International consultancy to conduct Situation Analysis of children’s and adolescents’ rights and well-being in Kyrgyzstan

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

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.

How can you make a difference?

The Situation Analysis(SitAn) of children’s(0-17) and adolescents’(10-19)rights and wellbeing is a key document designed to inform policy dialogue, partnerships and interventions to improve the lives of children. It is an assessment and analysis of the country situation, with respect to children's rights and critical issues affecting their realization. The SitAn is a crucial part of the child rights monitoring (CRM) framework and represents a key UNICEF programmatic output that helps to focus on knowledge gaps related to inequities and children’s rights violations. By promoting the broad engagement of all stakeholders, the SitAn is expected to inform policy dialogue in the country and child-focused policy advocacy to make an important contribution in accelerating the achievement of child-related Sustainable Development Goals with equity.

The SitAn reflects UNICEF’s role to work with all levels of government and all key stakeholders to assert the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) as a guiding mechanism in policy making and legislation to:

• Develop a comprehensive national agenda;

• Develop permanent bodies or mechanisms to promote coordination, monitoring and evaluation activities throughout all sectors of government;

• Ensure that all legislation is fully compatible with the CRC and, where applicable, the Optional Protocols, by incorporating the provisions into domestic law or ensuring that they take precedence in cases of conflict with national legislation;

• Make children visible in policy development processes throughout government by introducing child impact assessments;

• Analyze government spending to determine the portion of public funds spent on children and to ensure that these resources are being used effectively;

• Ensure that sufficient disaggregated data are collected and used to improve the situation of all children;

• Raise awareness and disseminate information on the provisions of the CRC and its Optional Protocols to ensure that they are widely known and understood by adults and children alike, by providing training to all those involved in government policymaking and working with and for children;

• Involve civil society – including children themselves – throughout all stages of the process of implementing and raising awareness on child rights.

UNICEF is approaching the development of its new Country Programme, and there is a need to update the evidence on the wellbeing of children and realisation of their rights to provide UNICEF and its partners with new, robust and comprehensive analysis on the situation of children and adolescents in the country, particularly the most vulnerable, to inform programme decisions and guide policy advocacy and partnership efforts, as well as to track progress of child rights implementation.

UNICEF, its partners and other stakeholders conducted researches, studies and evaluations that provided new evidence which can be used to strengthen and broaden data/information and evidence on the situation of children and adolescents in the country. Among the major ones and most recent, the Situation Analysis of Youth and Adolescent Health and Wellbeing commissioned by UNICEF in 2020 and the Situation Analysis of Children and Adolescents with Disabilities in Kyrgyzstan. Results of these studies will be made available to the team of consultants undertaking this comprehensive New Generation SitAn on children and Adolescents rights and well-being.In view of the above, UNICEF is seeking the services of an international and a national individual consultants to develop the SitAn report using the available evidence, while paying due consideration to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda, UNICEF Strategic Plan for 2018-2021, UNICEF Gender Action Plan 2018-2021, CRC Concluding Observations on the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Kyrgyzstan (2014) and national priorities outlined in National Development Strategy 2018-2040 and National Development Program “Unity, Trust and Creation” 2018-2022, Kyrgyzstan 2020 Voluntary National Review and other state programmes/strategies.

Purpose, Scope & Expected results

The main purpose of this assignment is to conduct a human-rights based and equity-focused SitAn of children and adolescents with respect to the realization of children’s and adolescents’ rights. The analysis should examine the progress, challenges and opportunities for achieving child rights and well-being, and the patterns of deprivation that children and adolescents face. The Analysis should be objective and verifiable and is expected to be used by all partners and stakeholders in the country in addressing key challenges preventing children and adolescents, especially the most disadvantaged, from enjoying their rights ensured in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other international obligations of the country.

The SitAn report is to highlight the strategic priorities for the country to reduce disparities and address vulnerabilities, and hence, contribute to further shape the national development agenda, and to accelerate achievement of national and international development goals regarding children and adolescents, including SDGs. It should look critically at the progress that policy and programme interventions have made towards at-scale coverage of all vulnerable groups; the adequacy of policy delivery, particularly in terms of budget; and the resources for leaving no child behind.

The SitAn is relevant to a wider audience which includes government bodies, all development partners (including UNICEF), civil society, ombudspersons, children and adolescents, academia, private sector actors, media and others.

In additional to internal UNICEF working group, UNICEF Kyrgyzstan Office will engage external Steering Committee members in SitAn at all stages. Members of the Steering Committee will act as the sounding board to the UNICEF CO, ensuring that the voices of children and adolescents, especially the most vulnerable and marginalised, are heard by UNICEF and partners, and that their views are taken into consideration in the SitAn.

The process of developing the SitAn therefore anticipates engagement with the government and key stakeholders, including children and adolescents. It serves as an opportunity to promote meaningful dialogue between the main child rights actors in the country on children’s and adolescents’ issues.

Conceptual framework and methodology

The overall conceptual framework of the SitAn is the Human Rights-Based Approach to Programming (HRBAP). It should provide an understanding of the existing deprivations and inequities and establish the linkages between the underlying causes and barriers to achieving child rights and well-being. The conceptual framework situates the analysis in the country context and clearly recognizes the regional and global issues that are impacting children’s lives in the country. Furthermore, it explores the reasons behind the uneven realization of child rights and inequities in well-being, and the opportunities for achieving progress for all children, especially those who are left behind or at greatest risk of being left behind.

The methodology for data collection and analysis and the process of documentation should enable the periodic update of the SitAn.Consultants are required to propose a more precise methodology within the Inception phase. UNICEF Guidance on conducting the SitAn is requested as a reference for this purpose.

Management and supervision

The CO intends to hire two consultants: an international lead consultant with robust research experience and a local consultant who understands the context and can coordinate and facilitate capture of local stakeholder opinions and inputs, with a particular focus on the opinions and voices of children and adolescents.

Consultants will work in close consultation and under the supervision of UNICEF Kyrgyzstan Child Rights Monitoring Specialist in consultation with the Deputy Representative. The support will be sought from the UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office and external review body as per existing arrangements. The Working Group and Steering Committee will be involved throughout the review process and will contribute to the design, shaping and finalization of the SitAn products.

Quality assurance of the final draft report is mandatory. UNICEF has external quality assurance mechanism provided through Long-Term Agreements. Consultants will be provided with Quality Assurance requirements in advance.

UNICEF will provide support in organizing meetings for the purposes of data collection and interviews. UNICEF Kyrgyzstan Office will share with the selected consultants all the relevant materials it has and provide required expertise.

International Consultant will participate in the selection of a national consultant.

The consultant’s fee may be reduced if the assignments/deliverables are not fulfilled to the required standard. In a case of serious dissatisfaction with the consultant’s performance the contract may be terminated in line with UNICEF procedure in such matters and as spelled out in the contract.

The international consultant will be in charge of leading the entire process through working with the national consultant and UNICEF CRM Specialist. The international consultant will be responsible for timely and quality deliverables of the entire process.

Expected deliverables from an international consultant:

• Lead all stages of SitAn development and validation
• Participate in the selection of national consultant;
• Undertake desk review of program related documentation and available evidence, research and studies data in English language or as per internal division with national consultant;
• Present pre-final Inception Report;
• Finalize and submit the inception report;
• Undertake primary data collection that can be conducted in English language or as per division of labour with national consultant;
• Validate and present final comprehensive SitAn report;
• Develop the 30-page brief SitAn report;
• Finalize and submit final comprehensive SitAn report (max 150 pages) and brief SitAn report (30 pages), including SitAn table (based on the template).

Duty station and duration

Due to Covid-19 situation no travel is foreseen under this assignment. Any interviews or presentations required to undertake under this assignment will be done online, unless epidemiological situation will change to allow face to face meetings.

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

• • An advanced university degree (Master’s degree or higher) in political science, sociology or other relevant field; • A minimum of 5 years of experience development of analytical reports and policy documents related to children and adolescents; • Excellent knowledge of statistics, social service systems, development agenda; • Proven experience in in quantitative and qualitative data analysis, policy (and finance) analysis (including experience in the consistent use of age and sex-disaggregated and gender sensitive data) and report preparation; • Proven experience with conducting rights-based and equity-focused analyses of the situation of children and women and experience in writing analytical papers on children and women's issues; • Demonstrated ability to engage effectively with stakeholders at all levels, including facilitating consultations with government representatives, NGOs, academia, children, adolescents and other stakeholders; • Excellent analytical and report writing skills in English; • Knowledge of the political and social contexts of Kyrgyzstan is desirable; • Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of Russian/Kyrgyz is an asset; • Experience collaborating with UNICEF, especially in developing SitAns in ECA region is an asset;

It is a must to use a proposal form (Annex I of the ToR) including two recent relevant samples of writing in English. Full version of the Terms of Reference can be found attached here VA_SitAn TOR_international_Final.pdf

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.

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 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:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

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.