International Consultant (Development of Cash+ Social Protection Model), Freetown, Sierra Leone, 65 days (in 8.5 months), Home-based

Consultant Programme & Policy

Overview

Develop a Cash+ social protection model to address child marriage and teenage pregnancy.

You have:

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Social Sciences, Public Policy or other relevant areas.
• A minimum of eight years of relevant professional experience in designing, implementing, and managing social protection interventions or programming.
• Experience in developing and implementing cash+ social protection programmes with a particular focus on child protection, gender and cross-sectoral approaches for addressing child marriage and teenage pregnancy.
• Demonstrated in-depth experience of leading capacity building on social protection and gender.
• Strong analytical and writing skills.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and facilitation skills.
• Advanced computer literacy.
• High proficiency in English.
• Previous experience of working with government officials; experience of previous work in Africa an asset.

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, protection

Please access UNICEF Sierra Leone information here and here

How can you make a difference?

Purpose of Assignment

Children in Sierra Leone continue to be exposed to high levels of vulnerability, suffering violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect. Adolescent girls make up 12% of the overall population and are one of the most vulnerable groups in society. Adolescent pregnancy and child marriage remain a dire threat to girls, preventing them from realizing their full potential in all aspects of their development. According to the 2019 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), there has been a slight reduction in child marriage since 2013, from 12.5% to 8.6% for women married before age 15 and from 38.9% to 29.6% for women married before age 18. Teenage pregnancy also dropped from 28% to 21% during the same period. Child marriage places these girls at risk of not completing their education, early pregnancies, and potentially domestic violence. Many married adolescent girls lack the ability to make independent decisions over their lives such as accessing health care.

The SSN programme and the follow-up PSSNYE reflect a government priority to provide integrated services for vulnerable households, thus it can also serve as a basis for adding on additional cash+ components to address the drivers of child marriage and services that strengthen girls’ safe transition to adulthood. The consultant is needed to strengthen the sensitivity and capacity of government officials involved in the social protection sector on the topic of child marriage and teenage pregnancy, and to develop options for cash+ programming to support child marriage and teenage pregnancy reduction, with a view to pilot and test approaches in up to three districts.

Scope of Work

The consultant will work in close collaboration with the Government of Sierra Leone and UNICEF to support capacity building and sensitization among the national child protection and social protection sector stakeholders on how to leverage social protection and cash+ programming to address drivers of child marriage and teenage pregnancy. Based on available evidence on drivers of child marriage, the consultant will develop a draft theory of change on leveraging social protection for child marriage reduction which will serve as entry point for discussions with stakeholders. The consultant will work with government and UNICEF to develop options for cash+ programming and integrated services to help reduce child marriage and teenage pregnancy. This will include mapping out existing services/activities/ programmes that have a stated objective to prevent child marriage or address known drivers of child marriage and teenage pregnancy in Sierra Leone, developing guidelines and models for how young girls in PSSNYE beneficiary households, along with their households and communities, can be linked/enrolled to such services/activities/programmes and mapping out how social behaviour change modules can be harnessed to prevent child marriage within PSSNYE households and communities.

• With a view to strengthening capacity on cash+ programming and co-creating solutions with the child protection and social protection sectors, along with the health and education sector, the consultant will facilitate a workshop with social protection key stakeholders, including the cross-sectoral National Social Protection Technical Steering Committee (NSPTSC) , the National Secretariat for the Reduction of Teenage Pregnancy and Child Marriage, UN agencies including UNFPA and development partners to explore reaching child marriage reduction objectives through social protection programmes and develop concrete recommendation for integrating child marriage reduction in social protection programming.

• With a view to developing cash+ programme options the consultant will:

• Map available programmes – including ‘safe spaces’, UPSHIFT and NGO programmes and free basic education in which adolescents in beneficiary households can potentially be enrolled. This would guide the development of a model for cash+ programming along with district selection for piloting.

• Map available GBV and child protection services in each district – including FSUs, One Stop Centres etc. This will guide development of a model for cash + programming and district selection for piloting, and it will also identify under-serviced areas.
• Map services and stakeholders related to child protection and adolescent wellbeing, health, education etc that integrate child marriage and teenage pregnancy reduction into their programmes and could be linked into referrals for a cash + programme. This would also include services and stakeholders that do not yet integrate such a focus, but would have the potential to do so. The capacity and reach of social service workforce would be an important element of this mapping.

• Conduct desk reviews of what type of cash+ models have worked in other areas with similar context and what are the critical lessons to be learnt for Sierra Leone

• With a view to supporting social behaviour change for child marriage reduction, the consultant will in close collaboration with the Social Development Specialist of NaCSA and other stakeholders review current modalities for social behaviour change as delivered through the PSSNYE, the potential actors who can play a role in delivering social behavior change modules and existing SBC material on child marriage that can be harnessed for social protection beneficiaries.

• Using data from the social registry/ programme MIS, the consultant will develop a profile of beneficiary households and adolescent girls in beneficiary households to inform cash+ programming options involving adolescent girls.
• The consultant will conduct focus groups with adolescents and their households to gauge their views on how a cash+ model could best be delivered and how to focus the intervention given the most salient drivers of child marriage and teenage pregnancy in their setting.
• The consultant will furthermore review the tools for collecting information about households enrolled in PSSNYE or registered in the social registry to assess the extent to which the required information is collected that would support adequate case management of beneficiaries. The consultant would develop a set of recommendations for strengthening the questionnaires for enrolment and data collection on beneficiary households. This would include the data which is collected about household members, the possibilities to link case management records and referrals.
• Finally, the consultant will in close consultation with the key stakeholders in social protection sector and child protection sectors develop a model for piloting a cash+ option with objective to reduce child marriage and teenage pregnancy, including addressing the drivers of child marriage, to be validated in a workshop with key stakeholders. The model will include strategic targets and a monitoring and evaluation framework.

Please access the full JD here: VA ToR - Social Protection Model (Child Marriage).pdf

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Social Sciences, Public Policy or other relevant areas.
• A minimum of eight years of relevant professional experience in designing, implementing, and managing social protection interventions or programming.
• Experience in developing and implementing cash+ social protection programmes with a particular focus on child protection, gender and cross-sectoral approaches for addressing child marriage and teenage pregnancy.
• Demonstrated in-depth experience of leading capacity building on social protection and gender.
• Strong analytical and writing skills.
• Excellent interpersonal, communication and facilitation skills.
• Advanced computer literacy.
• High proficiency in English.
• Previous experience of working with government officials; experience of previous work in Africa an asset.

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.

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.

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Potential interview questions

Added 3 years ago - Updated 1 year ago - Source: unicef.org