawi, preferably in the social sectors.
• Proven ability to work in collaboration with Government institutions, with at least 6 years of experience providing technical support to Governments for the implementation of social programmes.
• Additional experience providing technical support to call centres operations would be considered a strong asset.
• Advanced knowledge of the Malawi National Social Cash Transfers Programme would be considered a strong asset

Competencies:

• Technical capacity to backstop call centre operations is essential. Intermediate knowledge of the Microsoft Office Package is required.
• Ability to work with management information systems , data systems and data analysis
• Ability to work efficiently in a time-bound manner, delivering high quality products through participatory processes.

Languages: Excellent written and spoken English is required.

Please refer to the attached full Terms of Reference Terms of Reference Systems innovation for SP across the nexus.pdf for more details on the consultancy and requirements.

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.

HOW TO APPLY...

Interested Individual Consultant should provide the following:

1. Curriculum Vitae
2. Academic certificates
3. Application letter
4. Brief technical proposal (no longer than five pages) demonstrating the Individual Consultant's understanding of the assignment and approach/methodology to the assignment
5. Financial proposal including a breakdown of their all-inclusive fees (including professional fees, stationery, communication, and other miscellaneous costs). Financial Proposal for Consultancy.xlsx Complete the attached form.
6. References details

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.