UNICEF Zimbabwe is inviting applications for an individual consultant to conduct a review of the UNICEF Zimbabwe bulk payment modalities (Open to Zimbabwean nationals only)
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UNICEF has been operating in Zimbabwe since 1982. We are a team of passionate professionals committed to the protection and fulfillment of children’s rights.
The current UNICEF-Government of Zimbabwe Country Programme of Cooperation (2016-2020, extended to 2021) aims to support Zimbabwe to sustain and build upon the gains achieved for children during the 2012-2015 Country Programme of Cooperation. The programme focuses on improving the quality of social services, increasing access to services, and helping to build national and sub-national capacities to provide low-cost, high-impact interventions for all children, especially the most vulnerable.
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UNICEF Zimbabwe is seeking to hire an innovative individual on consultancy basis to conduct a review of the UNICEF Zimbabwe bulk payment modalities.
Consultancy Terms of Reference
Section
Planning Monitoring & Evaluation (PME)
Purpose
Review of the UNICEF Zimbabwe bulk payment modalities
Location
Harare based
Duration
35 working days
Start and end dates
10 January 2022 to 28 February 2022
Reporting to
Chief Planning Monitoring and Evaluation
Background
Over the years the Zimbabwe Country Office (ZCO) has implemented programmes that require bulk cash transfers across the sectors targeted at households, frontline workers, and institutions. ZCO pays about $35.5 million per year in cash transfers to over 40,000 beneficiaries across the four programmes. The office implements a range of payment modalities that allows the office to have the needed agility to respond to frequent changes in the operational environment.
Currently UNICEF is managing four bulk payments under the health section where monthly payments amounting to $14 are paid to 15,000 village health workers (VHWs) in 60 districts in 10 provinces. UNICEF is also making bulk cash payments under the Results Based Financing programme where about $3 million is transferred every quarter to Primary Health Care Facilities and District Health Executives in 42 districts and (across 960 Health Facilities). Bulk cash payments are also used to transfer cash to 6,000 schools benefitting from the school improvement grants every payment cycle. Under the Emergency Social Cash Transfer (ESCT), more than 9,700 households receive an average of $43 a month. This programme will be expanded in 2022 to five more districts with a target of 18,000 new households. UNICEF also implemented the Harmonised Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) programme. Under WASH, UNICEF supported activities relating to the establishment of the Rural WASH Information Management System which involved direct transfers to government workers participating in the process through Crown Agents.
Section
Total amount transferred
Payment modality
Type of recipients
Number of recipients
Health
USD 2,500,000 / Annum
Charges: USD 0.90 per transaction and USD 1 quarterly for Low cost accounts maintenance (charged directly on beneficiary account) and 8% of Cash disbursed for the CIT
Initially paid through mobile money transfer (Ecocash) until 2019. Moved to Low Cost bank accounts with four banks and a small portion paid through CIT due to restrictive donor conditions
Village Health workers
15,000
Health
USD3,000,000 per quarter 12 million per year
521,000.00/ quarter (Management fees and operational costs)
Advance Payment to third party Contractor within the Bank Guarantee value
Disbursement to facilities after verification of KPIs
Facilities via Third party Contractor
Child protection
USD 2,500, 000/ quarter and 10,million per year
Cash disbursements to Beneficiaries in cash
Households
Education
USD10,000,000 / annum
Charges of USD 0.90/ transaction
Direct Payment to Schools based on request from MoPSE
Schools
6,000
Emergency Social Transfer
$3.5 million per year (Each household gets between $12-$48) a $15 disability top-up made. Transaction costs of about 4.75% and no charges to recipients.
Mobile Remittance through Mukuru
Households
9,700 (plan to expand this to 18,000 new beneficiaries
WASH
USD665,000 [mainly payments to government stakeholders]
Funds managed by Crowne Agents which used various payment platforms – ECOCASH and Bank transfers (RTGs and Nostro)
Mainly Government extension workers
450
Goals and Objectives
The purpose of this review is to review the approaches used by UNICEF Zimbabwe to make cash payments to beneficiaries, frontline workers and institutions and identify the best approach to be used and to learn lessons from the experiences. The information will be used to design the best approaches that will provide the best value for money. The objectives of the review are to;
1. Review the bulk payments methods used by UNICEF Zimbabwe to understand their effectiveness and efficiency.
2. Review the risk identification, monitoring and management measures implemented under each modality and assess their effectiveness in a fluid context of changing monetary policy, including the sustainability and applicability of the modality to future situations
3. Provide a comparative analysis of the bulk cash payment modalities used by the ZCO and come up with a set of recommended modalities.
4. Draw lessons learnt from the implementation.
5. Recommend actions to be taken in designing effective and efficient payment methodologies.
The review will be conducted at the end of the 2016 to 2021 country programme (CP) and will be used to inform the planning for the 2022 to 2026 new CP for Zimbabwe. This will enable the CP to use the lessons from the previous CP to plan for the bulk cash payment modalities to be used in the new CP.
The review will respond to the following questions:
Relevance:
a. What cash transfer modalities were implemented and to what extent were these relevant to the prevailing context? How adaptive were the cash transfer methodologies to the changing country context? Are there some modalities suitable for development and humanitarian situations more than others?
b. How were the cash transfer modalities for each programme selected? Was it based on evidence or a selection process? Was any comparative analysis done?
c. What methods and approaches did each cash transfer approach use to ensure that it reaches its intended targets?
d. To what extent were the cash transfer modalities appropriate to the context and in line with the recipients needs and requirements?
e. How did the cash transfer modalities take care of the needs of the men, women, boys and girls? What methods were implemented to ensure that the cash transfer modality “left no one behind”?
