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UNICEF has been operating in Zimbabwe since 1982. We are a team of passionate professionals committed to the protection and fulfillment of children’s rights.

Supporting the Government’s vision of a prosperous  and  empowered upper-middle-income society, the country programme is aimed at contributing to sustainable socioeconomic development that provides all children, including adolescents, with opportunities to fulfil their potential, lead a healthy life, access quality learning and protection and meaningfully participate in society.

For more information about UNICEF Zimbabwe please click here

You can also access and explore all new UNICEF vacancies and create job alerts via the UNICEF Zimbabwe website link below:

https://www.unicef.org/zimbabwe/work-us

How can you make a difference?

UNICEF Zimbabwe is seeking to hire an innovative and self-motivated individual consultant to support the Government of Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare (MoPSLSW) in designing Grievance Redress Mechanism for the Harmonised Social Cash Transfer programme.

BACKGROUND

The Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare is the coordinating ministry for all social protection programmes in Zimbabwe. The ministry implements several social protection programmes, among them the Harmonised Social Cash Transfer (HSCT) programme. The HSCT programme is one of the government flagship programmes and is located within the social assistance pillar of the National Social Protection Policy Framework. The programme was introduced in 2011 and targets the food-poor and labour- constrained households. The primary objective of the unconditional HSCT programme is to increase the purchasing power and thus the food consumption of the most food-poor and labour-constrained members of the population to reduce their reliance on risky coping behaviour and improve their socioeconomic status.

According to the current HSCT manual of operations, households are eligible for support if they are food-poor, and they are labour-constrained. A household is labour-constrained when:

• it has no able-bodied household member in the age group 18 to 59, who is fit for productive work; or
• when one household member in the age group 18 to 59 years, who is fit for work, has to care for more than 3 dependents. i.e. household members that are under 18 years of age or over 59 or are unfit for work because they are chronically ill, or disabled or handicapped or are still schooling); or
• when a household has a dependency ratio between 2 and 3 but has a severely disabled or chronically sick household member who requires intensive care.

The level of benefits to households varies by size of household and are capped at 4 members as follows:

• One person household = USD20.
• Two-person household = USD35.
• Three-person household = USD45; and
• Four-person household or more = USD65.

The benefits are paid in local currency (ZWL) indexed to the USD official exchange rate.

The HSCT   programme has expanded to cover 33 districts by 2023, of which  eight are urban districts to which Government has extended its support with the financial and technical assistance from UNICEF.  The expansion has, however, been slow mainly due to several factors including limited financial resources, weak and costly targeting system which inhibits rapid expansion.  Beneficiaries to the programme have not changed since 2011 due to high costs involved in retargeting of beneficiaries. According to the programme design, households were to remain in the programme for at least two years when retargeting would be done

The HSCT programme does not have an effective Grievance Redress System (GRM). Since the programme inception in 2012, attempts have been made to develop and roll out the GRM system which was mainly paper- based and did not give effective results. The programme has been operating without a GRM system in place.

According to literature, setting up a grievance mechanism to handle appeals and complaints is widely seen as best practice in social protection and development programming. A functioning grievance mechanism is expected to strengthen accountability to beneficiaries and communities, bringing about a wide range of benefits. These include: direct programmatic benefits, such as reduced risks of error and fraud; indirect programmatic benefits, such as increased programme credibility and support, and increased willingness of communities to actively engage with the programme; and spillover programme benefits, such as a stronger citizen-state compact, empowerment of some of the poorest and most vulnerable citizens, and reduced social tension. GRM is also expected to improve programme operations.

It is against this background that the MPSLSW with support from UNICEF is seeking the engagement of an international consultant to develop a Grievance Redress Mechanism for the government HSCT programme.

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT:

Support the Government of Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare (MoPSLSW) in designing Grievance Redress Mechanism for the Harmonised Social Cash Transfer programme.

ASSIGNMENTS:

Drawing on the existing and growing regional and global literature for best practices, whilst employing an all stakeholder inclusive, consultative, and participatory approach, the tasks for the consultant will be to:

1. Carry out a literature review of global and regional systems on grievance redress in social protection programming and delivery.
2. Participate in the survey of existing formal and informal GRMs in project implementing agencies.
3. Review the HSCT programme design including its business processes to come up with an effective GRM framework of operation.
4. Access the available resources within the ministry and identify resource gaps to be filled for the GRM to work effectively. This will include the human, financial and technological resources.
5. Lead in the development of standard operating procedures that define guiding principles; scope and types of grievances to be addressed; procedures for lodging grievances; grievance redress structures from national to subnational levels; performance standards; and internal and external grievance review mechanisms.
6. Lead in the integration of the grievance redress processes into the HSCT operational manual and the Social Protection MIS.
7. Outline and describe the different tools for collecting grievances.
8. Make recommendations on how the ministry can most effectively manage the GRM system and develop a roll out plan for the system.

Major tasks and deliverables:

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

Education:

Masters degree in  Social Sciences, Social Policy or Public Policy, Economics

Experience:

Minimum 10 years experience in Social Protection. Working experience of working on similar assignments, in the region / globally.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• Have prior experience in similar assignments. Greater weight will be given to a consultant with demonstrated experience in designing GRM systems in the region.
• Demonstrated expertise and capability in upstream and downstream communication, with experience in liaising at the highest level of government and the Unite Nations Country Team (UNCT);
• Experience and knowledge of Cash Transfer programming and designing GRM systems  globally.
• Demonstrated expertise and capability in upstream and downstream communication, with experience in liaising at the highest level of government and the UNCT;
• Understanding of Zimbabwe’s development context in the post-COVID-19 pandemic and decades of economic challenges will be an advantage.

Language requirements:

Fluency in English is required.

The detailed consultancy terms of reference is downloadable via this link  Terms of Reference.pdf

 If interested and available to undertake the individual consultancy, please submit your application online and attach the required documents including the technical proposal and an all-inclusive financial proposal incorporating an approximate number of travel days for field (local) travel. 

Technical proposal: The Technical Proposal should articulate an understanding of the TOR and include the proposed Tasks/Milestones, Deliverables/Outputs, Timeline and level of effort by deliverable. The similar table provided in the TOR is indicative. Applicants may use the indicative table as a guide or deviate as per the proposed approach. The proposal should also cost-effectively propose the local travel proposed by the applicant to undertake the assignment.

Financial proposal: The Financial Proposal should include the costs (providing a daily rate as justification) for each task, including consultant fee, proposed travel costs and perdiem, communications costs and any other proposed cost.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

To view our competency framework, please visit  here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks: 

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.