Job Details:
- Organization: UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund
- Location: Kabul
- Grade: Consultancy – Consultant – Contractors Agreement
- Occupational Groups:
- Social Affairs
- Statistics
- Women’s Empowerment and Gender Mainstreaming
- Information Technology and Computer Science
- Children’s rights (health and protection)
- Cash-Based Interventions
- Closing Date: 2024-01-16
Purpose of Activity/Assignment: The main goal of the consultancy is to provide technical support and assistance for an initiative “Positive Change through Cash Transfer” as part of the Mother and Child Cash Transfer (MCCT) Programme. The key objective will include designing SBC / behavioral insight tools for monitoring, reporting, and evaluating MCCT program implementation. The consultant will also coordinate with key stakeholders and partners involved in developing and implementing SBC in the MCCT strategy to ensure the SBC tools are timely applied and adjusted to track progress and document good practices during the rolling out of the strategy.
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, Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbkJiMmvKqk
How can you make a difference?
Scope of Work:
The Social and Behaviour Change and Community Engagement interventions will support the Mother and Child Cash Transfer program to involve and inform the communities and the rights-holders about the cash transfer program at the earliest stage possible. It is essential to engage communities right from the onset of the program implementation that will empower them to be part of the process, feel ownership, and ensure that the community members are engaged, consulted and their concerns are heard, and questions are answered. An effective SBC & CE strategy helps to counter any local-level politicization or misunderstanding of the program among the general population and reduces the susceptibility of beneficiaries to exploitation and abuse.
UNICEF aims to meaningfully engage and empower communities and build the capacity of partners in effectively delivering SBC interventions under the MCCT program focused on:
- Research, evaluation, and broader evidence generation and learning agenda to systematically capture outcomes for women and children, and the effectiveness of program design features, implementation processes, and operational mechanisms to serve as the basis for developing a nascent social protection system in Afghanistan.
The overall objectives of SBC in MCCT will aim to:
- Generate evidence for improving knowledge, influencing positive behavioral change, and documenting good practices in relation to health-seeking behavior and good maternal and child health practices.
To ensure the effective implementation of SBC in the MCCT Strategy, the UNICEF Afghanistan Country office is seeking an individual consultancy to support in designing behavioral insights tools for the MCCT evaluation exercise and for community engagement mechanisms to contribute to achieving impactful results for MCCT through strengthening behavioral insights and social data management and analysis, evidence generation, and knowledge management systems.
Responsibilities:
The Consultant will be supervised by and report to the SBC Manager, with regular meetings with the Social Policy section and another team member on progress status and next steps, and ad hoc communications and meetings if/as needed. The consultant will work closely with the UNICEF Afghanistan Country Office through the SBC Section and in close collaboration with the Social Policy team.
Main tasks and responsibilities include three key pillars for implementing SBC in the MCCT Strategy:
Generating Evidence and Knowledge Management:
- Support in incorporating behavioral insights (BI) and social data in the MCCT evaluation for tracking and adjusting the change strategies and to amplify good practices for creating a conducive environment for the well-being of children and their families through humanitarian economic opportunities.
- Designing SBC tools for conducting assessments and evaluations to track and set up base-/mid-/end-lines using a behavioral insights approach to identify key behavioral determinants, motivational drivers, barriers, social structures and norms, social networks, and their communication, and traditions that sustained current behaviors within MCCT behavioral priorities.
- Ensure SBC elements are built on scientific theories and incorporated/embedded in the overall MCCT evaluation with clear, measurable indicators and outcomes for the SBC components.
- Facilitate the documentation of good practice and lessons learned for SBC in the MCCT program as appropriate to Afghanistan’s context, and knowledge management networks, including technical working groups, and technical discussions at national, regional, and global platforms, as needed.
Monitoring Tools for Community Engagement and Feedback Mechanism:
- Provide recommendations for implementation and adjusting based on existing and/or new BI and social data to program for more effective SBC & CE interventions.
- Support alignment of the planned SBC/Community engagement interventions with the intended project outcomes and evaluation methods.
- Monitor the implementation of the project and ensure SBC and program teams (and partners/service providers) are timely informed on how to use social data for reporting and adjusting if needed, SBC interventions.
- Share information and provide technical advice to the program teams and partners on specific tools and mechanisms designed to address concerns and feedback from communities, stakeholders, and the public.
Building the capacity:
- Advise teams and partners on incorporating and/or translating behavioral insights and social data tools into training and orientation packages to ensure an evidence-based approach is applied for the effective engagement of participants groups and community members.
- Train partners on proper M&E for the SBC components.
Knowledge Management and Documentation:
- Ensure the process of implementation of the SBC in MCCT Strategy Implementation focused on BI and SD best practices is documented for wider dissemination and exchange of knowledge.
| Tasks/Milestone | Deliverables/Outputs | Timeline |
|
| First Quarter (February to March) starting from the day of signing the contract. The estimated number of working days is 60 days. |
Monitoring Tools for Community Engagement and Feedback Collection (CEFC) Mechanisms
|
| First month of the assignment up to the last month of the assignment. (February to July)
The estimated number of working days is 60 days. |
Building the capacity
|
| During the second and third quarters of the assignment (April to July). The estimated number of working days is 30 days. |
Knowledge Management and Documentation
|
| During the last months of the assignment. (July)
Estimated number of working days is 30 days |
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
- An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Social Behavioural Science, Anthropology, Psychology, and another relevant university degree.
- At least 5 years of experience providing strategic and technical guidance in designing and implementing SBC strategies.
- Experience in conducting formative research using mixed methods, behavior science insights research required.
- Humanitarian (and development nexus) experience is considered an asset.
- Advance knowledge of social and behavior change programming in public health, nutrition, WASH, and emergency humanitarian response.
- Knowledge of cash (plus) programming, particularly on social protection, health, and nutrition-related interventions.
- Strong interpersonal communication skills to work and manage in-person and remote working modalities with the relevant teams, sections, and partners.
- Experience in working and managing diverse teams coordinating with multi-sectoral working groups and facilitating technical discussions at different platforms (online and on-site).
- Demonstrated abilities to manage, work, and deliver in complex situations.
- Excellent technical writing and oral presentation skills.
- Advanced professional level of written and spoken English.
- Knowledge of the local language/s 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 reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterward 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:
Interested consultants are required to apply online, indicating availability and an all-inclusive lump sum fee to undertake the terms of reference.
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.
