Review of emerging and successful programming Social and Behaviour Change in Education Consultant, Remote, 2 months - Req

Consultant Teaching & Training Programme & Policy

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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, hope

Vacancy Announcement: Consultant

Consultancy Title: Review of emerging and successful programming Social and Behaviour Change in Education Consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station: Education Section, Programme Group, New York HQ

Duration: 10 June 2023 to 1 August 2023 – Remote/Home Based

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. Over 75 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

The purpose of the assignment is to advance UNICEFs work on SBC in Education by collecting and analysing information on existing and successful/promising knowledge and programming in this area of work and identify gaps and challenges as well as opportunities for enhancing results across goal areas capitalizing on the role of education.

Scope of Work:

1. Background

Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to address behaviors in and across sectors to make societies more inclusive, equitable and peaceful. Enabling education and learning for all children is a key corporate result for UNICEF, however SBC has thus far been under-utilized to reach this goal.

In 2016 UNICEF commissioned a global evidence review of C4D in Education to identify, promote and more systematically support ways in which C4D can move from the margins of the education sector to become a central pillar in its programming efforts. The evidence-review highlighted that C4D successes in the education sector were largely overlooked in comparison to other sectors such as health and protection where social and behavior change has increasingly become an integral component of sectoral strategies to address social and behavioral drivers to achieve programmatic goals.

In 2020 UNICEF launched an organizational change management process to define the future of the Social and Behavior Change function within the organization resulting in a transition from C4D to SBC and from focusing mostly on communication towards a focus on leveraging social and behavior change as a cross-cutting programme strategy in the organisation. SBC analyses and addresses the cognitive, social and structural determinants of individual practices and societal changes in both development and humanitarian contexts.

Building on the above developments, UNICEF is currently accelerating action to advance SBC in Education to reach untapped potential in addressing the learning crisis and enhancing learning outcomes for children. This means that UNICEF will be enhancing the use of SBC in identifying and addressing education challenges both from the demand and supply side and applying SBC to address social and environmental challenges, barriers, and drivers of exclusion that cause distortion of education outcomes. As set out in UNICEFs Education Strategy for 2019-2030 education systems will be supported to further promote and realise their potential as a tool for transforming societies and economies – challenging, rather than replicating, harmful gender and social norms. Furthermore, UNICEF will maximise on education’s potential to be gender transformative and improve equitable outcomes for girls. This will include leveraging the role of education to achieve results in other sectors including child protection and health that have traditionally been dealing with social and gender norms.

Given the time since the last evidence review and with the shift in programme strategy towards SBC, an updated review of evidence, gaps, and opportunities is needed to support building a more systematic approach to SBC in education in UNICEF. The use and institutionalisation of impactful knowledge products, evidence generated, lessons learnt and best practices regarding SBC in Education will be key to advance and shape the direction of UNICEFs policy formulation, advocacy, resources, mobilization and attribution, as well as planning and design of effective strategies and programmes to enhance education outcomes for every child.

2. Objective, purpose and expected result

The purpose of this contract is to develop a high-quality literature review combined with key informant interviews to collect information and support the UNICEF Education and SBC teams in mapping and analysing existing knowledge and promising/successful programming on SBC in education. The consultant will assist in the compilation and consolidation of existing evidence, interventions, lessons learned, best practices, and gaps and opportunities on SBC in education at country, regional and global level in humanitarian and development responses, within and beyond UNICEF.

Objectives

1. To identify, review and compile a selection of compelling evidence (using strong evaluation and assessment approaches) on SBC in education approaches and interventions including impact of programming across SDG 4, 5 and 16. Strong evidence around what doesn’t work (or what is still not known) is also of interest. In particular, leveraging of SBC approaches to address social and behavioral drivers and barriers to learning outcomes, access, quality, gender equality, and inclusive education should be searched for and included.
2. To generate a high-quality summary document of identified evidence, gaps, opportunities, best practices and challenges in the SBC and Education field along with recommendations for how to advance and leverage SBC for better education outcomes. The deliverable should target technical level specialists and managers, include an overview of identified relevant literature, and build on this evidence to develop a separate brief answering the following questions:

• What are effective SBC approaches to advance the achievement of SDG 4 (particular focus on quality, equitable, safe and inclusive education)
• How can SBC in education support in identifying and addressing underlying social and behavioral drivers that constitute barriers of children’s access to education and learning across and intersectional lens in the context of detrimental practices and behaviors such as violence, disability, stigma, teacher bias, child marriage, teenage pregnancies, discrimination, stereotyping

3. Methodology and Technical approach

The consultant is expected to leverage the existing mappings of evidence and/or the work that communities of practice have already conducted on identifying, listing, and compiling knowledge and compelling examples of programmes and interventions.

Examples of SBC repositories include:

Database of the Global Alliance for SBC; Advancing Learning and Innovation on Gender Norms (ALiGN platform) and the Social Norms Atlas, the evidence maps on Social, Behavioural and Community Engagement Interventions from EiE; the resources made available by initiatives such as Behavior Change Impact, The Compass for SBC, The Cochrane Collaboration, the Campbell Collaboration; the publications on platforms such as the Communication Initiative Network; Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE), International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO), and studies identified in a recently conducted SBC Global Evidence Impact review by UNICEF.

Examples of education repositories include:

IIEP-UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, World Bank Open Knowledge Repository (OKR) on Education, Journal of Global Education and Research, publications on platforms such as Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies, Safe to Learn.

