International Consultant at the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (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.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: International Consultant for Technical Support to the Internal Process Review of Education Programs Relevance, Effectiveness and Efficiency

Job No: 562159
Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Contract Type: Consultant
Duration: 45 days
Categories: Education
Level: Consultancy

Purpose of Activity / Assignment

• With a population of approximately 206 million, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. Approximately 43 percent of the population is below 14 years of age. It is estimated that one in every 13 births globally will be taking place in Nigeria by 2050.
• Though such a demographic dividend can support the country to further stimulate its economic growth and development, it yet places an immense burden on an already heavily pressured education system. It further calls for sharpened and focused efforts to ensure quality education for all.
• UNICEF Nigeria has been supporting the Government of Nigeria in its efforts to systematically address the structural challenges facing its basic education system through three programmatic areas under education.
• These are system strengthening, increased access to formal basic education, and improved quality of learning for all. During the current Country Program Document (CPD 2018-2022), UNICEF Nigeria, in collaboration with the Government of Nigeria, implemented education programs both at federal as well as at state level with a total investment of more than 204M USD.
• Assessing the return on such investment by evaluating the effectiveness of interventions designed to improve access and learning is key to informing future plans with evidence-based justification for targeted programming.
• This process should not only focus on the end results but should equally examine the process leading to these end results with the aim of verifying relevance and effectiveness among others.
• In light of the above, UNICEF Nigeria, Education Section, is seeking the support of an international individual consultant to conduct an internal process review of its ongoing education interventions over the course of the current CPD (2018-2023) to assess the extent to which such interventions, including their associated activities and sub-activities, are aligned with and can lead to the achievement of the intended results and outputs, as per the set Theory of Change (ToC).

Scope of Work
To achieve the above, this internal process review exercise will examine different programmatic/thematic areas within education per the below evaluation criteria:

• Relevance: to what extent the ongoing activities and sub-activities align with and are directly linked to the specified intended output/outcome, and ultimately the set ToC?
• Logic and complexity: Is the theory of change evidence- and experience-based and do the underlying assumptions make sense in the given context and programme? What pivots may be needed to accommodate changes in the political or social context to ensure that progress toward goals is still achievable?
• Effectiveness: to what extent the ongoing activities and sub-activities are evident-based and proved to systematically lead to the achievement of the intended output?
• Efficiency: to what extent the ongoing activities and sub-activities are sufficient to achieve the intended outputs? Are there are gaps that need to be addressed to achieve the intended output?
• Cost effectiveness: to what extend the ongoing activities and sub-activities are the most cost-effective in relation to the intended output, based on global and regional evidence? Are there any other evidence-based activities and/or sub-activities that have been proven to be more cost-effective and can be tailored to the Nigerian context?

A three-phased approach is suggested:

• Phase I will include a detailed mapping and description of all activities and sub-activities.
• Phase II will include assessing the mapped activities and sub-activities in light of their causality to the intended output/outcome and ToC including evaluating their robustness, fit, coherence, and adaptiveness in terms of associated evidence of effectiveness and efficiency, against an agreed upon checklist. This will involve multiple rounds of discussion with Country and Field Office colleagues and will identify adaptations that can be integrated immediately in programming to be included in the ongoing assessment.
• Phase III will include a participatory internal learning process in which the education team, across NCO and FOs, collectively make informed decisions on the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, logic, and cost-effectiveness of the different activities and sub-activities with the aim of reaching a consensus of future planning under the new CPD (2023-2027). This will enable documenting the decision-making process and how the program interventions evolve over time. The specific approach to this participatory process will be shared at a later stage of the assignment.

Qualifications
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have:

• Education evaluation (preferably developmental evaluation), program design, Monitoring, and Program Performance Management Education, Teacher Education, Sociology, Education Psychology.

Knowledge / Expertise / Skills Required:

• Experience in education evaluation (preferably developmental evaluation), program design, monitoring, and program performance management

Language requirements:

• Fluency in English is required.

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.

Benefits

• 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. 

Application Closing Date
30th May, 2023 (W. Central Africa Standard Time).