Consultant for UNICEF Early Childhood Development Strategy

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

ECD is one of the key pillars of the UNICEF country programme with the Government of Serbia 2016-2020.   Over the past few years, some progress has been made in different sectors and UNICEF is currently supporting a number of initiatives to promote ECD services across sectors. To ensure optimal development of children, different programs should define unique platform connecting health, child protection, nutrition, education and social protection/welfare issues, all highly relevant for children outcomes. To support this process UNICEF Office has prepared draft ECD Situation Analysis for Serbia.

The internal UNICEF approach is however fragmented between sectors and the new country programme provides a timely opportunity to review progress, identify bottlenecks and gaps to explore the most appropriate and efficient mechanisms to develop a comprehensive multi-sectoral strategy that will support the advancement of ECD across UNICEF supported programmes in Serbia. UNICEF office in Serbia needs greater integration and synergy across the different outcome areas to support programming across ECD, using the evidence to guide overall program design.

UNICEF ECD strategy in Serbia will help in framing and outlining UNICEF standpoint on ECD; The ECD strategy is expected to generate a common vision among different UNICEF programming areas to contribute to Serbia's ECD agenda at the national and sub-national level. To that end, areas of cooperation with partners both from Government and civil society will need to be identified.

Start Date:

End Date:

Number of working days/months

10 April

1 June

2 months (15-20 days)

Work Assignment Overview

Task: Conduct a desk review of ECD in Serbia and review/edit/summarize the existing situation analysis. Map existing policies and programmes and identify gaps and building blocks in support for ECD both within the Government's agenda and within UNICEF and major partners. Clarify and articulate UNICEF's objectives and role/niche, going forward, in building and strengthening ECD programming, in a way that aligns UNICEF's comparative advantage with the needs of the Government. Develop a draft strategy and incorporate feedback provided by UNICEF programme specialists.

Strategy should identify priority areas and intervention packages based on existing evidence and structure of sectoral services in Serbia. Strategy should be aligned with SDGs, UNICEF Strategic Plan and UNICEF Country Programme priorities in Serbia. It should relate to other policy priorities and program expertise and describe/offer new theory of change. The process of making UNICEF ECD strategy should be led in the participatory manner with all program specialists in order to reflect complexity of the current programming and ensure ownership of the proposed joint ECD agenda.

Deliverables:

Draft version of ECD situation analysis and draft ECD strategy (10-15 days), 80% of payment upon acceptance by UNICEF

Final version of the ECD situation analysis and final ECD strategy for UNICEF Serbia (5 days), 20% of payment after incorporation of feedback from UNICEF and final acceptance by UNICEF.

Timeframe: 15 - 20 working days

Minimum Qualifications required:

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

Bachelors     X Masters   PhD       Other  

Disciplines:  social science or other relevant field

At least 10 years' experience working on ECD

Previous experience and proven expertise in strategy development

Previous experience working on issues relating to Early Childhood Development, Education/Early Learning, Nutrition; experience with linkages to health, nutrition, and child protection issues a benefit

Strong conceptual thinking, analytical and writing skills

Excellent facilitation skills

Excellent verbal communication as well as written writing and reporting skills in English; knowledge of Serbian is an asset