Consultancy for Mapping Community Engagement and AAP Mechanisms - Iran # 574070 Iranian Nationals Only

Community engagement, receiving feedback and complaints from the community, and accountability to affected and target populations during humanitarian and non-humanitarian situations are at the core of UNICEF’s development and humanitarian response. Feedback mechanisms are crucial in non-emergency service provision. They allow for continuous improvement, ensuring services and programs meet user needs effectively. By identifying gaps and successes, they enable providers to refine their offerings, enhancing overall service quality and user satisfaction. Therefore, UNICEF intends to hire an AAP and CE expert consultant to enhance UNICEF Iran’s internal programming capacity for effective CE and AAP in all program pillars for advocacy for and support enhanced accountability.

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, Future

Community engagement, receiving feedback and complaints from the community, and accountability to affected and target populations during humanitarian and non-humanitarian situations are at the core of UNICEF’s development and humanitarian response.

Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) is concerned with the ethical and responsible use of power and resources. It is about putting the needs and interests of the people and communities that organizations serve at the center of decision-making and ensuring the most appropriate and relevant outcomes for them while preserving their rights and dignity and increasing their resilience to vulnerable and crisis situations. In practice, this means that people, including children and adolescents, have a voice in decisions that affect their lives, have access to the information they need to make informed decisions, have access to safe and responsive mechanisms for providing feedback or complaining, and have equitable access to assistance based on their needs, priorities, and preferences. One of the pillars of AAP is strengthening listening approaches and providing safe spaces for affected populations (AP) to express themselves and provide feedback on services, programs, and humanitarian responses.

Community Engagement (CE) is a dialogue between programs/services target groups, including crisis-affected populations, humanitarian organizations, and government institutions, where possible, within and between communities. It should enable target groups/ affected people to meet their different needs, address their vulnerabilities, and build on their existing capacities, as well as take part in programme decision-making. Engaging with communities ensures that proper, accessible, culturally sensitive, and timely information is shared with them in their own language and that their feedback and participation are integral parts of humanitarian response or development program. This is based on the principle that people’s meaningful participation in any situation including humanitarian processes is essential and that information is a critical form of assistance.  Furthermore, the programs targeted communities and affected people by humanitarian situations have a right to be actively involved in the decisions that affect their lives. Ensuring that programmes are accountable to affected/targeted people is therefore a key aspect of rights- based programming.

The humanitarian sector has made significant progress in recent years, with evidence of continuous interaction between organizations and communities. Recent agency-specific and system-wide reforms have sought to deliver a more responsive and people-centered approach to humanitarian action.  As described in UNICEF’s Core Commitments for Children, complaint, feedback, and accountability mechanisms are essential in ensuring that the views of affected populations are heard, respected, and responded to in all aspects of programs and responses.

Likewise, feedback mechanisms are crucial in non-emergency service provision. They allow for continuous improvement, ensuring services and programs meet user needs effectively. By identifying gaps and successes, they enable providers to refine their offerings, enhancing overall service quality and user satisfaction.

How can you make a difference? 

By mapping the potential existing CE and AAP mechanisms for each of UNICEF program areas and humanitarian response, this consultancy intends to support UNICEF Iran to better,

• advocate and facilitate the establishment/enhancement of gender-sensitive and inclusive accessible complaint and feedback mechanisms that ensure accountability and information flow to address feedback to/from the affected population, including those from vulnerable social groups, to support decision-making by government institutions at national, provincial and district level as well as humanitarian actors at agency, cluster, and inter-cluster, levels and,
• advocate for and support enhanced accountability by coordinating, supporting, and improving gender-responsive and inclusive accountability mechanisms wherein feedback from affected populations is shared and promoted among stakeholders, such as the Government and humanitarian actors, when relevant, for inclusion in the response and quality service delivery.    

 Scope of the work

The consultant is expected to provide strategic recommendations for enhancement of CE and AAP for each of UNICEF’s Health and Nutrition, Education & ADAP, Child protection Social Policy, WASH programs, and humanitarian response. The consultant must ensure that the proposed strategies and mechanisms are not a separate system parallel to other existing CE and feedback structures and are linked to existing systems.

The consultant must also consider innovative digital and technology-based avenues and solutions (if applicable) for effective CE and AAP.

Therefore, in implementing this plan, the consultant must apply the basic principles of the IASC and UNICEF’s humanitarian response guidelines for engaging people affected by humanitarian situations, feedback, and response.

Accordingly, the consultant needs to ensure, the following IASC and UNICEF’s AAP Framework, and the seven principles are addressed.

