National expert on local governance (part time, up to 150 days during Feb-Dec 2024)

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.

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For every child, opportunities.

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UNICEF’s Country Programme for 2023-2027 emphasizes the importance of sub-national partnerships for children in Romania to support the enabling environment for progressive realization of children’s rights. Service delivery (mainly for the ongoing Ukraine emergency response), modelling the access to integrated basic and specialized services, promoting quality inclusive education and transition from lower to upper secondary education, piloting of the Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI), including child participation, planning, and budgeting have been UNICEF’s principal intervention areas at the sub-national level during the last years. UNICEF and local partners use the CFCI to support evidence-based and participatory planning and budgeting for children. UNICEF started implementing the CFCI in Romania in June 2021 and currently covers Brasov, Bacau and Moinesti municipalities (urban) and Colonesti and Corbasca communes in Bacau County (rural). Cooperation on CFCI has also started in Bucharest (December 2022) and Deva (August 2021) municipalities. After the coordination and child participation platforms for CFCI were established in five target municipalities, the actual evidence generation on children has started in 2023 in six localities mentioned above. The child rights situation analyses will be finalized before the end of 2023 and will inform the process of developing Local Action Plans for children. Local governments will lead the budgeting, implementation, and monitoring of the Action Plans. UNICEF, in close collaboration with national level institutions, will continue providing technical support to local governments in 2024 to ensure that the local action plans are implemented and address the needs of all children, including those who live in most disadvantaged families. Besides acting within the cooperation framework on CFCI, UNICEF will expand its support to local councils and municipalities/communes in other locations to promote sustainable solutions for needs-based and integrated service provision to all children.

UNICEF’s approach to sub-national programming in Romania covers the following key areas of interventions: a) strengthening the capacities of local actors for generation and use of age-disaggregated and gender sensitive data on children; b) facilitating risk-informed and child responsive planning, budgeting, and monitoring; c) community empowerment and promoting meaningful child participation and d) expanding access to services to all children.

UNICEF Romania seeks for support of a national local governance expert, throughout 2024, with the aim to support the office in implementation and advancement of its sub-national partnerships for children, in selected localities, through a remote and in-person technical assistance.

The national expert will work under the supervision of the Social Policy Specialist and in close collaboration with UNICEF staff members from all UNICEF sections. He/she is expected to fulfil the following key tasks and responsibilities:

- Support the operation of the CFCI coordination mechanisms established at the local and national level (Local Coordination Unit, Local Steering Committee, National Coordination Body) in close cooperation with local and national level institutions.

- Support local governments in undertaking child rights situation analyses for children and provide technical assistance throughout the process, from the design to implementation and reporting phases.

- Support local governments in the development of local action plans for children and provide technical advice on the scope of the Action Plans and facilitate the public consultation processes.

- Contribute to local level capacity development in financing for children through resource mobilization covering external non-reimbursable funds, national/county/local budgets, and private sector contributions with support from other experts and UNICEF teams.

- Support local governments in establishing and maintaining the monitoring and reporting processes for the local action plans for children.

- Support local governments in systematic involvement of children in decision making processes and in maintaining the operation of children’s local councils.

- Support local governments in reflecting the priorities of the National Strategy on the Promotion and Protection of Children’s Rights 2023-2027 and the EU Child Guarantee National Action Plan in local action plans.

- When necessary, provide support to UNICEF Romania in working with non-CFCI local territorial and administrative units (TAU) to advance the local level decision making for children.

Geographical coverage of the assignment: Brasov, Bacau and Moinesti municipalities and Colonesti and Corbasca communes in Bacau County, Bucharest, Deva and other locations as decided by UNICEF in Romania.

Tasks/Milestone:

Deliverables/Outputs:

Timeline

Support the operation of the CFCI coordination mechanisms established at the local and national level (Local Coordination Unit, Local Steering Committee, National Coordination Body) in close cooperation with local and national level institutions.

CFCI coordination mechanisms are operational, the regular meetings are organized and documented.

21 days

Support local governments in undertaking child rights situation analyses and provide technical assistance throughout the process, from the design to implementation and reporting phases.

Situation analyses reports are available minimum in two TAUs.

17 days

Support local governments in the development of local action plans for children and provide technical advice on the scope of the Action Plans and facilitate the public consultation process.

Action Plans are developed and minimum in two TAUs

16 days

Contribute to local level capacity development in financing for children through resource mobilization covering external non-reimbursable funds, national/county/local budgets, and private sector contributions with support from other experts and UNICEF teams.

Action Plans in minimum two TAUs are budgeted

16 days

Support local governments in establishing and maintaining the monitoring and reporting processes for the local action plans.

Local level monitoring processes for Action Plans are established by local governments and the monitoring reports are available minimum in seven TAUs.

28 days

Support local governments in systematic involvement of children in decision making processes and in establishing/maintaining the operation of children’s local councils.

Children’s Local Councils are officially recognized through Local Councils Decisions as consultative structures and systematically participate in decisions making at local level, minimum in two municipalities.

Children’s Local Councils are operational in five municipalities.

21 days

Support local governments in reflecting the priorities of the National Strategy on the Promotion and Protection of Children’s Rights 2023-2027 and the EU Child Guarantee National Action Plan in local action plans for children.

Local Action Plans for children reflect the priorities of the national level documents, minimum in 7 TAUs

21 days

When necessary, provide support to local governments in incorporating children’s priorities into existing local development strategies.

Selected local development strategies reflect children’s priorities.

5 days

Provide support to UNICEF Romania in working with non-CFCI local territorial and administrative units (TAU) to advance the local level decision making for children.

Minimum one non-CFCI municipality receives support to advance local level decision making for children

5 days

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

• Advanced university (Masters) degree in public administration, political science, sociology, social protection, education, social sciences and development sciences, or other relevant technical fields
• Minimum 5 years of professional experience of working with local and national governments;
• Experience of working or cooperation with local and national level state institutions in Romania;
• Profound understanding of national and local level governance system and the planning and budgeting process in Romania;
• Experience in managing research/studies, data collection and analyses;
• Excellent organisational and analytical skills;
• Computer skills, including Internet navigation and various office applications;
• Relevant experience in similar activities, preferably with UNICEF, other UN agencies or development will be considered as an asset;
• Excellent knowledge of written and spoken Romanian. Knowledge of English language is 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.

Application procedure:

The application will be made in the dedicated UNICEF platform and it must include:

1. An updated CV focused on the skills and experience matching those requested by the current consultancy.
2. Financial Offer should indicate the GROSS amount in RON per day as per the attached template Financial Offer_local governance expert.xlsx.

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.