National consultant Vacancy at UNICEF | August 2024

National consultant to conduct a review of national and sub-national data collection systems on violence against women and children in Tanzania (3 Months)

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, a voice

UNICEF Tanzania is collaborating with UN Women and UNFPA, with financial support from the Irish Embassy, to support the Government of Tanzania, through the Ministry of Community Development,Gender Women and Special Groups (MoCDGWSG), to strengthen gender coordination mechanisms. This includes strengthening data systems and processes for performance and results monitoring and reporting
of interventions to address violence against women and children (VAWC) under the second National Plan of Action to End Violence Against Women and Children (NPA-VAWC II 2024/25 – 2028/29).

The NPA-VAWC II was launched on 15 May 2024. Its overall objective is to reduce violence against women and violence against children by 20% in five years (2024/25 – 2028/29). Like the first plan that was implemented between 2017 and 2022, the NPA-VAWC II sets out eight key strategies to work towards the elimination of VAWC, in line with evidence-based strategies from the global INSPIRE1 and RESPECT2 frameworks.

Administrative data systems are key tools to support monitoring and reporting on progress towards the reduction of violence and achieving the set targets. Nevertheless, generation, collation, analysis, and use of administrative data during the implementation of the first NPA-VAWC was challenging, making it difficult to track, monitor and report on performance and results promptly. Most of the existing data systems and processes in sectors relevant to VAWC are unsystematic, fragmented and incomplete, therefore making it difficult and costly to obtain structured, timely and reliable reports at both national and subnational levels. In a rapid assessment of data systems for child protection, conducted in 2011, it concluded that the sector is data-rich but information-poor, meaning there is a lot of data collected by different government departments and agencies, but it is rarely analyzed, only used on an ad hoc basis, and does not support strategic decision making. The same gaps in systems for routine data collection and analysis are observed about violence against women.

How can you make a difference? 

Scope of Work:
The individual consultant will be managed by UNICEF and work under the guidance of the NPA-VAWC Secretariat to conduct an assessment of the existing administrative data systems generating data on VAWC and determine how relevant they are or could potentially be in reporting on VAWC indicators and targets; identify available data systems and data being generated relevant to the NPA-VAWC, and establish baselines for the agreed indicators where these are available from the assessed systems;
propose feasible options for alignment of the existing systems to improve monitoring and reporting on 3 VAWC across sectors; develop tools to facilitate collection and consolidation of required VAWC data from the existing tools at both national and subnational levels; and recommend actions to address gaps where such systems to generate and analyse required data are unavailable, unsystematic and/or unaligned, making VAWC reporting and programme and policy decisions challenging.

Specifically, the consultant is expected to implement the following specific tasks:
1. Review the NPA-VAWC II results framework to understand the horizontal logic of results (indicators, baselines, targets and means of verification) and where needed, suggest areas that need adjustment and streamlining to ensure each indicator can be effectively measured to track progress towards the specific results that are outlined in the results framework.
2. Comprehensively review existing administrative data systems across sectors relevant to VAWC to identify types of data that are available to report progress in implementation of the NPA-VAWC II, including what, how and where data is collected, consolidated, analysed, and shared for different uses, present data flow in schematics.
3. Establish baseline data for agreed indicators from the administrative data systems where these are available and provide guidance and/or tools to facilitate collection of the missing baseline data where these could not be established by this assignment.
4. Identify indicators whose data sources are unstructured, incomplete, and unpredictable and propose modalities to facilitate their availability for monitoring and reporting on the NPA VAWC II.
5. Develop practical tools to facilitate data collection, collation and sharing from structured and unstructured systems at national and subnational levels (regional secretariat and Local Government Authorities) for reporting on agreed indicators in the NPA-VAWC II.
6. Propose recommendations for strengthening comprehensive, integrated and interoperable data systems for VAWC that facilitate reporting and information sharing across the VAWC sectors at all levels.
7. Develop Monitoring and Evaluation Plan that will guide how and when data is collected and consolidated from the sources upwards, responsibilities and their use in monitoring and reporting on NPA VAWC II. The M&E plan should facilitate implementation of the
recommendations from this assessment.

METHODOLOGY:

Desk review
The consultant will conduct a desk review to understand interventions and expected results in addressing VAWC as reflected in the NPA-VAWC II. The consultant will also review existing systems that generate administrative data within the government, civil society and other partners that will facilitate achievement of the specific objectives of the consultancy. The consultant will be encouraged to consult any relevant documents that will facilitate completion of this exercise based on national experiences and as much as possible draw lessons from international best practices in the area. MoCDGWSG and UNICEF will provide support with gaining access to this information. The consultant will submit an inception report to demonstrate their understanding of the assignment before proceeding with an in-depth analysis of existing literature and evidence related to the above.
Key informant interviews
The consultant is expected to conduct key informant interviews with key government and civil society entities that are hosting existing data systems to get in-depth information on how the systems work, what data is generated, collated, and stored, what mechanisms and requirements exist for data shared withinand outside the entities, and how frequently, etc. The desk review should support the consultant to identify which entity is most useful to conduct key informant interviews with. The consultant will also hold interviews with entities that ideally should have systems to generate required data on VAWC but do not yet have them to understand how they manage information within and outside their entities. This should then inform recommendations for what is needed to ensure systematization of data collection, collation, analysis and how sharing occurs in these entities for reporting on nationally agreed indicators.                  Stakeholder consultations
One or two stakeholders’ workshops will be organized to review and validate the draft report, recommendations of the assessment and draft data collection tools. The national NPA-VAWC Secretariat will play a key role in reviewing the drafts and provide initial inputs, which may require several meetings before inputs are incorporated into drafts and submitted to the broader stakeholders for further inputs
and finalization

PAYMENT SCHEDULE: UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory if work/output is incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

ASSESSMENT / SELECTION PROCESS AND METHODS: Evaluations: The applicant should submit both technical and financial proposals which stipulate how the work will be conducted. The Financial Proposal should include all costs of this assignment including fees, travel costs, and accommodation as UNICEF will not pay any DSA.
Proposals will be both technically and financially evaluated. The technical part will carry a weight of 75%, in which the consultant will put clear his/her technical approach to ensure the quality attainment of each deliverable and the consultancy in totality. The financial part will take 25% showing the proposed budget breakdown of consultancy cost for each deliverable (fees, travel and accommodation) and eventual total consultancy cost.

TRAVEL: Two trips to Dodoma for meetings.

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

• An advanced university degree in social work, sociology, international relations, development studies, law, child psychology or relevant field.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in conducting research and assessments, preferably in the
  field of child protection, gender equality and women’s empowerment with a specific focus on violence against women and children.
• Previous experience in conducting similar assessments for established development organisations, particularly the UN, other multi-national agencies, and governments.
•  Experience in developing M&E plan, data collection tools and presentations.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to engage with various stakeholders and to express ideas and concepts clearly and concisely in written and oral form.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset. 
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset. 
• Knowledge of Kiswahili necessary. 

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.