International Consultant for Technical Support to the Internal Process Review of Education Programs’ Relevance, Effectiveness and Efficiency, Abuja, Nigeria (duration 45days)

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.

For every child, education

In Nigeria, UNICEF works in a complex humanitarian and development setting to fulfill and protect children's rights in partnership with the government, civil society, children, and families. UNICEF Nigeria is one of the largest UNICEF Country Offices globally - click the link to learn more about UNICEF in Nigeria: https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/

How can you make a difference?

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

With a population of approximately 206 million, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Approximately 43 percent of the population is below 14 years of age. It is estimated that one in every 13 births globally will be taking place in Nigeria by 2050. Though such a demographic dividend can support the country to further stimulate its economic growth and development, it yet places an immense burden on an already heavily pressured education system. It further calls for sharpened and focused efforts to ensure quality education for all. UNICEF Nigeria has been supporting the Government of Nigeria in its efforts to systematically address the structural challenges facing its basic education system through three programmatic areas under education. These are system strengthening, increased access to formal basic education, and improved quality of learning for all. During the current Country Program Document (CPD 2018-2022), UNICEF Nigeria, in collaboration with the Government of Nigeria, implemented education programs both at federal as well as at state level with a total investment of more than 204M USD. Assessing the return on such investment by evaluating the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve access and learning is key to informing future plans with evidence-based justification for targeted programming. This process should not only focus on the end results but should equally examine the process leading to these end results with the aim of verifying relevance and effectiveness among others.

In light of the above, UNICEF Nigeria, Education Section, is seeking the support of an international individual consultant to conduct an internal process review of its ongoing education interventions over the course of the current CPD (2018-2023) to assess the extent to which such interventions, including their associated activities and sub-activities, are aligned with and can lead to the achievement of the intended results and outputs, as per the set Theory of Change (ToC). Scope of Work: To achieve the above, this internal process review exercise will examine different programmatic/thematic areas within education per the below evaluation criteria:

- Relevance: to what extent the ongoing activities and sub-activities align with and are directly linked to the specified intended output/outcome, and ultimately the set ToC? - Logic and complexity: Is the theory of change evidence- and experience-based and do the underlying assumptions make sense in the given context and programme? What pivots may be needed to accommodate changes in the political or social context to ensure that progress toward goals is still achievable? - Effectiveness: to what extent the ongoing activities and sub-activities are evident-based and proved to systematically lead to the achievement of the intended output? - Efficiency: to what extent the ongoing activities and sub-activities are sufficient to achieve the intended outputs? Are there are gaps that need to be addressed to achieve the intended output? - Cost effectiveness: to what extend the ongoing activities and sub-activities are the most cost-effective in relation to the intended output, based on global and regional evidence? Are there any other evidence-based activities and/or sub-activities that have been proven to be more cost-effective and can be tailored to the Nigerian context? A three-phased approach is suggested:

Phase I will include a detailed mapping and description of all activities and sub-activities.

Phase II will include assessing the mapped activities and sub-activities in light of their causality to the intended output/outcome and ToC including evaluating their robustness, fit, coherence, and adaptiveness in terms of associated evidence of effectiveness and efficiency, against an agreed upon checklist. This will involve multiple rounds of discussion with Country and Field Office colleagues and will identify adaptations that can be integrated immediately in programming to be included in the ongoing assessment.

Phase III will include a participatory internal learning process in which the education team, across NCO and FOs, collectively make informed decisions on the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, logic, and cost-effectiveness of the different activities and sub-activities with the aim of reaching a consensus of future planning under the new CPD (2023-2027). This will enable documenting the decision-making process and how the program interventions evolve over time. The specific approach to this participatory process will be shared at a later stage of the assignment.

Please refer to the attached detailed job description for more information... Consultants Individual-Content Review.pdf

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

Qualifications:

• Education evaluation (preferably developmental evaluation), program design, monitoring, and program performance management Education, Teacher Education, sociology, education psychology

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

Experience in education evaluation (preferably developmental evaluation), program design, monitoring, and program performance management

Language requirements:

• Fluency in English is required.

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.