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. And we never give up. 

You can watch our video to learn more about UNICEF Turkiye Country Office and a glance of our worklife.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

Access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) is essential for children’s health, development, and education. Poor WASH services increase the risk of malnutrition, disease, and absenteeism—especially for girls and children with disabilities. For young children, particularly in their first 1,000 days of life, clean environments are critical for growth and brain development.

Türkiye, with a young population of around 9 million children aged 0–14, faces compounded challenges due to the Syrian refugee crisis and the 2023 earthquakes, which affected over 15 million people, including 5.4 million children. Nearly one million children in earthquake-affected areas still lack access to basic hygiene and sanitation. Early learning has been disrupted: many non-formal learning centres remain overcrowded or under-resourced in WASH, and educators lack training to integrate hygiene practices into daily routines. Parents also face gaps in awareness of basic hygiene practices.

UNICEF, in partnership with municipalities, water utilities, and CSOs, has made significant progress by restoring WASH infrastructure, distributing hygiene kits, and conducting awareness campaigns. With Unilever’s support, UNICEF will now expand hygiene promotion efforts, targeting both young children and caregivers to build lifelong healthy habits and reduce preventable illness.

This consultancy will support the development of child-friendly, family-focused, and municipality-supported hygiene and sanitation interventions in learning spaces across Türkiye.

For every child, inclusivity

The purpose of this consultancy is to design, pilot, and deliver materials and capacity-building interventions to strengthen hygiene and sanitation practices in early learning spaces, and to engage educators, parents, and municipalities in creating safe, sustainable, and pandemic-ready learning environments.

How can you make a difference? 

The following table provides a tentative plan summarizing task, deliverables, timeline, and estimated person-days. The contracted consultant/expert is expected to carry out the tasks under the supervision of the UNICEF Early Childhood Education Officer.

*Delivery dates are tentative. Detailed time plan is required together with the technical proposal.

*Colored tasks are supposed to be conducted in cooperation with another consultant.

In general consultant/expert will work home based. The selected long-term individual consultant/expert is expected to travel for face-to-face trainings, validation workshops, and other in-person meetings as required.

Duty Station: The assignment will be home-based, with meetings in Ankara as necessary.

Supervisor: The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the Early Childhood Education Officer, UNICEF Türkiye, and in close coordination with relevant programme staff.

Estimated Duration and Cost of Consultancy:

Duration: The contract will be effective from the date of signing until the successful submission of the deliverables, which are estimated to require a total of 155 working days which will be planned during the initial working days. The consultancy is spread within 36 months from November 2025-November 2028.

Estimated Cost of Consultancy: Applications shall include a detailed financial proposal that elaborates on daily costs based on the completion of above-mentioned deliverables, including a total sum demanded. All costs, including travel, accommodation, administrative costs, etc. shall be covered by the contractor and should be included in the financial proposal as a separate heading and broken down into details of accommodation and travel costs in line with UN DSA rates. The candidate is required to specify their daily rates and the total amount as per the number of anticipated working days for each deliverable in the financial proposal and provide the breakdown of the lump sum amount as well as incidentals of each deliverable in TRY.

Payment: UNICEF will issue a contract in TRY. The payment will be made in installments upon submission of the deliverables listed above and will be executed in TRY.

Payment Schedule: Payment will be made in instalments, linked to satisfactory completion and approval of deliverables. UNICEF will issue the contract in TRY.

Reservations:  UNICEF reserves the right to terminate the contract without a prior notice and/or withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if the rules and the regulations regarding confidentiality, ethics and procedures of UNICEF and the project partners are not followed, if work/outputs are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines.

Travel Requirements: The consultant may be required to travel up to 40 days. All costs, including travel, accommodation, administrative costs, etc. shall be covered by the contractor and should be included in the financial proposal as a separate heading and broken down into details of accommodation and travel costs in line with UN DSA rates.

Ankara (10 days) and Southeast (30 days) provinces.

The consultant must respect the confidentiality of the information handled during the assignment. Documents and information provided must be used only for the tasks related to these terms of reference.

Price proposals in TRY should be valid for 36 months and consultant should not demand price increase after the signature of the contract. 

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

Qualifications:  

• PHD degree in Early Childhood Education (ECE) /Early Childhood Development (ECD), Public Health, Social Sciences, or related field.
• Minimum 7 years of professional experience in WASH, early childhood education, or related programme development.  Samples of the relevant work should be submitted as supporting documents.
• Demonstrated expertise in developing child-friendly and family-oriented learning materials.
• Proven experience in delivering trainings.
• Experience working with municipalities, CSOs, UNICEF, UN agencies and community engagement.
• Strong facilitation and training skills.
• Excellent communication skills in Turkish.

Skills and personal traits: 

• Excellent communication, drafting and facilitation skills in Turkish.
• Ability to work with municipalities, CSOs and educators.
• Creative, organized, and able to meet deadlines.
• Culturally sensitive with commitment to child rights and inclusivity

*After the selection process the consultant will be expected to complete the mandatory UNICEF AGORA Trainings.  

Application and Selection Criteria

Applicants are expected to submit to UNICEF the following documents:

1. 1. Financial proposal  Financial Offer_Consultancy for Development of Children Community Focused Learning Materials on Hygiene, Sanitation, and Sustainable & Pandemic-Ready Learning Spaces.docx
   2. CV
   3. Technical proposal. The minimum content for the technical proposal is:
      • A sample of relevant previous works, including developed materials in the past 

Financial proposals should be submitted in separate folders from the remaining documentation. After the technical evaluation, the financial proposals of qualified candidates will be evaluated. The technical evaluation will be completed based on the attached technical evaluation criteria. The applications will be evaluated from the technical and financial point of view. Technical aspects will be evaluated using the criteria outlined in the matrix below:

The financial proposals will be opened only for the candidates that reach or exceed forty-nine (49) points out of maximum seventy (70) points. Thirty (30) points will be awarded to the candidate that presented the lowest fee for the services requested. The remaining financial offers will receive proportional points ([lowest bid/bid] x 30 points).

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.