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Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

The purpose of the assignment is to advance the realization of critical linkages between nutrition and social protection in programmes supported by UNICEF, through the production of a practical guidance document and provision of technical support with programme design and delivery to UNICEF Country Office Nutrition and Social Protection teams in West and Central Africa. The assignment will focus on addressing key design and implementation issues for both nutrition-sensitive social protection (NSSP) and humanitarian cash transfers. The consultant will be expected to build on UNICEF’s recently published Position Paper on Leveraging Nutrition and Social Protection Programming, as well as global and sub-Saharan Africa-based good practices for nutrition sensitive “cash +” programmes with a focus on preventing malnutrition through actions targeting the first 1,000 days window of opportunity.

Specific objectives:

1. Assess existing nutrition-sensitive cash transfer programming initiatives in the region (both social protection and humanitarian), whether led or supported by UNICEF, government, or other organizations.
   - identify cases, challenges and good practices related to the design and delivery parameters of nutrition-sensitive cash transfer initiatives in WCAR or similar contexts (i.e., sub-Saharan Africa), building on available documentation as well as discussions with regional counterparts
   - draft a short evidence-based report on lessons learned on effective nutrition-sensitive cash transfer programming.
2. Publish a note outlining a set of user-friendly programming principles and practical tips (e.g., dos and don’ts, decision tree, menus of options) for the effective integration of appropriate nutrition objectives, design and implementation parameters into social protection and humanitarian cash transfer programming for WCAR and similar contexts, using a gender lens, and including references to relevant background and support documents
3. Develop a working template for funding proposals for nutrition-sensitive cash transfers for use by UNICEF RO and COs, providing standard language on UNICEF’s approach, unique competitive advantages (i.e., a focus on systems building and support to sustainable, government-led interventions), standard options, and budget estimation template.
4. Support 3-4 countries to draft programme-specific concept notes for design and implementation of nutrition-sensitive social protection or humanitarian cash transfer programmes.

How can you make a difference? 

Scope of Work:

