Social and Behaviour Change in Emergencies

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Description

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Implications of these crisis increased the risks of child survival, growth, protection and development, as well as risk of misinformation, disinformation, rumors, hate speech, trust and confidence to the systems and services in the crisis affected countries. These challenges have significant behavioral dimensions from the level of information of refugees on how, where and why to access and use services to misinformation about the quality of the services, to service providers’ interpersonal communication and community engagement capacity to promote adoption of life-saving practices to reduce the vulnerabilities of marginalized people and building resilience, inclusive and peaceful societies.

Investing in CE, SBC is central to reaching the last mile with community engagement, social and behaviour change envisioned as key standard actions for more responsive, relevant and sustainable humanitarian programmes towards high-quality community/civic engagement from preparedness to different phases of humanitarian response. CE, SBC in humanitarian action calls for examining more complex, cross-cutting and underlying barriers to resilience and community well-being, including societal drivers of inequity, fragility and conflict. It supports well-planned engagement with communities to reduce their vulnerability to different types of crises while being more inclusive and local in approach.

Across its countries, regional and headquarters offices, UNICEF often engages consultants to support to maximize CE, SBC efforts in humanitarian assistance programmes through strengthening countries’ capacities for emergency preparedness and response, research, strategy design and planning, implementation, M&E, institutional capacity building, building partnership for social change, coordination to strengthen systems, services and platforms, contributing to: 1) increased demand for and utilization of quality and inclusive services across all sectors, 2) increased uptake of life saving practices and abandonment of harmful social norms and behaviours across sectors that increases vulnerabilities of most affected population 3) educated, engaged and empowered communities, adolescents and children, particularly the most marginalized, who participate and take actions to improve their wellbeing, and 4) increased institutional capacity and engagement of UNICEF partners, especially national and local government structures, CSOs/FBOs, media and communities in humanitarian action.

Scope Of Work And Duties:

The UNICEF SBCiE Roster for Europe and Central Asia (ECAR) serves as a human resources repository from which the Regional Office or Country Offices can draw upon pre-vetted, well qualified Community Engagement, Social and Behaviour Change experts quickly and efficiently. The SBCiE Roster is designed to meet the consultancy needs of the region over a period of two to three years. The roster matches the competencies and skills of consultants with five thematic areas of social and behaviour change ensuring that contracts are based on a more nuanced and accurate determination of consultants’ expertise vis-à-vis the specifications of the job. This pooling of talent not only means that the right personnel are hired for the right assignments, but it will also accelerate deployment.

Consultants are required to indicate which of the key thematic areas they have expertise in and for which they would like to be considered:

Successful applicants to the SBC Roster will be eligible for contracts to support the UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office and/or Country Offices through, inter alia: i) Technical and advisory assistance, ii) Research, studies, and other forms of documentation; iii) Support to the development of CE, SBC strategies and tools; iv) Institutional capacity building inclusive of training and support to the development of training iv) Support to CE, SBC programme development, planning, coordination and resource mobilization with donors and partners, and v) Support to delivery, monitoring and the quality control of results.

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

Requirements applicable to all experts:

• Advanced university degree in social and behavioural science, including sociology, anthropology, social linguistics, psychology, community development, risk communication and crisis communication, political economy, another relevant technical field.
• Minimum 5 years of experience working in emergencies (complex, disease outbreaks, natural hazards).
• Excellent conceptual and operational understanding of community engagement, social and behaviour change issues in emergency settings.
• Knowledge and experience in the formulation, design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of CE, SBC programmes, preferably in close coordination and cooperation with government bodies in HIC and UMIC.
• Knowledge and experience in strengthening national and/or sub-national governance systems to be response and resilient in times of crisis.
• Knowledge and experience in addressing inequities and disparities.
• Research and analytical skills, and the ability to put data into action with programme teams and partners.
• Communication, advocacy, negotiation and persuasion skills: the ability to engage clearly and articulately with stakeholders including, inter alia, government bodies, international organisations, national institutions, civil society and academia.
• Training, presentation and public speaking skills: the ability to share and impart knowledge, provide technical and policy guidance, build capacities and promulgate good practice for CE, SBC.
• Familiarity and experience in setting up community feedback mechanisms with local partners.
• Excellent spoken and written English, with another UN language or major language used in the region an asset.
• High level of computer literacy.
• Able to work with and contribute to a diverse and dynamic team while remaining diligent and resourceful when working alone.
• Highly flexible and adaptable to rapidly changing circumstances.
• Understanding of the social, economic and political landscape of the Europe and Central Asia region an asset.
• Willingness and ability work in a non-family duty station on short notice.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/en-us/job/566971/social-and-behaviour-change-in-emergencies-sbcie-roster-20232026-europe-and-central-asia-regional-office-ecaro

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