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For every child, hope.

Consultancy Title: GBViE Consultant – Local Women-Led Organisations and Adolescent Girls

Section/Division/Duty Station: Programme Group, Child Protection Section, UNICEF NYHQ

Duration: November 1, 2024, to August 31, 2025

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ / Remote

About UNICEF 

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

Related to this mission, UNICEF is directly involved in addressing gender-based violence (GBV) in some of the most intense and complex conflicts and disasters. GBV in its various forms constitutes a global crisis which undermines social and economic progress; as one of the world’s greatest human rights violations, GBV must be addressed to ensure universal rights and principles with regard to equality, security, liberty, integrity and dignity of human beings.   Preventing and responding to gender-based violence in emergencies (GBViE) is recognized as a life-saving measure and an essential component of humanitarian action. As a lead agency in addressing GBViE, UNICEF has expanded its on-the-ground programming in recent years and made prevention and risk mitigation of, and response to GBViE one of its targeted priorities in its new Strategic and Gender Action Plans (GAP) 2022-2025, as well as in the new Child Protection Strategy. GBViE contributes to the results under Goal Area 3 and is also now a cross-cutting priority across the new Strategic Plan-, making GBV risk mitigation one of UNICEF’s change strategies and a key contributor across all Goal Areas. GBViE risk mitigation is now also across all sectors and areas of work in UNICEF’s updated Core Commitments for Children.

Following the commitments made by the Executive Director at the 2019 Oslo Conference, UNICEF has made significant progress on strengthening its partnerships with local women-led organizations. During a strategic planning meeting held in June 2024, the GBViE team reconfirmed its three key priorities for the next phase of WLO work under UNICEF’s GBViE portfolio, including continuing to build the evidence, addressing systemic barriers to partnering with WLOs and using the agency’s platform to provide space and voice for these organisations. UNICEF has also released an agency-wide strategy on adolescent girls, with one of the three pillars of this strategy entirely focused on protection/violence. In order to continue advancing UNCEF’s commitment to women-led organizations and further operationalizing the PG Adolescent Girls’ strategy, the GBViE team is looking for a consultant to support the development of specific deliverables under both of these workstreams.

The WLO-related deliverables will be developed in collaboration with colleagues from Gender, EMOPS, DAPM and PME at HQ, RO and CO level. The adolescent girls workstream will also involve Gender, Disabilities, Education (Adolescents) and the Humanitarian Action Focal Points group within Programme Group.

Scope of Work:

Under the supervision of the GBViE Specialist, the consultant will be responsible for the following deliverables:

• Facilitate and prepare supporting materials for one regional workshop with UNICEF COs and WLOs.
• Support the testing and review process of DAPM’s model for strengthening partnerships with small organizations.
• Replicate the interagency adolescent girls analysis (originally piloted in Nigeria in 2024) in two new humanitarian (refugee) contexts.
• Develop a humanitarian annex to accompany UNICEF’s multisectoral adolescent girls strategy.

The consultancy will be home-based with travels to emergency-affected contexts relevant to the above tasks, as feasible.

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

Facilitate and prepare supporting materials for one regional workshop with UNICEF COs and WLO.

Deliverable:  Work with identified RO to prepare workshop content. Co-facilitate the workshop (in-person) in collaboration with the facilitation team. Produce workshop report and additional follow-up materials as needed.

Deadline: 31 December 2024, 31 January 2025, 28 February 2025.

Support the testing and review process of UNICEF’s emerging model for strengthening partnerships with local women-led organizations.

Deliverable: Develop a one-pager focused on duty of care for UNICEF partnerships with WLOs.

Develop concept note to support resource mobilisation for “Voices of 1000 Women”.

Delivery deadline: 31 March 2025, 31 January 2025

Replicate the interagency adolescent girls analysis (originally piloted in Nigeria in 2024) in two refugee contexts.

Deliverable: Collaborate with UNICEF colleagues (ADAP, Gender and others) and other key stakeholders to identify the target context and adapt tools and methodology to be used for the analysis. Facilitate an in-person analysis workshop in each target context. Summarize results and recommendations into key messages for both senior management and technical specialists.

Deadline: 31 May 2025, 31 July 2025, 31 August 2025

Develop a humanitarian annex to accompany UNICEF’s multisectoral adolescent girls’ strategy.

Deliverable: Draft annex and facilitate review process with the GBViE and CPHA teams. Present Annex to PG Humanitarian Action Focal Points group for feedback and brainstorming around next steps.

Deadline: 31 March 2025, 30 April 2025

Qualifications

Education:

Advanced university degree (Masters) in the area of Public health, social work, political science, human rights and international law or other related degree, or equivalent programming experience.

Work experience:

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *: 

• At least 7 years of humanitarian or related work experience in GBV programming in natural disasters and conflict-affected countries.
• Knowledge and experience working with local women-led organizations and/or on tailored programming for adolescent girls in emergencies.
• Experience with humanitarian coordination structures (at global and/or field level).
• Solid understanding of GBV guiding principles and the survivor-centred approach.
• Familiarity with UNICEF’s financial and administrative systems as they relate to implementing partnership agreements.
• Demonstrated ability facilitating interagency workshops and consensus-building processes.
• Flexible work attitude: ability to work productively in a team environment and independently, and to handle requests or issues as they arise.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills: the ability to successfully and effectively liaise with people in a wide range of functions in a multi-cultural environment.
• Fluency in English required, working proficiency of another official UN language preferred

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF’s e-Recruitment system and

– Upload copy of academic credentials

– Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :

• • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability

– Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

– At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.

– Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.

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

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

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: 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy 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. Consultants 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.