Sub-Saharan Roster of Consultant in Child Poverty, Public Financial Management and Social Protection, including Emergency Cash Transfers at UNICEF

Job Number: 531360
Work Type : Consultancy

Background

• In sub-Saharan Africa, UNICEF provides analytical and technical support in child poverty analysis, public financial management and social protection, including emergency cash transfers, in order to support more equitable and sustainable results for children.
• To support Country Offices in their work in these areas, UNICEF has two Regional Offices, one for Eastern and Southern Africa Region (ESARO), based in Kenya, and one supporting Western and Central Africa Region (WCARO), located in Senegal.
• The Regional Offices have established regional rosters of consultants to facilitate the swift engagement of social and economic policy expertise. However, given the similar profiles of candidates across the continent, UNICEF is now in the process of updating this roster, which will be utilized by Country Offices throughout sub-Saharan Africa for different assignments.

Scope of Work and Duties
How can you make a difference?

• UNICEF ESARO and WCARO invites qualified experts to express their interest in being included in the Roster of Consultants to deliver advisory services, access to knowledge, and technical expertise to UNICEF’s social policy portfolio in the following areas:
  • Child poverty analysis and advocacy
  • Public finance for children (PF4C)
  • Child-sensitive social protection
  • Emergency cash transfers
• Consultants may provide a range of advisory services to UNICEF’s Regional Offices, Country Offices and their government partners in the four thematic areas above.
• The range of tasks for the consultants may include research and assessments, diagnostic missions, provision of strategic and operational guidance, training and capacity building, development of policy papers, and monitoring and evaluation. Precise tasks, outputs, reporting and working relationships will be specified at the time of contracting for the given assignments.
• The roster will serve as human resources repository from which the Regional Offices or Country Offices can draw pre-vetted, well-qualified experts quickly and efficiently for assignments. Note that experts may specialize in more than one of the desired fields. It is therefore requested that candidates self-identify both their field and tier of expertise as well as their language proficiencies.

Required Skills and Experience

Child Poverty Experts:

• Advanced university degree in economics, statistics, public policies, development studies, social policies or other relevant field.
• Substantial experience in poverty analysis, including child poverty, multi-dimensional poverty and multiple overlapping deprivations.
• Proven track record in working with large national survey data (e.g. integrated household surveys, census, demographic and health survey, multiple indicator cluster surveys, etc.)
• Strong quantitative analysis skills, including ability to use advanced Excel functions and relevant software such as Stata, Eviews, R, SPSS, etc.
• Strong report writing, data visualization, and presentation skills.
• Proven experience with capacity development of partners especially National Statistical Agencies and relevant government departments.
• Demonstrable capacity to translate evidence into policy and programmatic proposals.
• Good inter-personal and communication (oral and written) skills – publication record on areas related to child poverty is preferred
• Fluency in English or French is required (dependent upon assignment). Knowledge of other languages applicable to the region (Portuguese, Spanish, etc.) is a plus.

Public Finance Experts:

• Advanced university degree or equivalent in economics, statistics, public administration, public policy, development studies or other relevant field.
• Hands-on experience with public finance management (PFM) issues, including PFM legal and policy frameworks; medium-term revenue and expenditure planning; government budgeting approaches and classification systems; financial accountability systems, including Chart of Accounts; fiscal decentralization and intergovernmental transfer systems; budget transparency; fiscal space analyses; costing; designing and implementing Public Expenditure Reviews, Pubic Expenditure Tracking Surveys; value for money analysis; cost-efficiency analysis; cost-benefit analysis; cost of inaction analysis, etc.
• Demonstrable experience working in child-focused sectors, including, but not limited to child protection, health, education, nutrition, social protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene.
• Strong quantitative analysis skills, including ability to use advanced Excel functions and relevant software such as Stata, Eviews, R, SPSS, etc.
• Proven experience with capacity development initiatives targeting legislative and executive arms of government
• Understanding of public finance reform in the Sub-Saharan Africa context is a strong advantage.
• Good inter-personal and communication (oral and written) skills - publication record in areas related to public finance preferred.
• Fluency in English or French is required (dependent upon assignment). Knowledge of other languages applicable to the region (Portuguese and Spanish) is a plus.

Social Protection Experts:

• Advanced university degree in public policy, economics, social policy or related field.
• Substantial experience in the field of social assistance, cash transfer programming, social insurance (including health insurance), social services and/or labor market analysis and employment policies.
• Demonstrated understanding of child-sensitive social protection, disability sensitive and/or gender sensitive social protection a plus.
• Proven track record in all / some of the following areas: research and evaluation (Poverty analysis, risk and vulnerability assessments, Cost-benefit and benefit incidence analyses, Social protection systems mapping and functional reviews,  Programmes and systems evaluations, Qualitative research methods, Meta-analysis/synthesis); systems and programmes (Design of protocols and tools for outreach, targeting, referrals, coordination, communications, etc., Design and management of beneficiary ID and administrative data systems/ management information systems/ social registries; shock responsive social protection including assessment, design and/or piloting of SRSP programmes; information dissemination and communication (knowledge sharing and advocacy); high-level policy analysis and advice (development of national strategies, policies and plans, development of regulations and by-laws, development of monitoring and evaluation frameworks for national social protection policies, analysis and development of legal, regulatory and/or policy frameworks); cash plus design and implementation (linking social protection programmes with complimentary social services, strengthening social welfare workforce, facilitating multi-sectoral collaboration).
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex topics on social protection.
• Analytical thinking and strategic planning skills, ability to facilitate, consult and negotiate with a broad range of government and non-government partners.
• Experience working on social protection in Sub-Saharan Africa is a strong advantage.
• Familiarity with the UN agenda, including the social protection floor, SPIAC-B and the SDGs.
• Good inter-personal and communication (oral and written) skills – publication record on areas related to social protection is a plus.
• Full working knowledge of English or French, including excellent report writing and presentation skills in the relevant language is required. Knowledge of other languages applicable to the region (Portuguese, Spanish, etc.) is a plus

Emergency Cash Transfer Experts:

• Advanced university degree or equivalent in public policy, economics, development studies or other relevant field.
• Hands-on experience with humanitarian/emergency response, including support to improving early warning systems, strengthen local child/adolescent and community-based needs assessments including market assessments, rapid beneficiary identification and registration, development or adaptation of administrative data systems, identification, contracting and management of local payment service providers, social accountability through emergency intervention post-distribution and system performance monitoring
• Proven experience with capacity development of partners is a strong advantage.
• Understanding of the humanitarian context in sub-Saharan Africa is a strong advantage, experience in protracted crises is an asset.
• Good inter-personal and communication (oral and written) skills.
• Fluency in English or French is required (dependent upon assignment). Knowledge of other languages applicable to the region (Portuguese, Spanish, etc.) is a plus.

Technical Criteria:

• Level and relevance of education to the selected thematic area – max. 20 points
• Relevance of professional experience in the selected thematic area – max. 40 points
• Record of drafting policy papers and high-quality products – max. 20 points
• Experience working with UNICEF, other international organizations and national partners in the region – max. 15 points
• Fluency in languages relevant to the region – max. 5 points

Evaluation of Applicants:

• Applicants will be screened against the qualifications and competencies specified above for each thematic area. The inclusion into the Roster of Consultants will be offered to those individual consultants whose applications have been evaluated and determined as: (i) meeting the required skills and experience and (ii) having received high scores against the evaluation criteria. Note that references will be checked prior to contracting by the requesting CO.

For every Child, you demonstrate:

• UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and the Core Competencies of UNICEF Competency Framework.