Home-based Consultancy: Supporting ECAR country offices with pilots and modelling for scale up (3 consultants)
Geneva
- Organization: UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund
- Location: Geneva
- Grade: Consultancy - Consultant - Contractors Agreement
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Occupational Groups:
- Statistics
- Social Entrepreneurship
- Closing Date: Closed
The processes of piloting and modelling are a key strategy of UNICEF within the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. Piloting is defined by UNICEF as testing a new theory of change to assess whether an approach could be effective. Modelling is defined as demonstrating that the intervention works in a new context, to promote replication and encourage adoption by others. Several country offices in ECA region are implementing project models and pilots and need support with the modelling work with the view of scale up. ECARO is seeking to hire 3 individual consultants to help ECARO and COs with such types of work on demand and needs-based basis.
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For every child, hope
Location of consultancy: home-based
Duration: May - December 2021 (aprox. 90 working days within the given period)
Reporting line: Dual reporting line: Evaluation Specialist and Regional Evaluation Advisor
Background and Context The processes of piloting and modelling are a key strategy of UNICEF within the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. Piloting is defined by UNICEF as testing a new theory of change to assess whether an approach could be effective. Modelling is defined as demonstrating that the intervention works in a new context, to promote replication and encourage adoption by others. In practice, it is found that these stages (piloting vs modelling) are not distinguished from each other, and the early work to develop and test programmes is regarded by the UNICEF teams as part of modelling (UNICEF 2020)[1]. Models are implemented on the ground to create evidence and engage local partners to identify solutions for children to be replicated or scaled up. Although there is no widely agreed definition of ‘scale’, there is clarity in what ‘scaling’ or implementing at scale means i.e. “To support the widespread replication and/or adaptation of an innovation across large geographies and populations for transformational impact.” (IDIA, 2017 in UNICEF 2019)[2]. Source: UNICEF (2019)[3] In 2014 UNICEF developed consensus about the necessary conditions for modelling, based on discussions between Deputy Representatives in all Country Offices (CO) and the Regional Office of the Central and Eastern Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States region. UNICEF have launched a significant number of models between 2016-2020 in the areas of health, child protection, education and adolescent wellbeing. The process of modelling is intended to provide information about the effectiveness and feasibility of wide-scale implementation, and to be an advocacy tool in efforts to secure the resources and partnerships need for scale up and sustainability of the models. It intends to proof that a concept or components of an intervention works or does not in certain circumstances and intends to fine-tune implementation to eliminate bottlenecks and reach the intervention’s goal. It is also intended to increase ownership and buy-in from stakeholders. At the moment, embedding evidence throughout implementation is at the core of an effective adaptive management strategy that ECAR is adopting. This type of work is evident in modelling and assessments of interventions that require an agile reflection and decision-making processes that affect primarily implementation of programme outputs. The evaluative work is delivered throughout the implementation process and not at the end of implementation. New developments in technology and data analytics make the evaluability efforts of modelling work more dynamic, less costly, and allows for multi-variable analysis of information in a quick manner. This line of work has not yet been explored much. It requires a shift of culture and operation and can be implemented in various ways. There are currently several pilots and models one of which is the EU4Moldova project in Moldova conducted by the UNICEF Country Office. The overall objective of the five-year programme is to strengthen the economic, territorial and social cohesion in the Republic of Moldova through facilitating inclusive, sustainable and integrated local socio-economic growth and improving the standards of living of children, adolescents and all citizens in the two focal regions Cahul and Ungheni (Annex A). The current assignment will start with this project and extend to and cover other additional pilots and models with an intention of scale up. Purpose: Under the supervision of the UNICEF regional advisor for evaluation and regional evaluation specialist, the consultant(s) will be responsible for providing ECAR Country Offices on demand support with designing and setting up their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks to ensure that the models and pilots are evaluable from the start and that there is reliable and rigorous data and evidence to demonstrate that these small scaled interventions have produced outputs, outcomes and are likely to contribute to the impact beyond the reasonable doubt. As part of this work the consultant(s) will help ECARO strengthen the internal UNICEF M&E landscape of the models and pilots. Before investing in a large-scale project, testing its assumptions on a smaller scale can help UNICEF ECAR to become better equipped to plan and execute for the larger scale deployment. UNICEF COs can reduce the risk of propagating mistakes by detecting errors at the pilot stage. Some pilots can be used to assess the impact of using the technology for service delivery. By showing what works and does not work at the small scale, the pilot can provide the evidence needed to secure more funding or to justify greater expenditure on specific areas. If needed, consultant(s) will provide an advisory role to the UNICEF COs in adaptive management of pilots and models. Scope of work and key deliverables: For the purpose of the assignment, consultant(s) will undertake the following tasks among others which can vary from case to case: With Country Offices:
With the Regional Office:
Deliverables: - Draft and refined ToCs and results frameworks (approximately 4 of each)
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[1] UNICEF (2021) Evaluation of Models for Scale-up Potential in Serbia 2016-2020: Final Report. March 2021
Prepared for UNICEF Country Office, Serbia
[2] UNICEF (2019) Scaling Innovation for Ever Child
[3] Ibid. p. 6
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