Consultancy Title: Technical Guidance on Social Protection and Child Marriage Consultancy

Division/Duty Station: Child Protection – Prevention of Harmful Practices & Social Protection, Programme Group

Duration: 10 April 2025 – 31 July 2025

Home/ Office Based: Remote

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

Develop guidance note, and a peer reviewed article on how to create linkages between social protection interventions and child marriage programmes to maximize impact towards child marriage prevention and care

Scope of Work:

The UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme to End Child Marriage promotes the rights of adolescent girls to avert marriage and pregnancy and enables them to achieve their aspirations through education and alternative pathways. The Global Programme supports households in demonstrating positive attitudes, empowers girls to direct their own futures, and strengthens the services that allow them to do so, including sexual and reproductive health and social protection programmes. It also addresses harmful gender norms and promotes laws and policies that protect girls' rights. Launched in 2016, the Global Programme is implemented in 12 of the high-prevalence or high-burden countries

A strong body of evidence indicates that poverty is a primary driver of child marriage and that economic interventions are among the most effective strategies for preventing the practice.  When tailored to context and delivered with additional services such as education, health or livelihood interventions – often called ‘cash plus’ – cash transfers, such as through social protection programmes, can also contribute to girls’ health and wellbeing, to keeping girls in school, to their sense of agency, and to a greater say in the decisions that affect them. Additionally, there is strong evidence that cash transfers can reduce violence against women and girls, delay adolescent girls’ sexual debut, and prevent adolescent pregnancy. 

To accelerate progress towards meeting the ambitious global target of eliminating the practice of child marriage by 2030 (SDGs 5.3), the Global Programme to End Child Marriage (GPECM) and UNICEF Global Social Policy & Social Protection (SPSP) teams are collaborating in selected countries, both Global Programme and Rising Star, to accelerate efforts to end child marriage leveraging social protection. 

To support these efforts, the two teams seek a consultant to develop practical technical guidance for UNICEF Country Offices. The guidance will inform the integration of child marriage prevention strategies into design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of large-scale social protection programmes. The aim is to effectively leverage large-scale social protection programmes as both a preventive and responsive mechanism to child marriage. 

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

Work Assignment Overview/Deliverables and Outputs/Delivery deadline

1.  Develop a technical resource document providing guidance and recommendations for leveraging social protection systems to prevent and respond to child marriage. Such guidance shall include: 

• Compelling overview and evidence on how poverty is a key driver to child marriage, and analysis of pathways through which social protection systems can address child marriage, grounded in robust evidence and research
• Compilation of promising country examples where child marriage prevention and response components have been successfully integrated in social protection programmes
• Documentation of operational considerations for strengthening the linkages between child marriage and social protection in different contexts including both development and crisis/conflict settings. Key factors to consider include programming entry points (e.g. programming, policy, and advocacy strategies), capacity-building and training needs for stakeholders, stakeholder mapping for effective coordination, design and implementation considerations for sustainability, system linkages across sectors, and guidance on monitoring and evaluation
• Develop models of effective strategies for strengthening humanitarian cash transfers to address harmful practices (HDPN) such as child marriage in contexts of conflict or climate-induced stressors on households including programming and advocacy strategies
• Recommendations for programming, research, and advocacy including concrete strategies for resource mobilisation across these areas

- Technical Guidance Document 

15 May 2025

- Peer reviewed article: a scoping review on poverty drivers of child marriage and analysis of pathways through which social protection systems can address child marriage

30 June 2025 

Qualifications

Education: 

• Masters in social science (social policy, gender studies, economics, sociology or any other similar field)

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *: 

• Minimum of 8 years’ experience in social policy/social protection, poverty reduction, gender equality, GBV including harmful practices or any other similar field) 
• Technical knowledge on gender responsive social protection, GBV and harmful practices
• Analytical and writing skills
• Excellent communication (oral and writing)
• Facilitation and presentation skills

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and

- Upload copy of academic credentials

- Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :

• • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • 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.
  • Indicate your availability

- Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

- 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.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

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:  

Individuals engaged under a consultancy 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. Consultants 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.