National SBC Consultant- Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) ; SBC; Dhaka (Only for Bangladeshi)

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.

Background:

UNICEF Bangladesh has adopted an inclusive approach in the new country program (2022 – 2026) to support the overall well-being of children and adolescents through integrated program interventions. There is an emerging convergence of national and sub-national political will and determination at the highest levels to keep children free from the constraints of harmful practices and negative social norms. In this regard, UNICEF has been supporting the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) through different Ministries and Departments to coordinate the Social & Behavioural Change (SBC) interventions for a range of audiences through evidence generation, capacity development, community engagement, and multimedia campaign. As an integral part of these approaches, capacity development and engagement of religious leaders at the community level are considered effective programmatic interventions to raise awareness and facilitate the ending of harmful childcare-related norms and practices.

Building from past, smaller-scale and ad-hoc engagements over several years, in 2017 Islamic Foundation (IF), the Muslim Religious Wings under the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA), the Government of Bangladesh, and UNICEF launched a strategic long-term partnership for systematic, at-scale and sustained engagement of Islamic leaders across the country. IF has a well-established administrative structure at the national and sub-national levels working directly with National level Islamic Scholars and authoritative institutions 300,000 regular Zumma and Waktia mosque Committees, local-level religious leaders, and Imams nationwide. Combined with UNICEF’s national and sub-national field presence, the collaboration aims to deepen engagement with communities across all 64 districts of the country with a focus on hard-to-reach families, communities, and the media-dark areas.

The goal of the UNICEF partnership with IF is to create an enabling environment for household and community-level changes in social norms, behaviors, and practices through four areas of joint action: i) strengthening of curriculum and learning materials; ii) capacity-building of imams and female mosque-based pre-primary education teachers on interpersonal communication; iii) community mobilization on health and well-being practices; and iv) joint research, publications, and evidence-generation. As the continuation of high-level advocacy, consultation meetings, and joint reviews spread over eighteen months, an MoU was created between UNICEF and IFB in 2017. This informed a joint work plan which was initiated and is being jointly implemented and monitored by both organizations. This design highlights insights, lessons learned, and future directions from the establishment and coordination of this unique collaboration, which is becoming a recognized institutional platform for engaging male and female Islamic leaders at scale on children’s and women’s issues in the country.

Under this signed MOU, UNICEF, and IF are working together by signing RWP in each year. Under the present nationwide partnership, IFB and UNICEF have undertaken joint activities that include the launch of baseline and midline research among imams; the creation of an SBCC-training package; ToT of Imams and mosque-based female teachers; and cascade to 10,000 Imams and 12,000 mosque-based teachers across 16 districts who are mobilizing communities on key household-practices. Khutba guidelines have been developed aligned to Qur’an and Hadiths for inclusion in the weekly Jummah prayer and an entertainment-education package for mosque-based pre-primary education is being implemented in 12,000 mosques reaching 360,000 children under 6-years.

As a result of violence in Myanmar, Bangladesh is hosting around 960,000 Rohingya refugees in different camps in Cox’s Bazar and its border areas with Myanmar. Islam is the main religion of the Rohingya people. Based on the different study findings (Ripoli et al, 2019) reveals that religion plays an important role in Rohingya communities with the availability of many Mosques and Madrashas/Maktab viz. religious schools in the camps. In view of the acute need for dissemination of tailor-made, context-specific life-saving information and messages in the camp locations to lessen the risk of conflict, violence, and rumor, and promote positive behavior and practices in the camps, Imams and other religious leaders have played significant roles in facilitating engagement with and mobilization of Rohingya communities. To make these engagements systematic, UNICEF and Islamic Foundation (IFB) initiated and developed a comprehensive work plan in line with the UNICEF-IFB national partnership towards positive social and behavioral change and there is a need for technical support to IF facilitate the implementation of the plan.

There is a need for timely UNICEF technical input and day-to-day intensive support for the implementation, monitoring, and reporting of the UNICEF/IF RWP activities both in the development context and for the Rohingya SBC response, This TOR has been developed to hire a national SBC consultant to provide the required technical support to Ministry of Religious Affairs (MoRA) and Islamic Foundation.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

The key purposes of this assignment are the following:

1. To provide technical support to IF to enhance the capacity of the IF team on SBC as per the joint work plan in collaboration with the UNICEF Dhaka office, CxB SBC team, other faith-based organizations, and other field offices.
2. To provide technical and operational support to IF for the implementation of community engagement interventions and reporting as per the joint work plan in collaboration with the UNICEF Dhaka office, CxB SBC team, and other field offices and for the revision/development of SBC materials and documents.
3. Provide technical support to IF and SBC Cox’s Bazar team for strategic involvement of Imams/religious leaders in host and Rohingya communities to promote key lifesaving behavior through community engagement and social mobilization.
4. To provide technical and operational support to the SBC Section to liaise with IFB/MoRA to expand the program with other faith-based organizations.

For major tasks and assignments, please see the attached TOR.

Brief TOR_SBC.pdf

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Social or Behavioural Science/ Public Health/ Communication.
• A minimum of [5 years] of progressively responsible work experience in community engagement, strategic communication planning, and implementation for behavioral and social change interventions and research.
• Technical knowledge and experience of working experience with religious leaders in social development will be an added advantage.
• A track record of working with the UN, Government organizations, religious ministries, and in urban will be an added advantage.
• Experience and skills in capacity building, facilitation, and negotiation
• Good skills in both oral and written English and Bangla with strong interpersonal and presentation skills
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergencies is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, or Spanish) or a local 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.

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 a reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterward in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct 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 regulations 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 for ensuring 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, program 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.