Additionally, the consultant should identify and analyse published and unpublished peer-reviewed studies, books, discussion papers, academic articles, and project reports published between 2010 and 2023. In addition, the review should identify and include in the analysis case studies and best practices based on programmatic evidence from international, national and local organisations including UN organisations, bilateral and multi-lateral donors, non-government organisations and private organisations including private foundations.

The review should pay particular attention to key words around 5 different clusters:

1. Education Concepts: Including but not limited to education access, education inclusion, education equity, inclusive education, education quality, along with specific aspects such as low levels of learning outcomes and access and retention issues covering, enrollment, retention, re-entry, attendance, completion, and transition.
2. SBC approaches: Including but not limited to social drivers, behavioral drivers, social norms, gender norms, gender transformative education, nudges, human centered design, co-creation, participatory approaches, behavioral insights, behavioral science, social science, positive deviant research, accountability, community engagement/participation, communication for development, social change, social cohesion, social mobilisation, participatory action research.
3. Behavioral Drivers Model (BDM) concepts (including both level 1 and 2 drivers): Psychological factors: Cognitive biases, interest, attitudes, self-efficacy, intent, limited rationality. Sociological factors: Social influence, community dynamic, meta-norms. Environmental factors: Communication environment, emerging alternatives, governing entities, structural barriers
4. Socio-ecological model (SEM) Individual-, inter-personal-, family-, community-, institutional-, and policy/systems level. : The individual level may be associated with knowledge, attitudes, self-efficacy, while the community level may be associated with social practices/behaviors, social beliefs, social and gender norms, collective efficacy, the institutional level with physical infrastructure of local school districts, resource management, safety, teachers’ capacity and quality, and communication with parents/communities, and the policy level with educational policy, educational system, human resources, management, and teachers.
5. Intersectionality and marginalization: Applying an intersectional lens recognizing the interplay that may occur between elements such as race, gender, disability, nationality, class, religion, sexual orientation in the marginalization of individuals and groups, in particular in the context of detrimental practices and behaviors such as violence, disability stigma, teacher bias, child marriage, discrimination stereotyping

By applying the BDM and SEM frameworks described above, the review should clearly unpack and demonstrate how SBC strategies are being applied in homes, schools, communities and education systems across the globe to overcome social and behavioural barriers in pursuit of inclusive and quality education goals.

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

1. Approved workplan and Methodology to conduct the analysis:

• Develop a methodology for review and clear criteria for selection of best pieces of evidence
• Define the boundaries of what is to be considered SBC programming and what is to be included in the products
• Develop interview questions for KIIs and identify informants

By June 15, 2023

2. Bibliography/data base of evidence selected

Interviews with key informants

Scoping review report

Summary of key findings and gaps in the desk review and draft evidence selected

• Conduct a scoping review, to identify 'what is out there' on SBC in Education and map the size and nature of existing evidence and literature
• Conduct consultations with relevant UNICEF staff at HQ, RO and CO level, as needed throughout the process

By June 30, 2023

3. Draft quality analysis report ready for feedback

Draft briefs (6) on SBC in Education ready for feedback

• Identify key evidence and programmatic interventions worth putting forward in the knowledge products
• Suggest a way to organize, synthetize and present the findings, according to the evidence available
• Produce at least 6 briefs (3-4 pagers covering ECD and ECE, Primary, Secondary, Education in Emergencies, Equity and Inclusion and Distance Learning) with illustrations / data visualization and creative layout illustrating how SBC can support education outcomes based on the evidence identified

By July 15, 2023

4. 7 (seven) Final Knowledge products: 6 (six) briefs and 1 (one) Qualitative Analysis report

• Align the briefs with ongoing development of the SBC value proposition on ‘’how can SBC contribute to results in and beyond education?”
• Develop a brief (max 10-12 pages) qualitative analysis report articulating the results of the review and identifying opportunities and synergies for strengthened cross-sectoral collaboration between SBC and Education and other sectors as relevant, and how this relates to future capacity building approaches

By August 1, 2023

Travel is not required.

Qualifications

(1) Education

• Minimum Master’s degree in sociology, social science, behavioral science, psychology, anthropology, pedagogy, education, international development, and/or other relevant field preferably with expertise in education and social and behavior change

(2) Work experience

• A minimum of eight (8) years professional experience in development and/or humanitarian fields, programming and/or emergency management at national and international levels.
• Direct field experience in applying SBC approaches to education is a strong advantage.
• Knowledge of SBC approaches in education, education systems strengthening, and education sector planning is an advantage.
• Demonstrable skills in mapping, theoretical analysis, research and data analysis.
• Demonstrated experience in developing presentations, dash boards and in synthesizing and presenting findings from different sources for different audiences.
• Experience with qualitative and/or quantitative data collection and analysis.
• Experience in working with inclusive education across intersectional areas such as gender, race, disability, refugee status and an understanding of gender inequality and the role of gender transformative education is an asset.

(3) Technical skills

• An innovative, creative and problem-solving mindset, as well as excellent written, analytical, and verbal communication skills
• Ability to work flexibly, effectively, and independently within a team
• Ability to work under pressure to meet tight deadlines
• A passion for social and behavioral sciences and data-driven programming to achieve education results for children
• Fluency in English is required. Fluency in any other UN language is an asset.

(4) Competencies

• Excellent interpersonal skills and demonstrated experience working in a multicultural environment.
• Passion and demonstrated commitment to UNICEF’s mission and core values

Requirements:

• Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and provide Personal History Form (P11)
• Upload copy of academic credentials

• Financial proposal that will include:

• All-inclusive (lump sum) costs for the deliverables noted above.

• Travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR
• Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.

• Indicate your availability

• Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

• At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

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:

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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Added 1 year ago - Updated 11 months ago - Source: unicef.org