Background
Globally, UNICEF is committed to strengthening nutrition-sensitive social protection programmes and systems and to optimize the programming synergies between nutrition and social protection to improve outcomes for children. UNICEF’s Core Commitments for Children (CCCs) include benchmarks to promote the use of “cash plus” approaches across humanitarian and development programming. Ensuring nutrition linkages is a critical step for reinforcing child-sensitive social protection systems.
UNICEF’s Nutrition Strategy responds to the evolving face of malnutrition worldwide and aims to ensure that all children benefit from optimum nutritious diets, and adequate services and practices. To achieve this goal, and in a sustainable manner, engagement with national systems across multiple sectors is necessary to achieve positive nutrition outcomes for the most vulnerable, at scale. A comprehensive life-cycle approach to programming is also necessary, which is why the first 1000 days – from conception to age 2 – remains core to UNICEF nutrition programming, ensuring children receive necessary services and programmes when it is most critical to their development. UNICEF aims to support children to realize access to all basic rights and services, regardless of the context. In fragile and humanitarian contexts, linkages that ensure child- sensitive programming, which includes nutrition-sensitive social protection, is even more critical, as children in these contexts often live in precarious conditions for an extended period during a developmentally critical period of their childhood. For this reason, nutrition-sensitive humanitarian cash transfers are of critical import in a region like WCAR.
Social protection, and in particular social cash transfers, can provide crucial income support to enable households to improve the diets and nutrition of children for the most vulnerable families by addressing one of the primary underlying causes of malnutrition – poverty. Evidence shows that social protection programmes can improve the affordability of nutritious and diverse diets, increase access to essential nutrition services and contribute to the adoption of nutrition-friendly practices. However, evidence also indicates that without deliberate efforts in the analysis, design, and implementation of these programmes to include nutrition-sensitive approaches, the opportunities to enhance the impact of both social protection programmes for improving maternal and childhood nutrition outcomes can be lost.
In West and Central Africa region (WCAR), 82 percent of children 6 to 23 months are receiving less than the recommended five food groups a day. At the same time the proportion of people living with less than $1.90 a day continues to rise with over 25 million people across the region struggling to meet their basic food needs. Young children in those families are particularly affected as missing the benefits of a nutritious diets so early will have lifelong consequences for them and decrease their chances to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty and malnutrition. Further, combined effects of conflicts, climate shocks, COVID-19 and high food prices are continuing to drive hunger and malnutrition rates to the rise in the region and it is projected that this lean season will see 48 million people who lack access to safe and nutritious foods1. Nutrition-sensitive social protection, accessible across contexts, and, in particular, in the face of shocks, can provide a necessary support to increase the resilience of households before, during and after shocks, allowing them to maintain basic needs, especially food and nutrition security.
Increasingly national governments are interested in adapting social protection programmes to be more nutrition sensitive or adopting new NSSP programmes. The donor community also has a vested interest in this topic, seeking ways to better invest to achieve positive outcomes for food security and for children and nutrition. As such, several UNICEF Social Policy and Nutrition teams in the WCAR region support nutrition-sensitive social protection initiatives. This includes a regional joint programme supported by BMZ, the Sahel Social Protection Joint Programme (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger), under which improving the child and nutrition-sensitivity of national systems is a key objective; a nutrition-sensitive cash transfers programme in DRC, combining humanitarian and safety net approaches; and nutrition-sensitive humanitarian cash transfers in countries such as CAR or Nigeria. Considering the context and ever-increasing need, it is expected that nutrition-sensitive social protection will continue to grow as a priority area of work.
Scope of Work
In this context, the UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office Nutrition and Social Policy teams have observed the need to provide high level expertise and dedicated support to country offices with the design and delivery of relevant, coherent, and effective nutrition-sensitive social protection programmes, specifically cash transfers. This requires both an exploration of existing good practices, as well as the development of a practitioner note that assists teams in a practical way with decision-making around critical design and delivery options, based on the literature, an assessment of practice in the region, and challenges and opportunities observed. This is the subject of the current assignment.
The thematic scope of the assignment and its’ main deliverable, the practitioner note, cover the integration of nutrition dimensions into social protection programmes and national systems. While the focus is on programming, the scope includes principles and practical ways of integrating nutrition dimensions in social protection and related policies, coordination and financing frameworks, and other institutional arrangements, including national delivery systems for programmes (information systems, targeting systems, payment, and grievance systems among others). Regarding nutrition-sensitive social protection programming, the scope focuses on cash transfer interventions. Other interventions such as public works or school feeding may be covered mostly from a policy or coordination angle. The notion of cash transfers comprises (multipurpose) social cash transfers or social safety nets, their shock-responsive expansions, as well as humanitarian cash transfers.
The practitioner note will address the design parameters of nutrition-sensitive cash transfer programmes in all settings, including fragile and hard to reach zones, and address programme design and implementation aspects ranging from the programme objectives, eligibility criteria, transfer value, complementary services (cash +), to delivery mechanisms (for the cash and complimentary nutrition-oriented elements). The standards and tips will be underpinned by the review of relevant evidence, literature, and practices.
The geographical scope of the assignment encompasses the West and Central African region as reference in terms of assessing existing initiatives as well as the audience for the practitioner note. Relevant lessons and practices can be derived from other similar regions, keeping in mind the specificities of institutional and infrastructure parameters commonly found in the West and Central Africa regional context as they relate to nutrition-sensitive social protection.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in social protection, nutrition or related field
• A professional work experience of at least 10 years in the field of social protection, including nutrition-sensitive social protection
• A strong track record and demonstrated expertise in relevant related fields for this assignment: shock-responsive social protection, social protection systems strengthening, (linkages between) humanitarian and development contexts for social protection, and achieving nutrition outcomes through social protection
• Familiarity with the West and Central Africa regional context, and in particular social protection context, is an asset
• A strong command of both French and English
• Proficient writing and analytical capacity.

Other Requirements

• Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system /Resume
• Academic credentials/certificates
• Consultancy proposal
• Financial proposal that will include:
  • Costs for each deliverable and total all-inclusive (lump sum) fees for the whole assignment
  • Travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per ToR
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs, as applicable
• Previously relevant consultancy products & final evaluations (if available)
• Indicate your availability
• At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

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.