Individual Contractor - Economic Impact of Child Marriage at UNICEF

Purpose of Activity / Assignment

• The purpose of this study is to undertake a research on the economic burden of child marriage in Nigeria looking at Spotlight States such as Sokoto and Adamawa and to some extent States with the highest child marriage prevalence such as Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Borno and Yobe.
• This study is expected to provide data to understand the consequences of child marriage on the girls, her family and the society as a whole, including for example the loss of current and future productivity, long-term cost of rehabilitation, impact on educational and health outcomes.
• The aim will be to position child marriage as a public policy issue looking at social and economic implications it embeds.

Scope of Work
The study will focus on the following four key areas:

• Scoping exercise: expenditure baseline assessment and data collection to showcase the scope of the issue (including the cost of marriage, cost for communities, cost of population increase, impact on potential productivity and earnings of young mothers and health of children born to young mothers etc.
• Building evidence on the economic impact of Child Marriage at National Community, Household and Girls levels, looking at education and health) outcomes but also child protection related issues.
• Cost of inaction - economic analysis which considers the economic benefits of ending child marriage and explores alternative practices that will have a direct impact on livelihoods, economic growth and guarantee that girls and women are protected and thrive.
• Economic model for child marriage to be designed taking into account the added impact of the pandemic – economic shocks, school closures.

In carrying out this assignment, the consultant will engage with all relevant government ministries and departments responsible for implementing programmes that address the practice of child marriage (National and state ministries of Budget and Planning, Women Affairs, education, health and justice) and will conduct a systematic review of relevant documents and past surveys, including the 2014 VAC survey and the recent analysis of the integration of ending child marriage policies and plans into budgets. The assessment will also involve a desk review of pertinent literature on the issue, including any previous evaluations, Standard Operating Procedures, legal framework relating to legal aid and access to justice costs, policy documents relating to the social service workforce, etc.

The consultancy will work under the technical guidance of the Child Protection Systems Strengthening manager, the CP Specialist on harmful Practices and the Social Policy Specialist with overall supervision of the Chiefs of Child Protection and Social Policy.

Methodology:

• Develop and submit an inception report and detailed workplan for the scoping study.
• Undertake a desk review of available literature, including documents on end child marriage policy, laws and strategy documents, state (to be discussed) and sector development plans.
• Assess the burden of child marriage using DALY (Disability Adjusted Life Years) as the unit for measuring the consequences of health outcomes of child marriage on girls and their children.
• Conduct a review of education, health, child welfare and criminal justice costs attached to child marriage as it relates to girls, families, communities and State/National levels.
• Conduct a meta-analysis of the budget and plans for ending child marriage.

The Cost Analysis will include the following set of Information and Variables:

• Review of the VAC data set to extract the outcomes of child marriage on education and health;
• Household-based information provided in the VAC survey;
• Geo location looking at education and other factors that affect child marriage economic opportunities.