Closing date: 18 Oct 2015
Introduction
Located in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, we at the UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office (UNICEF ESARO) coordinate, support and supervise UNICEF’s work in 21 countries in the ESA region (Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Comoros, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
The UNICEF Strategic Plan 2014–2017 focuses our work globally on seven outcome areas:
- Health
- HIV and AIDS
- Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
- Education
- Nutrition
- Child Protection, and
- Social Inclusion.
Humanitarian action, gender equality and human rights cut across all these outcome areas.
Within this framework, UNICEF ESARO has identified five regional programmatic priorities for the period 2014-2017:
- Enabling children to survive and thrive.
- Reducing stunting to provide opportunities for children to realize their full potential.
- Improving education quality and learning outcomes to prepare children for the future.
- Achieving results for adolescents (R4A) that help them manage risks and realize their full potential.
- Scaling up social protection interventions to reduce child poverty and other vulnerabilities that impede the full realization of child rights.
Duties and Responsibilities or Scope of Work
In doing their work our offices often count on external individual or institutional experts to provide appropriate technical support in achieving results for children in the region.
These experts help us at UNICEF ESARO and our country offices in gathering and analyzing data on the situation of children, in drafting country or sectoral strategies and other programmatic documents, in providing highly specialized technical assistance or capacity building support and in collecting and presenting evidence for influencing public policy to enhance children’s survival and development.
To further systematize and expand our professional networks, we are building a pre-screened roster of individual and institutional consultants who would be available to work with us on a short- or longer-term basis from their home base, our regional office, one of our country offices or in the field in any area that contributes to the achievement of results for the children of Eastern and Southern Africa. Assignments may be at subnational, national, multi-country, or regional levels and may be commissioned by UNICEF or undertaken with partners.
The period, type, deliverables and accountabilities of each assignment will be determined by a set of specific Terms of Reference.
Credentials of Individuals Experts/Institutions
We would be delighted to hear from individual experts and/or institutions who are interested in participating in this roster and have the following credentials:
- As a minimum an advanced degree (for individuals and in-house professional staff of institutions). In exceptional circumstances a combination of a university degree and appropriate experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced degree
- At least 5 years of professional experience (for individuals) and a solid track record plus at least 5 years of in-house staff’s experience (for institutions) in one or more of the following fields:
Technical fields of expertise
Health - National health systems strengthening, Immunization and Polio eradication, Maternal and Newborn and Child health, Health in Emergencies and Health - general
HIV - HIV strategies, key populations and adolescent programming, Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission, HIV Care and Treatment, Support to children and families and HIV - general
WASH - WASH sectoral strategies, Water supply, Sanitation and Hygiene, WASH in Schools and Early Childhood Development centres, WASH in emergencies and WASH - general
Nutrition - Nutrition strategies, sectoral issues and information systems, Infant and Young Child Feeding, Micronutrients, Severe and acute malnutrition, Nutrition in Emergencies and General Nutrition issues
Education - Education systems strengthening, Curriculum development and teachers training, Quality of education, Equity in education – girls’ and inclusive education, Education in emergencies and Education - general
Child protection - Child protection systems, case management and violence against children, Civil registration and vital statistics, Support to children and families, Justice for children, Child protection in emergencies and Child protection - general
Social policy - Social inclusion, social protection system and child poverty, Public Finance Management, Local governance and decentralisation, Advocacy and political analysis – civil society, political, sustainable development, Human rights and Child rights and Social policy - general
Management and operations - Finance, audit and oversight, Procurement and supplies, Human resources management and leadership & staff development, Conference organisation, facilitation and generic training, Communication, editing and external relations, Partnerships, resource mobilization and fund raising
Multi-sector - Early Childhood Development, Adolescent development, Disaster risk prevention, emergency preparedness and humanitarian response and peacebuilding, UNICEF Country Programme Development, United Nations Coherence, UNDAF and cluster coordination or Multi (=expert / institution has a cross-sectoral and functional expertise coupled with experience in more than two of the above technical fields)
Cross-sectoral and functional fields of expertise
Policy and strategy development - Sector strategy, Policy, programme, proposal and concept design, Development of guidance, manuals and similar documents
Research and evaluation - Legal research, Quantitative and qualitative research, Monitoring and evaluation system development including indicator development
Statistics - Demographic, vital, bio-, economic etc. statistics, Data science and Household surveying
SITAN - Situational analysis
Budget analysis - Financial and budget analysis of sectoral strategies
Management information systems - Management information systems, Information and communication technology for development and other ICT issues
Best practice documentation - Preparation of best practice documentation and report writing for evidence generation and influencing policy
C4D - Communication for development
Gender
- Prior experience in Eastern and Southern African countries, the region and/or in a similar humanitarian or development context would be highly desirable;
- Prior experience in providing technical support, preferably to UNICEF, the UN and/or one of the major multilateral or bilateral donors;
- Excellent ability to research, analyze and present complex information coupled with outstanding report writing skills and a fluent command of English and/or French or Portuguese languages; and
- Excellent ability to lead / participate in multicultural teams and to interact with different hierarchies of partners.
