Child Protection Design and Partnership Consultant, 8 months, Pacific Multi Country Office

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, education.

We operate in the Pacific, specifically in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. These 14 Pacific island countries are home to 2.3 million people, including 1.2 million children and youth. They inhabit more than 660 islands and atolls that stretch across 17.2 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean. This area is comparable to the combined size of the United States of America and Canada. Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu are classified as Fragile States according to World Bank/OECD criteria.

All 14 Pacific Island countries and territories have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, only a third are on track with reporting obligations. You can explore the different areas of our work at the link provided here: www.unicef.org/pacificislands.

Background of Assignment: 

As UNICEF Pacific enters its second year of the new Multi Country Programme (MCP) 2023 – 2027, there is heightened commitment to enhancing joint and complementary work with regional organizations, non-government and faith-based organizations, academia, donors, other UN entities and governments.

To realize the MCP vision, UNICEF Pacific’s Child Protection Team is expanding partnerships with Pacific based organizations laying the foundation for programs for the next few years in a number of key areas. To progress this, there is an urgent need to identify opportunities and leverage resources and influence increased investment in social sectors, particularly on child protection and wellbeing in a manner that is sustainable and culturally relevant to the Pacific context. Partnerships will be expanded with traditional leaders, faith-based organizations and national NGOs to enable community dialogues that are inclusive, build trust and lead to behaviour change.

This renewed focus on local actors aims to reinvigorate partnerships and amplify resource mobilization and improve measurement of change. Importantly, this includes inputs into the DFAT design process to inform the 2025 – 2028 partnership, for which DFAT have provided dedicated resources toward the design; and also core to this task will be the development of monitoring and measurement tools for the child protection team and partners.

A dedicated person is required to support the team through the DFAT redesign process, technical assistance for monitoring work and in convening partners and co-designing documents required for two key deliverables identified. The person will split days in between his/her home and UNICEF Pacific Office in Suva, Fiji, with some travel days to Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa and Federated States of Micronesia.

How can you make a difference? 

The objective of the consultant’s assignment is to:

1. Develop the foundational documents required to inform and guide the next phase of child protection DFAT funding for which DFAT have provided dedicated resources. Apart from consultations with donors and partners, the new DFAT proposal will also be informed by the DFAT Evaluation and the Theory of Change and strategic partnerships review both conducted recently in late 2023 and early 2024.

        Product: (1) Facilitate design workshops with donors and partners; (2) develop an outcome document from the design workshops          that highlight amongst other things key issues and recommendations; (3) Develop an outline for the DFAT proposal. (25 days).

2. Develop a standard monitoring and measurement tool for partners, suitable for UNICEF’s partnerships on child protection and wellbeing. This work will include a review of the existing monitoring tool used by Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC) during the previous pilot programme and provide recommendations and guidance on the monitoring dimensions for the new partnership (2024 – 2027). In addition to external guidance, the development of an internal monitoring template that can be used by UNICEF’s Child Protection Team, capturing key indicators for reporting (internal and external where possible) and ensuring also alignment with the outcome and outputs in UNICEFs multi-country strategy.Product: (1) Proposal on a partnership measurement tool/monitoring system, (2) Facilitate workshop(s) with partners in selected Pacific countries on feasible/proposed design(s); and finalize the tool, (2) Facilitate workshop(s) with partners in selected Pacific countries on feasible/proposed design(s); and finalize the tool, (3) Facilitate trainings with PCC Team on the standard monitoring tool to be used for the new upcoming partnership, (4) Facilitate training(s) with key CSO and FBO partners on the new tool, (5) Develop a standard reporting/monitoring template for internal use by the Child Protection Team, and (6) Provide ongoing technical support to the roll-out and use of the monitoring tool by external partners. (25 days).

The assignment is to be both home-based with some days (agreed between both parties) in UNICEF Pacific Office in Suva with office space provided. Supervision will be provided by the Child Protection Specialist.

Please refer to the ToR (  TOR CP Design Partnership Consultant.pdf) for further information on the deliverables and the timelines.

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

Education:  

• A master’s degree in international development, Public Policy, Development Program Evaluation, or any related social science discipline with extensive experience with and knowledge of fundraising, and applied research methods, and monitoring and evaluation.

Experience, Skills and Language:  

• Minimum of 10 years of professional experience in social affairs, protection, gender action, research, monitoring and evaluation.
• Experience in proposal writing.
• Experience in facilitating consultations/meetings to bring consensus to discussions.
• Good understanding of gender and equity issues in the Pacific.
• Ability to synthesize information succinctly and accurately and a track record of producing high quality evidence products.
• Adaptability and flexibility, client orientation, initiative, concern for accuracy and quality.
• Knowledge of challenges and issues in CP in the Pacific Region will be an asset.
• Experience working with UNICEF is an advantage.

GUIDANCE FOR APPLICANTS:  

All applications for this consultancy must include a separate financial offer along with the technical proposal.

The financial proposal should be a lump sum amount for all the deliverables and should show a break down for the following:

• Monthly/Daily consultancy fees – based on the deliverables in the Terms of Reference.
• Travel (economy air ticket where applicable to take up assignment and field mission travel).
• Living allowance where travel is required.
• Miscellaneous- to cover visa, health insurance (including medical evacuation for international consultants), communications, and other costs.

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

Remarks:  

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. 

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. 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process for this consultancy.