Vacancy at United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

REF: VN-NGR-48-2015

Information Management for Child Protection in Emergencies Consultant, P2, SSA for 6 months

Duty station - Abuja, with travel to North East Nigeria

If you are a passionate and committed professional and want to make a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you.

Background/ Purpose of Assignment:

The purpose of the consultancy is to develop and maintain relevant information management systems able to capture critical data on child protection related to the emergency in North-East Nigeria; to produce up to date, accurate and well packaged information that captures the scale of child protection needs and the response; and to produce trends analysis on grave violations of children’s rights.

Since 2002, Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad (commonly known as Boko Haram) has been active in the Northeastern part of Nigeria, including Yobe, Borno and Adamawa States. The armed group has been carrying out targeted attacks against police, religious leaders, politicians, and public and international institutions. During the conflict, armed group activity also resulted in violations against children, including: killing and injuring of children during raids on villages, towns and roads; the looting, burning and destruction of schools, houses, churches and mosques; and the abduction and forced recruitment of boys and girls. Amongst the IDP population is a growing number of unaccompanied and separated children. Tracing, interim care arrangements and reintegration support for these children is an urgent priority. In addition, armed groups are known to be carrying out abductions, targeting girls between the ages of 12 and 17. Children have also been targeted for recruitment and use by the armed group and vigilante groups. Children are also highly vulnerable to recruitment and use, as well as sexual abuse in formal IDP camps and other informal IDP settings, where mechanisms for child protection are extremely limited.

To date, UNICEF’s main child protection intervention has been the establishment of a psychosocial support programme in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. UNICEF is also spearheading the establishment of the Security Council mandated Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on grave violations against children, following the listing of Boko Haram for grave violations of children’s rights in 2014. There is a pressing need for the Child Protection Programme to enhance coordination amongst child protection partners at Federal and State level and scale up its interventions in terms of UASC, GBV, CAAFAG, in particular to: support community-based safe environments for children; child protection training for Government and community-based stake-holders; the establishment and implementation of family tracing and reunification mechanisms for UASC (including the provision of interim care); the provision of psychosocial support to children and their caregivers (including the establishment of child-friendly spaces in IDP camps and host communities); strengthen of Government and community-based prevention and response mechanisms for sexual and physical violence; and design a release and reintegration programme for children who have been used by armed groups.

In September 2014, UNICEF began implementing a European Union funded joint programme with UN Women on ‘Women, Peace and Security’ (WPS) in three states namely Adamawa, Gombe and Plateau. UNICEF is responsible for implementation of Component 2 of the programme, namely “to increase access to reporting mechanisms and protective services for girls and women affected by human rights abuses, including gender based violence, in 3 states of northern Nigeria”. This will entail improving reporting of child rights violations in these three states plus in Borno and Yobe, as well as support the Government and NGOs to strengthen access to and quality of services for children who have experienced violence (including gender based violence (GBV), abuse, neglect and exploitation.

Further, with a view to ensuring well-coordinated, strategic, adequate, coherent and effective humanitarian response in Nigeria, nine sectors are activated in Nigeria of which the Protection Sector co-led by UNHCR and National Human Rights Commission. Under the umbrella of the Protection Sector, the Child Protection Sub-Working Group established in May 2015 and co-chaired by UNICEF and the Ministry of Women Affair and Social Development. In particular, there are growing demands on UNICEF to produce accurate, up to date and well packaged data on child protection response for both the newly established child protection working group and for UNICEF, as well as a need to support the data management needs of the MRM

The Core Commitments for Children (CCCs) call for the rapid provision and deployment of qualified personnel to act in the first eight critical weeks of humanitarian response and provide guidance for action beyond that, moving towards defined benchmarks and the inter-agency standard on Child Protection coordination.

Major Tasks to be accomplished:

a) Support Federal and State Ministries to develop and operationalize management information tools on child protection, including a Child Protection Information Management System (by month 2 at State level and month 3 for Federal level) and Gender-Based Violence Information Management System (ongoing), in cooperation with relevant partners; provide training to child protection actors on child protection information management (by month 2 at State level and month 3 at Federal level)

b) Work with the Child Protection Sub-Working Group to strengthen existing in-country information management approaches for collecting, analyzing and reporting on child protection in emergencies sub-sector activities and resources, as well as identifying information gaps (ongoing); liaise with UNICEF WCARO to ensure synergy between models of information management and sharing in the region (ongoing)

c) Design and maintain a child protection in emergencies database that consolidates, analyses and reports/disseminates information critical to decision making in UNICEF and the Child Protection Sub-Working Group(operationalization by month 1, monthly updates); provide monthly updates on child protection needs and responses for inclusion in situation reports (each 7^th of the month), child protection dashboard, and for use by different audiences

d) Work with Child Protection Sub-Working Group members to identify information gaps at national and local (North-East) levels and proposed ways to bridge those gaps (month 2); ensure effective communication, reporting, engagement and coordination between national and sub-national Child Protection Sub-Working Groups (ongoing); provide information management leadership in assessments and monitoring, including joint assessments and training (ongoing)

e) Support the implementation of the SCR 1612 Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on grave violations against children in Nigeria, through further developing and operationalizing the Nigeria MRM data repository (month 3), tracking incidents of violations against children through media mining and other alerts and updating the Nigeria MRM data repository on a daily basis (ongoing)

f) Produce on a monthly and quarterly basis analysis of trend related to grave violations of children’s rights, based on data included in the Nigeria MRM data repository, in preparation of the Nigeria MRM regular reporting to the Office of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict; package information on grave violations of children’s rights for dissemination among different audiences, as appropriate, including visual representations of trends (ongoing)

Qualifications or specialized knowledge/experience required:

• Advanced university degree in information management or relevant field.
• A minimum of 2 years of experience in information management for child protection programming and/or human rights documentation. Experience with humanitarian information management system and cluster approach is an asset. Experience with UNICEF and/or other UN Agencies and/or NGOs, an asset.
• Proven technical expertise managing data and information cycle: from data collection, storage, and analysis for diverse datasets, as well as presenting information in understandable, effective and visually appealing tables, charts, graphs, maps, visuals and reports (including snapshots, dashboard, W analysis, gap analysis, etc.)
• Understanding of how to manage and maintain websites and content management systems. Proven skills in using GIS and map-making packages, and in web design and software development desirable
• Knowledge of UNICEF’s core commitments to children in humanitarian action as well as the humanitarian cluster approach, particularly the child protection working group (sub-cluster), gender-based violence area of responsibility, and protection cluster
• Experience of developing information management systems, producing data analysis for different audiences, and designing and delivering training
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and proven success in facilitating interagency processes to achieve a common goal
• Fluency in English (verbal and written)

This consultancy is funded by the European Union under the Women, Peace and Security Programme – a programme implemented by UN Women, in collaboration with UNICEF