Enrolment in the Roster
EOIs will be screened against the credentials specified above for potential inclusion in the Roster. We are aiming at finalizing the rostering process and informing applicants of the outcome by the end of January 2016.
This Call for EOIs does not constitute a solicitation. A response to this Call does not automatically ensure that you will be selected to participate in a tender. Enrolment in the roster does not mean that a contract with UNICEF is guaranteed.
We do not require bids or proposals at this stage; we merely seek your expression of interest in participating in the roster. When an appropriate request for services arises, the UNICEF ESARO or Country Office may contact selected individuals/institutions from the roster. The contracting office will issue specific Terms of Reference outlining the outputs for each assignment and detailing the time frame. If contacted for a specific assignment, rostered individuals and/or institutions will be required to submit a technical / financial proposal in response to that specific Terms of Reference.
Individual experts and institutions enroled in the Roster if and when selected for a specific assignment with UNICEF ESARO or Country Office will be governed by and subject to UNICEF’s terms and conditions for individual contractors and institutional contractors or service vendors.
UNICEF ESARO reserves the right to change or cancel requirements at any time during the EOI and/or solicitation process. UNICEF also reserves the right to require compliance with additional conditions as and when issuing the final tender document. If you have any questions about this EOI, (ONLY QUERIES BUT NOT SUBMITTING) please write to Ms. Valeria Kaneva, Consultant, UNICEF ESAR Roster at vkaneva@unicef.org c.c valeria_kaneva@q-consultants.com.
UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organization.
How to apply:
Qualified individuals and institutions, who have the above described capabilities and are interested in participating in our roster, are invited to submit an EOI electronically not later than the deadline specified above.
Submission of EOIs by individual consultants
Submissions should be made electronically following the link https://www.tfaforms.com/390173.
The EOIs must include the following:
- The online application form filled-in vis-à-vis the required and desired credentials specified above
- Curriculum Vitae (resume)
- Contact details of referees, together with your permission to contact them
- A minimum of 1 work sample (recent report prepared by the individual). If published please include the website address where the report is available for download
- Indicative financial remuneration
Whilst not mandatory, individual consultants are encouraged to additionally submit, as part of their EOI, a signed personal history form - P11 (available for download in a Word format from http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/P11.doc) and at least one reference from a previous employer.
Submission of EOIs by institutions
Submissions should be made electronically following the link https://www.tfaforms.com/390604.
The EOIs must include the following:
- The online application formfilled-in vis-à-vis the required and desired credentials specified above
- A one-paragraph summary institutional capability statement with a brief description of institution and illustrative highlights of projects carried out in the last 2-3 years
- Contact details of referees, together with your permission to contact them
- Curricula vitae / resumes / personal history formsof up to 5 in-house staff who might in principle be available to work on UNICEF ESAR assignments
- A minimum of 1 work sample (recent report prepared by the institution). If published please include the website address where the report is available for download
- Indicative financial remuneration, if applicable differentiated amongst the various staff categories (for example, team leader, senior consultant etc).
Whilst not mandatory, institutions are encouraged to additionally submit, as part of their EOI, a detailed institutional capability statement with a more detailed description of the institutions and a list of projects carried out in the last 5 years, ideally with title, donor, objectives, achievements, budget and names of in-house consultants who have participated, and at least one reference or a project completion certificate from a previous employer.
Institutions whose in-house staff is also available to participate in the Roster as individual consultants are requested to register those additionally following the link for EOIs for individual consultants.