Coherence:
a. To what extent were the cash transfer modalities linked to other services? What opportunities for collaboration and linkages did they maximize? What else could have been done to improve the linkages?
Effectiveness:
a. To what extent did the cash transfer modalities meet their objectives?
b. What were the major factors that influenced the above result?
c. To what extent were the deliveries timely?
d. Which modalities were the most effective? Which modalities were less effective? What can be done to improve the effectiveness of each modality?
Efficiency:
a. How efficient were the selected modalities? What are the transaction costs for each chosen modality (proportion of actual cash transferred against admin costs)? Were some modalities more efficient than others, how and why was this so? What are the recommended modalities that the ZCO can continue implementing and why?
b. What is the total cost of each modality selected (including the cost of management / risk mitigation) against the value transferred to the recipient? i.e., the costs of management / risk mitigation as well as admin costs.
c. What measures can be put in place to improve the efficiency of each modality?
Risk Management:
a. What risks were associated with each of the transfer modality (categorize the identified risks)? How were these risks identified, monitored, and managed?
b. What risk management tools were effective in managing the identified risks?
c. To what extent did the government regulations impact the modalities available for CT and what were the overall risks associated with each?
Lessons learnt
a. What challenges were faced in implementing each modality and how were these resolved?
b. What lessons can we draw from the implementation of the various modalities?
c. How can these lessons be used to improve future programming?
Review Approach and Methods
This section indicates a possible approach, methods, and processes for the review. Methodological rigour will be given significant consideration in the assessment of proposals. Hence bidders are invited to interrogate the approach and methodology proffered in the ToR and improve on it or propose an approach they deem more appropriate. The review will use a mixed methods approach to respond to meet the objectives and respond to the review questions. The methodological approach will include both primary and secondary data collection methods which include but not limited to desk reviews, key informant interviews, partner online surveys and if possible consult with the beneficiaries of the programmes. The full methodology will be signed off by the Technical Research and Evaluation reference Group (TREG) at the inception stage summarized in a methodology matrix. Summary of the methods includes;
Desk review-The methodology will include a review of the programme documents that include but not limited to project documents, situational analysis, donor reports, evaluation reports and other relevant documents. The desk review will contribute to the development of the inception report which includes the detailed methodology matrix.
Key informant interviews (KII)-KIIs will be conducted to collect qualitative data from the stakeholders that includes donors, implementing partners, cash transfer agents, project staff, other UN agencies and government stakeholders. The full list of the KII will be identified at the inception stage.
Partner online surveys-an online survey will be administered to partners who implemented the cash transfer programmes to get more quantitative details on the dynamics of the programme. To cut the costs for this survey, the approach will use online surveys which will be able to reach to more partners in an inexpensive way.
Focus group discussions-Based on the findings at the inception stage, the review can conduct beneficiary focus group discussions to get the views of the beneficiaries on the various cash transfer modalities. Views of the various groups that include the boys, girls, women, men, the elderly and people living with disabilities will be collected through this method where possible.
Beneficiary surveys
The review should also consider the use of beneficiary surveys which will be used to collect quantitative data from the respondents.
Where sampling is required, the methods should be inclusive to allow all the relevant stakeholder views and perceptions to be included. The analysis should be able to provide the perspective from the rural/urban dichotomy, men and women, boys and girls, young and old as well as the perspectives from the various types of organisations like the national, international and government agencies.
Consultancy Tasks and Deliverables
Tasks/Milestone:
Deliverables/Outputs:
Timeline
Inception phase (30%)
•Preparation of draft inception report (see Annex 2 for the indicative table of contents) and data collection tools
•Engagement with stakeholders on inception report
•Finalization of inception report
Inception report and presentation signed off.
7 days
Data collection and draft report (30%)
Draft report submitted and preliminary findings presented.
14 days
Final phase (40%)
Finalizing review report and synopsis report;
Final PowerPoint presentation is prepared and shared
Final report accepted
Final synopsis report
Final PowerPoint accepted and presentation made
14 days
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
- An Advanced University Degree (Masters or higher) from a recognized academic institution in one or more of the following: Social sciences, statistics, social protection, development, monitoring and evaluation, finance and administration or other relevant area;
- Minimum of eight years of experience in conducting similar or related strategic programme evaluations or evaluative reviews, including proven track record of evaluation or evaluative review of similar large multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder country programmes supported by UN or UNICEF;
- Demonstrated expertise in evaluating cash transfer programmes and modalities;
- Knowledge of programming theories and strategies employed in each of the programme outcome components;
- Experience in a Middle/Upper Income Country in Africa;
- Excellent command of English, with a proven ability to prepare high-quality reports;
- Strong quantitative and qualitative analytical skills;
- Experience in conducting evaluations and reviews for social protection programmes for other development organizations, UN and UNICEF;
- Experience in conducting reviews for UN and other development agencies related to other humanitarian and development aspects like child rights and participation, equity, gender equality, health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, social policy, child protection, education, adolescent development and participation, early childhood development, C4D/SBCC/Community engagement, local government systems strengthening;
- Understanding of UNICEF programme areas.
If interested and available to undertake the consultancy, please submit your application online and attach the required documents including the technical and an all-inclusive financial proposal.
For every Child, you demonstrate…
UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.
View our competency framework at
UNICEF Competency Framework - HomePage (sharepoint.com)
UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.
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.
Added 2 years ago
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Updated 2 years ago
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Source:
unicef.org
