International Consultant – Knowledge Management for Child Protection and PSEA, UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia – 11.5 months

The purpose of this consultancy is to support the ROSA Child Protection team to facilitate knowledge gathering, exchange and use across all areas of child protection, with a specific focus on child marriage, MHPSS and PSEA/SH and Safeguarding. This requires cross sectoral engagement and collaboration with country offices. At the end of the consultancy colleagues from country offices will have a better knowledge on the range of resources available and use them for their programming.

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, a future

How can you make a difference? 

Background:

The ROSA Child Protection has been implementing the knowledge management strategy developed in 2019, with a focus on generating and disseminating evidence and knowledge on all child protection issues but specifically child marriage, children with disabilities, MHPSS and PSEA for advocacy and programming in South Asia. Child marriage knowledge management is a joint effort between UNICEF ROSA and UNFPA APRO. The third phase of the UNFPA and UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage, which commenced in 2024, requires ROSA to increase support to country offices with knowledge management activities, including strengthened use of evidence in the programme implementation. There is also a continued need for information and latest knowledge on a range of child protection topics among child protection staff in the region, and this can be ensured by enabling easy access to South Asia specific information and documents about child marriage, children with disabilities, MHPSS and PSEA/SH and safeguarding. The child protection team at ROSA requires expert support to facilitate knowledge gathering, exchange and use across the area of child protection including through cross sectoral engagement and collaboration with country offices. Since this expertise requires a specific skill set, the services of a consultant is required.

Main Deliverables:

• Develop monthly child protection and child marriage evidence series in an accessible format to share recent evidence
• Focus series
• Bi-monthly webinars for child protection and PSEA/SH
• Quarterly e-bulletins
• Update content on five existing platforms on child protection, child marriage, disability, PSEA, COVID-19 and MHPSS
• Develop compendium of MHPSS resources/tools, with input from other sectors at UNICEF, to be shared with COs.
• Support the organization of the regional child protection network meeting, including documentation
• Review and migrate all current DropBox content to SharePoint
• Develop advocacy briefs/case study/good practice examples on key child protection and PSEA/SH issues

Note: This is remote-based consultancy and if travel is required, it will be paid in actuals. Please submit your application with the financial proposal. Any application without the financial proposal will not be considered.

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

A. Education:

• An advanced degree in Social Sciences, Development Studies, or equivalent is required.

B. Work Experience:

• Minimum of 10 years professional experience in development work focusing on child protection, knowledge management and/or coordinating programmes

• Concrete experience in knowledge management, preferably in the area of child protection, child marriage, MHPSS and disabilities.

• Familiarity with SharePoint and other knowledge sharing platforms (e.g. Yammer, Teams).

• Experience in organising and documenting meetings.

• Exposure to the UN system and ideally having worked with UNICEF, UNFPA or UN Women in the past would be an asset.

C. Language Proficiency:

• Excellent written and oral English language skills

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

 Competencies:

• Excellent organisational and management skills

• Exceptional oral and written language skills

• Unyielding attention to detail, content and logic

• Strong networking skills and team player

• Thinks and acts strategically.

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.