Pillar 1: Community Engagement and Participation

Safe, appropriate, equitable and inclusive opportunities for girls, boys, women, and men of all ages of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups, to participate in decisions that affect them, including how to define and prioritize interventions and determine the most appropriate means of delivery of services in development contexts and assistance in times of emergency.

Pillar 2: Information and communication

Safe, appropriate, equitable and inclusive access to information on people’s rights and entitlements and how to exercise them. This includes transparent, equitable, two-way communication based on the priority information needs and communication preferences of all groups of vulnerable people in the population.

Pillar 3: community’s Feedback  

Safe, appropriate, equitable and inclusive access for vulnerable communities to provide feedback, inputs and complaints about their experiences and perspectives on the quality and effectiveness of programmes and their relationship with people and organizations providing services for them, including on sensitive issues. This includes ensuring mechanisms are in place to systematically collect and analyze feedback to inform decision-making processes, adapt programmes and activities if required, and report back to people and communities on any corrective actions taken in response to their feedback and complaints.

Pillar 4: Protection from Risks and Survivors

Ensure that risk prevention measures are in place, ensuring programmes provide vulnerable communities have safe, confidential, appropriate, equitable and inclusive access to mechanisms to register, refer, investigate, and respond to protection issues, and access quality support for survivors.

Pillar 5: Strengthening local capacity

Work with and through local organizations, frontline staff, and helpline, as well as national coordination mechanisms, to support engage and empower vulnerable communities (including children and youth) participate in the design, implementation, monitoring and management of programmes.

Pillar 6: Evidence-based advocacy and decision-making

Advocate with other implementing partners (service providers) and other relevant stakeholders on behalf of vulnerable people and communities to address their priority needs and concerns in ways that respect their rights and dignity, including the right to participate in decisions that affect them. Ensure that decision-making processes at the strategic, operational and programme level are based on evidence that considers the views and perspectives of vulnerable people themselves. Documenting lessons learned and sharing with relevant actors, including communities, to improve the quality, effectiveness, and accountability of current and future programmes.

Pillar 7: Coordination and partnership

Build and strengthen partnerships and coordination with communities, local, national, and international actors, and networks to minimize gaps and duplication and maximize the quality, coverage, reach and effectiveness of humanitarian and development programmes. This includes promoting individual and collective measures to coordinate and improve accountability to vulnerable people and ensure that their needs, interests, and concerns are at the centre of decision-making at all levels.

 

Methodology

In line with the above-mentioned objective and scope, the key activities and deliverables of the consultancy are listed below:  

• Development of an inception report/project proposal and timeframe. The inception report is expected to review ethical clearance requirements and provide respective protocols and supporting documents. The inception report will also suggest required adjustments to the methodology based on the initial desk review.
• Conduct a mapping exercise using various research methods such as desk review, key informant interviews, focus group discussions (FGD), case studies, and others to identify gaps and potential online and offline CE, feedback, and AAP mechanisms. These should be identified separately for each pillar of the UNICEF Iran program, namely Health & Nutrition, Education & Adolescents Development and Participation (ADAP), Child Protection, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Social Policy, and Humanitarian Response. Consult with UNICEF’s Program and emergency technical teams. Also, ensure to include the needs, experiences, and participation of men, women, girls, boys, people with disabilities, children with disabilities, refugees, and migrants at different stages of the mapping exercise.
• Provide a set of strategic recommendations, with a gender-sensitive and inclusive approach, on the effective utilization of online and offline CE, feedback and AAP mechanisms within each program area and effective advocacy strategies with IP for the establishment/enhancement of CE, AAP and PSEA mechanisms, ensuring UNICEF’s and IASC’s guidelines and policy recommendations are integrated.
• Conduct a one-day workshop for UNICEF Program and Emergency teams to review and finalize the mapping and recommendations, agree on actions for each program area and develop an action plan for CE, feedback, and AAP for UNICEF Iran.
• Develop user-friendly checklists and monitoring tools as required.
• Prepare interim and final reports, including executive summary for the final report in English and Farsi

 

ACTIVITIES, DELIVERABLES AND TIMELINES, PLUS BUDGET PER DELIVERABLE

This contract will be valid for 155 days within 6 months.

1. Develop an inception report, a project document, project results matrix, an implementation plan and timeframe            (10 working days)

Validate and approve project document and implementation plan in collaboration with UNICEF.

1.1.   Inception report, project document and work plan (all in English)                          

2. Conduct a mapping exercise, with a gender sensitive and inclusive approach, utilizing different research methods such as desk review, key informant interview, FGD, case study among others to identify gaps and potential online and offline CE, feedback, and AAP mechanisms, separately for each pillar of the UNICEF Iran program namely Health & Nutrition, Education & ADAP, Child Protection, WASH, Social Policy, and Humanitarian response    (40 working days)

 2.1. Conduct of the study

3. Develop a draft report of the findings of the mapping study   (5 working days)

3.1. Draft report of the findings of the mapping study

4. Provide a presentation to UNICEF Program and Emergency teams separately to collect feedback on the findings and consult on the recommendations     (30 working days)

4.1. Meeting and presentation for UNICEF Program and Emergency teams separately to collect feedback on the findings and consult on the recommendations

5. Develop a set of strategic gender-responsive and inclusive recommendations, on the effective utilization of online and offline CE and AAP mechanisms within each program area     (30 working days)

Provide a set of recommendations for effective advocacy with IP for the establishment/enhancement of CE, AAP and PSEA mechanisms, ensuring UNICEF’s and IASC’s guidelines and policy recommendations

5.1. Report of recommendations for effective utilization of online and offline CE and AAP mechanisms within each program area and recommendations for effective advocacy with IP for the establishment/enhancement of CE, AAP, and PSEA mechanisms

6. Conduct a one-day workshop for UNICEF Program and Emergency teams to review and finalize the recommendations and agree on actions for each program area     (5 working days)

6.1. One-day workshop for UNICEF Program and Emergency teams to review and finalize the recommendations and agree on actions for each program area

7. Develop tools, checklists, and final report of mapping study, strategic recommendations and action plans in Farsi and English, including an executive summary for the report     (15 working days)

7.1. Approved final report of mapping study, strategic recommendations, and action plans, including an executive summary, tools, and checklists in Farsi

8. Translation of final report of mapping study, strategic recommendations, and action plans, including an executive summary, tools, and checklists to English     (20 working days)

8.1. Approved English version of final report

 

Management:

The consultant will work under direct supervision of AAP focal point (SBC Officer) in close collaboration with UNICEF Program teams.

 

Travel:

No travel is expected for the purpose of this consultancy.

 

Coordination:

• The consultant him/herself will be responsible for coordinating with related institutions to conduct meetings and meetings with UNICEF team.
• UNICEF is responsible for coordinating the presentation sessions and workshop venue and necessary coordination for the final stage.
• Funding the cost of holding the workshop is UNICEF's responsibility, not under this contract.

 

PAYMENT CONDITIONS AND SCHEDULE

Payments are linked to deliverables as per the table below in IRR and are payable upon UNICEF's approval of the deliverable.

The financial proposal should include all consultancy fees including the costs of tax, insurance, project staff, working space, ICT equipment, inter alia, if any, for the consultant and his/her team if any.

The cost of English translation of the inception and final report and annexes should be included in the proposal.

 

	Deliverable	Payment (%) – IR Rials
1	Deliverable 1.1	15%
2	Deliverable 1.2 and 1.3	30%
3	Deliverable 1.4 & 1.5	35%
5	Deliverable 1.6 & 1.7 &1.8	20%
Total	100%

CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION

Technical Criteria

• Advanced university degree in social sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology, social development, development studies etc.) and/or Community development               (maximum 10 scores)
• Proven experience in conducting mapping, research, and studies    (maximum 20 scores)         
• At least 6 years of solid professional experience in designing and implementing humanitarian response with a child focus, AAP, PSEA, community-based programs and community engagement, and/or child safeguarding          (maximum 20 scores)   
• Technical proposal               (maximum 20 scores)         

Financial Proposal:  20 scores

Passing Score: 80 scores

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

• Fluency in Farsi language
• Advanced university degree in social sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology, social development, development studies etc.) and/or Community development.
• Proven experience in conducting mapping, research, and studies.
• At least 6 years of solid professional experience in designing and implementing humanitarian response with a child focus, AAP, PSEA, community-based programs and community engagement, and/or child safeguarding.
• Previous working experience with UNICEF/UN and the government of Iran is an asset.
• Fluency in English is an asset.

 

NOTE FOR CONSULTANTS AND INDIVIDUAL CONTRACTORS:

The Consultant should submit,

a technical proposal that includes:

• A detailed plan and timeframe for the study, implementation of different phases, a brief proposal for utilizing innovative and ICT-based solutions, a training schedule,
• CV of team lead and technical team members

a financial offer which contains the following information:

• Fee for services– based on the deliverables in the Terms of Reference (calculating all affiliated relevant costs, including tax and insurance for the project team, as relevant)
• There is no travel expected for the purpose of this consultancy.

 

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.