International consultant with UNICEF Albania office for for Climate Landscape Analysis for Children in the country

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, wellbeing and protection

Every child has the right to live in an environment that is conducive to his or her growth and safety. Environmental sustainability, including climate change and clean energy is at the top of the global political agenda. Still, climate change and environmental degradation continue to affect children’s rights globally. The Government of Albania (GoA), in line with global and regional commitments and national priorities, has made progress on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Up to 19 enacted laws are connected to climate change, environment, and energy with the Ministry of Tourism and Environment leading the efforts towards this priority area in the National Strategy for Development and European Integration III. Other line ministries, like the Ministry of Infrastructure and Energy, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Defense, etc. have issued strategies and action plans to address the matter. There are numerous publications on climate change, environment, energy, and disaster risk in Albania, but there is a dearth of evidence featuring boys and girls at the center. To address this gap, UNICEF in Albania intends to conduct a Climate Landscape Analysis for Children (CLAC). This activity is identified as a measure under the National Agenda for Child Rights 2021-2026.

CLAC aims to understand the overall climate, environment, energy, and disaster (CEED) risk landscape in Albania in terms of data, policy, programming, gaps, actors, etc., and how they all particularly translate to boys’ and girls’ well-being and development. CLAC will serve UNICEF to craft its advocacy messages, forge partnerships, and define its programmatic areas of intervention to address emerging CEED-related issues affecting boys and girls in the future. In line with its contribution to the achievement of SDGs 6, 7, 11, 13, and 15, it will inform the UNICEF country program for Albania 2027-2031. CLAC aims to generate evidence useful also for partners in government, development agencies, and civil society, who can use it to sharpen their implementing strategies with child-focused and gender equality lenses. The conduct of CLAC will be guided by UNICEF corporate guidelines, intending to provide an analysis of the below-mentioned major areas of inquiry. However, a final agreement on the areas will be reached at the Inception stage.

CLAC in Albania will uphold the child rights and programmatic lenses to explore CEED issues affecting children in the areas of WASH, nutrition/food security, early childhood development, health, education, child protection, social protection and inclusion, and gender equality. This analysis will also be guided by the positive role boys and girls can play in the CEED agenda and changing the social norms around these. Considering the GoA’s aspiration to join the EU, CLAC will refer to the EU acquis agenda and the financial framework opportunities for Western Balkan countries.

Confirming the strategic importance of CLAC, the expertise of an international consultant is deemed important to lead the efforts, whose roles and responsibilities are described in this Term of References. The expected outcome of the consultancy is the completion of a quality CLAC report, ready to be published. The consultant will be guided and supported by UNICEF staff in Albania to accomplish the tasks. The necessary technical support will be provided to the Consultant also through a national consultant capacity as described in the section of tasks and deliverables below.

The methodology will entail secondary analysis through an extensive desk review of, but not limited to reports, strategies, regulatory framework, UNICEF guidelines, reports, and UNICEF programmatic documents. For the documents that are published only in Albanian, support will be provided by UNICEF Albania to summarize the key information as requested by the consultant. CLAC will rely on interviews with governmental and non-governmental partners, and the consultant will be responsible for providing the guide of questions and performing interviews with the most strategic partners. Other forms of consultation will be informing CLAC, like the discussions and validation workshops with the UNICEF staff and management.

Young people are expected to be an integral part of CLAC. The consultant will conduct a secondary analysis of the documentation of young people’s opinions around CEE issues, spearheaded by UNICEF Albania in the past 2 years. If deemed necessary, the consultant will also develop guiding questions to engage young people on issues of interest for CLAC, not covered up to date by the consultations. CLAC's final report should mainstream to the extent possible young people’s considerations. Young people will be engaged also in the capacity of young researchers, to validate the methodology of CLAC, data collection, and Report. UNICEF will facilitate the collaboration with the consultant of 5-8 young people who are already advocates for CEE issues in Albania.

To ensure the quality of CLAC, review for the inception report and the final report will be undertaken by UNICEF staff (in-country office and regional office), including an external peer reviewer. Only once the deliverables are agreed/approved by UNICEF, the next stage of the process will commence by the Consultant.

How can you make a difference?

The consultant will examine the baseline situation of climate, energy, and environment-related issues affecting children in Albania and will provide actionable recommendations to the Government of Albania and UNICEF, including a child-sensitive harmonization of European Union chapters 14 and 27 and other climate and environmental policies, possibilities for expanding public and private partnerships towards addressing the impact of climate, energy and environment related issues on children and identify adaptation needs.

Specific deliverables, activities and timelines are mentioned below:

Deliverable 1: Implementation plan prepared for the exercise (1-2 pages) outlining steps and timeline.

Specific tasks:

• Interact virtually with UNICEF staff - CLAC manager
• Desk review of the package of materials provided by UNICEF.
• Upgrade the repository of materials with new/additional information; Identify the need for additional materials for desk review; compile an analysis scheme for the materials that are in Albanian language (for UNICEF to follow up)
• Agree with UNICEF on the implementation plan/timeline for the exercise

Timeline: 2 weeks after the start date of the consultancy - Duration: 7 working days

Deliverable 2: Inception Report and PPT prepared.

Specific tasks:

• Interact virtually with UNICEF staff - CLAC manager
• Prepare the analysis of the key stakeholders in Albania (providing ratings on interest, power, position, role, engagement, etc)
• Draft CLAC’s Inception Report (IR)
• Consult IR with young people (advisory board)
• Present the Inception report to UNICEF staff. (PPT)
• IR will be reviewed by UNICEF staff and external peer reviewer. It is expected that up to 3 versions of the IR will be delivered until finalized.

Timeline: 2 months after the starting date of the consultancy - Duration: 15 working days

Deliverable 3: Plan of data collection updated.

Specific tasks:

• Data collection and analysis; Consultant will conduct interviews (online) with stakeholders (not children/young people). He/She will oversee the plan of data collection and analysis that UNICEF will facilitate through the national consultant.
• Interact virtually with UNICEF staff – CLAC manager

Timeline: 4 months after the starting date of the consultancy - Duration: 10 working days

Deliverable 4 - Final report and PPT prepared

Specific tasks

• Draft Final Report (2) to be shared with UNICEF staff and peer reviewer. The consultant is expected to prepare PPT for a validation workshop with UNICEF.
• finalize the report

Timeline: 6 months after the starting date of the consultancy - Duration: 15 working days

Deliverable 5 - Advocacy brief prepared

Specific tasks

• Interact virtually with UNICEF staff-CLAC manager.
• Consultant is expected to prepare an advocacy brief for use with the external publicc

Timeline: one working day

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

• Advanced university degree (Masters) in climate change, environmental science, natural resource management, social and economic development, or related areas.
• At least 8 years' experience/expertise in international development with research and analysis on climate change and environment-related topics and their impact on communities and children. PREFERABLY, author of CLAC with UNICEF.
• Demonstrated experience in child rights programming or any of UNICEF's main areas of work (health, WASH, nutrition, child protection, social policy, education, gender), following a human rights-based approach and gender equality.
• Knowledge of European Union legislation and accession instruments.
• Excellent research and report writing skills required with proven experience of analyzing as specified in the TOR.
• Excellent skills in working with the team.
• Fluency in English

If any question related to the TOR for this assignment, please reach HR unit in UNICEF Albania office at epernaska@unicef.org

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.