Home-based part-time consultancy: ECD Data and Evaluation Specialist. 90 working days over 8 months

Background and Context

Globally, almost half of all children under the age of 5 years are at risk of not realizing their developmental potential as a result of the risks of poverty and poor nutrition and a lack of access to basic services and early learning opportunities. Juxtaposed against these challenges is the invaluable evidence gained from advances in biological and behavioural sciences that show that a child’s development (including particularly, the development of the brain) can be protected and promoted through simple actions and interventions in the earliest years of a child’s life.

The ECA region is primarily a middle-income region and is home to over 42 million children in the 0-6 age group however, 1 in 5 of them are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. ECA countries have had a tumultuous recent history that led to widespread political and social changes. The post-Soviet transition created both challenges and opportunities to government programming and civil society. Today, there exist wide disparities between and within countries in child outcomes as well as in access to care and support. Reviews andMulti-Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) 4,5,6 point to variable rates of child mortality, and poor health and nutrition linked to poverty, maltreatment and harsh physical discipline in the early years, limited use of developmentally enhancing strategies by parents, inadequate and delayed identification of children with disabilities and referral to needed services, and high rates of institutionalization of children as a strategy to deal with neglect, abuse, abandonment or disability. Given the middle-income context of the ECA region, sustainable growth in countries is dependent on the development of “cognitive capital.”

The UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (ECARO) supports work in 22 countries, coordinating regional efforts and supporting the local efforts of Country Offices across the region. With a special commitment to meeting the unique rights of young children, ECARO endeavours to support targeted and coordinated efforts to mainstream ECD principles in health, nutrition, education, child protection, and emergency planning

and response. Furthermore, building on the robust corpus of evidence on early childhood development (ECD), UNICEF promotes implementation and scale-up of evidence-based, and effective multisectoral packages aimed at ensuring that all children, including the most vulnerable, reach their development potential. This robust evidence generation and progress tracking requires strong Evaluation tools that allows for adaptive management, processes and skills.

As well as the day-to-day needs for evaluation expertise, the ECARO ECD team are also currently working on two flagship programmes, Parent Buddy and Learning Passport, which require the development of strong M&E frameworks.  Parent Buddy (PB) is a mobile app designed to support parents of children aged 0-6 with comprehensive, evidence-based information and interactive tools to cover a wide range of children’s development including thematic areas of health, nutrition, early learning, responsive parenting, protection and parent well-being. The app is interactive, open-source and free to all users. It is adaptable across country contexts and pushes content relevant to a child’s specific age and stage. Learning Passport (LP) is a Microsoft digital learning platform for child, parent, and teacher skill development across the learning continuum. In the ECE age it is targeting educators for continuous professional development, and parents for skill and knowledge building to support their young children’s education and competencies. The Learning Passport is free, supported by Microsoft technical teams, and adaptable to local needs and contexts. Both initiatives are currently in the early stages of implementation across multiple countries in the region, with the intention of further scale up.  In order to ensure maximum impact, and adaption based on lessons learned, a strong embedded evaluation and learning Framework is needed for initiative development and roll-out. Furthermore, both initiatives are seen as reinforcements to the existing ECD programing across countries rather than stand-alone initiatives and their contribution towards the overall ECD agenda and results frameworks should be adequately recognized.

Purpose:

Under the supervision of the UNICEF regional advisor for ECD and in close collaboration with the Evaluation Regional Advisor, the consultant will be responsible for developing an embedded evaluation and learning framework for Parent Buddy and Learning Passport for use at Regional Office (RO) and Country Office (CO) level, supporting the use of the framework and tools across countries, advising on key data for collection, analysis of initial data and findings relevant for further scale-up purposes. The consultant will also support the link between these multi country initiatives and the broader ECD portfolio and data across the region. As part of this work the consultant will review and strengthen the internal UNICEF M&E landscape of the ECD programme, vis-à-vis the regional ECD strategy and other relevant RO results frameworks and their ongoing progress monitoring across countries.  

Scope of work and key deliverables:

Development of embedded evaluation and learning framework for Parent Buddy (PB) and Learning Passport (LP)

• Develop Theories of Change (based on existing drafts) and associated Evaluation and Learning Frameworks for PB and LP, to guide the implementation of adaptive management process and well as eventually demonstrating contribution to impact level results   of UNICEF ECAR’s ECD digital initiatives aimed at improving parental skills and confidence, strengthening skills and practices among ECD professionals, and ultimately advancing child development outcomes through positive parenting, and increased access to quality early learning.
• Develop a plan for adaptive management of these initiatives across the region, in the short and longer term.
• Identify key indicators to track users, use, and impact of the programmes, both for RO and CO level, develop all relevant data collection tools and guidance for monitoring.
• Support the development of linked indicators and evidence for the associated ECD regional campaigns in 2021-2022 on parenting and preschool education
• Ensure LP Evaluation and Learning Framework aligns with and/or builds off the MERL Framework for LearnIn.
• Ensure PB and LP Evaluation and Learning Frameworkes are informed by and tuned in with the regional ECD and relevant RO results frameworks (ROMP, ECD Strategy, Flagships, SP)

 Data collection, use and evidence generation

• Guide the sampling design, data analysis plan and data collection options for each initiative at CO and RO level
• Propose options for data collection, deriving from the nature of these digital innovations and ways that data collection can be embedded in the platforms themselves
• Document best practices from existing country roll-out/implementation.
• Support the ECD team in developing a simple M&E Framework for Parenting and Pre-primary communication campaigns, with a focus on measuring behaviour change.

 Regional ECD data coherence and Capacity building

•  Support RO and CO ECD staff to better understand evidence-based adaptive management principles and practices in the context of ongoing programing and key initiatives, including planned ECD campaigns in 2021.
• Train CO and RO teams on the evaluation frameworks for Parent Buddy and Learning Passport.
• Train and support CO and RO teams on tools developed and their use.
• Develop a brief regional ECD indicator manual, associated with the regional ECD strategy monitoring over the next 5 years and support its roll out
• Conduct secondary analysis of existing ECD data to identify common themes and impactful interventions – including emerging work under the Child Guarantee
• Support the review of Country Programme Documents (CPD) and Programme Strategy Notes with an M&E Lens to ensure ECD priorities are well reflected in log-frames and develop ECD indicator manual to support next cycle of CPDs

Deliverables:

Qualifications and Experience Required 

• Master’s degree in Education, Early Childhood Development, Statistics or related Social Science field.
• Seven years of relevant professional work experience in ECD and Monitoring and Evaluation.
• Experience working with data analysis and data visualization tools (Excel, PowerBI, SPSS).
• Experience in real-time evaluating application-based innovations and conducting evaluation experiments, nimble and/or impact evaluations, and behavioral science
• Knowledge and use of programming R and Python, as well as natural language processing
• Knowledge on database  management Experience working with UNICEF or another UN agency is an asset.
• Experience working in the Europe and Central Asia Region is an asset.
• Demonstrated data collection and analysis skills.
• Demonstrated strong communication and interpersonal skills.
• Proficiency in English is required.

Estimated Duration of the Contract:

The contract will cover up to 90 working days over an 8-month period from April 2021 – December 2021.

Deliverables over the course of the assignment will be agreed on a monthly basis with the consultant’s supervisor and will be documented through monthly reports. Payments will be made against set deliverables based on the agreed negotiated daily rate.

Work Place and Official Travel: