National Consultancy: Risk Communication and Community Engagement (Polio & PHE) Consultant (On-site, 350 Days)

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, love 

Ethiopia is situated in the Horn of Africa and is the second most populous country on the continent with an estimated population of 115 million. It borders six African countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, and covers 1,104,300 square kilometers. Approximately 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas. Ethiopia represents a melting pot of ancient cultures with Middle Eastern and African cultures evident in the religious, ethnic, and language composition of its people.

Over the past two years, children and their families across Ethiopia faced multiple and complex emergencies, such as the conflict in the northern Ethiopia and the drought, which resulted in millions of people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. UNICEF has programmes in Child Protection, WASH, Health, Nutrition, Social Policy, and Education and serves over 15 million children in Ethiopia. Join UNICEF Ethiopia to contribute to improving the lives of children and women.

How can you make a difference? 

Scope of work:

The overall objective of this consultancy is to provide RCCE and social and behavior change (SBC) technical support to EPHI with a focus on preparedness and responses to public health emergencies including disease outbreaks (polio, measles, cholera, etc.). The consultant will also play a key role to support planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting on the RCCE/SBC component of the synchronized nOPV2 campaign in the Horn of Africa region (Kenya, Somalia and Somali region of Ethiopia). The consultant will also be responsible to ensure timely implementation of RCCE/SBC activities. In case of nOPV2 campaign, RCCE/SBC interventions must align with the GPEI guidelines and must achieve minimum of 92% awareness among community members before and during the nOPV2 campaign.

With technical support and guidance of the SBC Specialist (immunization & PHE), Health Section of UNICEF Ethiopia, the consultant will be responsible for the coordination of national RCCE technical working group to accelerate RCCE approaches and strategies for preparedness and response to public health emergencies. He/she is also responsible to support EPHI team on application of evidence based RCCE/SBC interventions including advocacy, community engagement, community empowerment, social listening, misinformation management, mass media, media engagement, monitoring and evaluation in Ethiopia. The consultant will work closely with the polio team lead of UNICEF on polio related RCCE/SBC interventions.

The consultant is expected to provide technical support to following activities: 

• Provide technical support to EPHI and RCCE technical working group (RCCE-TWG) to ensure the RCCE strategies and interventions on public health emergencies including polio and other disease outbreaks are developed, implemented, monitored and reported.
• Coordinate and liaise with EPHI team, UNICEF, and partner agencies for RCCE-TWG monthly and ad-hoc meetings including preparation of meeting agenda, meeting minutes and any necessary follow up actions.
• Support EPHI on the development/update and endorsement of the national RCCE plan for preparedness and response of public health emergencies including development, review and pre-testing of multi-channel RCCE materials/toolkits/guidelines and support sub-national team to contextualize and translate into local language.
• Facilitate dissemination of RCCE/SBC materials in the field as required and ensure effective utilization.
• Coordinate with the government and media agencies at the federal and regional levels on regular public opinion monitoring and social listening particularly on rumors, fake news, media coverage on AEFI cases and misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines, HPV, polio, cholera and broader public health services.
• Provide support to EPHI and RHBs for capacity building of frontline health workers, social mobilizers, media, and hotline operators on RCCE, interpersonal communication skills, and community-based surveillance.
• Facilitate and conduct rapid assessment around RCCE/SBC gaps and social investigation on disease outbreaks— in close collaboration with EPHI/RHB and UNICEF—including secondary data analysis from previous polio/OCV/measles campaigns to revise/update strategic RCCE/SBC planning to reach to the unreached children.
• Ensure RCCE/SBC approaches are inclusive, gender transformative, and participatory in close collaboration with relevant stakeholders.
• Prepare and submit report for polio campaigns and other outbreak response campaigns by compiling reports from subnational levels.
• Collect human-interest stories from the field on the voices and experiences of communities and stakeholders.
• Participate regularly in coordination and technical meetings by FMOH and EPHI
• Participate in the outbreak EOCs and other coordination regional forums where required.
• Facilitate and participate in monitoring and evaluation activities of polio outbreak responses and interventions.
• Submit the documents and reports mentioned in Work Assignment Overview table to UNICEF and MOH At the beginning of the assignment, the consultant is expected to discuss and agree with UNICEF and EPHI team of MOH.

 TOR – RCCE (Polio & PHE) Consultant.pdf

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

Education:

An advanced university degree in the following relevant fields: social science, public health, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication for development/social and behavioral change communication is required.

Experience:

• A minimum of five years of relevant RCCE/SBC experience in public health emergencies at national level is required.
• In-depth understanding of Ethiopian communities and RCCE/SBC key stakeholders at national level.
• Experience with designing, planning, monitoring, evaluation, training and skills-transfer of participatory governance in RCCE/SBC interventions for public health emergencies.
• Proven ability to work effectively with government/EPHI and multi-stakeholders.
• Experience in generating evidence around RCCE/SBC in the context of public health emergencies.
• Capacity in documentation of best practices and lesson learned around RCCE/SBC interventions.

Language requirements:

• Fluency in English and Amharic 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 Core Values underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

• Care
• Respect
• Integrity
• Trust
• Accountability
• Sustainability 

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• Builds and maintains partnerships(1)
• Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (1)
• Drive to achieve results for impact(1)
• Innovates and embraces change(1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity(1)
• Thinks and acts strategically(1)
• Works collaboratively with others (1)

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 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.