National Consultants (Child Protection) at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) - Borno, Yobe, Adamawa

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) - 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.

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.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: National Consultant on Information Management for Child Protection

Job Number: 499298
Locations: Borno, Yobe, Adamawa
Work Type: Consultancy

Purpose of the Assignment

• Under the guidance of Child Protection in Emergencies Manager(s) (Borno/Abuja), the national consultant will support the State Ministries responsible for children in Adamawa, Borno or Yobe to strengthen and ensure effective operation of the child protection information management system in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa Yobe States in North East Nigeria.

Background

• In the course of 2014 and early 2015, Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad (JAS), more commonly as Boko Haram intensified its attacks on the civilian population in Nigeria, with tactics developing from hit-and-run attacks targeting Government officials, security forces, police stations, detention centers, religious figures and schools, to take-and-hold attacks in which Boko Haram managed to establish and maintain control over large swaths of territory. While in late 2015 and 2016 the Nigerian Armed Forces took back most Boko Haram controlled areas, the fighting caused additional mass displacement, especially in Borno State.
• Over 2 million people have been displaced by the conflict, with over half under the age of 18 years, with millions more trapped in the 19 Local Government Areas that were held by Boko Haram. As the Nigerian Armed Forces have regained these Local Government Areas, there have been additional mass displacements. Recent increasing security has also led to the humanitarian community being able to access previously inaccessible Local Government Areas. Children make up over half of the affected population in these newly liberated areas.
• With funding from the European Union under the Promoting Women's Engagement in Peace and Security in Northern Nigeria, implemented by UN Women, in collaboration with UNICEF and the Federal and State Ministries responsible for social welfare, UNICEF is supporting the state government and NGO partners to develop and operationalize an information management system for child protection, in order to capture data and critical information captured through the case management system.
• Attempts to fully operationalize the system for respective State Ministries and partner organisations has met different levels of success, partly due to staffing issues as most of the staff assigned to the role require hands on mentorship and support. It has thus become necessary to provide the State Ministries with dedicated persons to focus on operationalizing the child protection information management systems in order to transition responsibility for the system from the NGOs to the government, as part of a broader systems' building agenda.
• This will make it possible to better track child protection cases being identified and documented by state and non state actors, and enable the strategic use of this information to better manage the cases, especially with respect to supporting family tracing and reunification which is becoming more urgent within the changing context in the North East. The consultants will also build the capacity of State Ministries in overall documentation, record keeping, and monitoring child protection cases.
• In addition, the Child Protection Sub Working Groups, which the State Ministries responsible for children co-chair, in the three States need to be able to better capture the scale of the child protection needs and the impact of the sub sector's programmes. The national consultants will also support information management for the Child Protection Sub Working Groups.

Scope of Work

• The purpose of the consultancy assignment is to provide technical assistance to the State Ministries in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa to operationalize the child protection information management system and to support the Child Protection sub Working Groups to strengthen information management.

The consultant will be required to among others:

• Develop and implement a plan for strengthening the CPIMS
• Develop tools and accompanying training materials for data and information collection, collation, analysis and support the deployment of these tools.
• Support full operationalization of the CPIMS
• Support Borno MWASD to take on the CPsWG secretariat function.

The national consultants will work closely with the International Information Management consultant in the fulfilment of the Terms of Reference (TOR).

Assignment Tasks

• National Consultants on Information Management for Child Protection Borno State

Tasks
Deliverables:

Support relevant State Ministries (WASD - Borno, WASD - Adamawa and YSSCD-Yobe) to establish and operationalize the child protection information management system at state level and ensure the consistent use of the IA case management (CM) forms:

• CPIMS set-up and functional within the respective State Ministry in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa
• IA case management tools available for use by government social workers
• Key Ministry personnel including data clerks, case management supervisors, and social workers are trained and coached on a continuous basis on the CPIMS and supported to use the system & the IA CM tools
• A system for collection, review and verification of completed CM forms from social workers, through to the data clerks for data entry is put in place and functional
• Backlog of completed CM forms are reviewed and entered into the CPMIS, and a new backlog is prevented from developing through timely entry of new cases into the system
• Linkages made with the GBVIMS

Support relevant State Ministries ((WASD - Borno, WASD-Adamawa and YSSCD-Yobe) to put in place systems for overall documentation and record keeping for child protection cases:

• Indicators and Means of Verification for the different components of Ministries' work are developed to track implementation progress
• Data collection tools for use by the Ministry are developed based on the agreed list of indicators for the different programme components, and key Ministry staff are oriented on their use.
• Monthly progress reports are produced for the respective Ministries based on the data collected using the different data collection tools deployed, and generation of CPIMS reports
• A system for record keeping including for archiving of case files is put in place, and is functional

In collaboration with the relevant ministries (WASD - Borno, WASD-Adamawa and YSSCD-Yobe) and UNICEF child protection team, conduct an assessment of formal and informal IDPs camp and host communities to map out the caseload of unaccompanied and separated children:

• Review and compile a listing of all the available sources of data on UASC, highlighting definitions and methodology used for the registration
• Map out current UASC programme coverage by partners, and the current deployment of government social workers at State, Zonal and LGA levels
• Review the UASC caseload managed/being managed by NGO partners and the respective State Ministries since the commencement of the programme against the number of UASC documented in the different programme locations
• Prepare a list of areas with high concentration of UASC that are currently not being covered to inform programme scale up.

Support Borno MWASD to take on the secretariat function of the CPsWG, in collaboration with the Child Protection Coordinator:

• Support the drafting and share minutes of CPsWG monthly meeting
• Follow up on implementation of agreed actions with members
• Support preparation of CPsWG documents as necessary including compilation and analysis of the CP case statistics from members
• Prepare state specific coverage maps for child protection (caseload and partner coverage)
• Contribute to UNICEF and CPsWG weekly and monthly sitreps
• Support collection and collation of 5Ws for the CPsWG at Sate level

Expected Deliverables

• Assessment report with detailed recommendations on how to strengthen the child protection case management process and information management system at State level by month 1.
• System for collection, review and verification of completed case management forms in place
• Reports on training and coaching on information management conducted with state ministries
• 100% entry of child protection cases into the Child Protection Information Management System
• Monitoring and evaluation framework for State Ministries on child protection, with indicators for monitoring progress and the corresponding data collection tools
• UASC mapping report specifying estimated caseload against caseload being managed, and highlighting areas of concentration not currently being covered
• Monthly programme reports published on child protection cases, coverage and impact based on data collected using the data collection tools deployed and from the CPIMS
• Monthly CPsWG meeting minutes and reports prepared and disseminated
• Weekly and monthly updated 5Ws covering the State
• Monthly updates on CPsWG coverage and impact prepared and disseminated
• Weekly inputs to the sitreps from UNICEF and members of the CPsWG
• Consultant's monthly progress reports indicating progress in execution of the assignment

Qualifications of Successful Candidate
Essential:

• University degree in Social Science, Statistics or related field.
• A minimum of three years of relevant professional work experience with management information systems and/or M&E systems
• Technical expertise in managing data and information - from data collection, storage and analysis of diverse data sets, as well as presenting information in easily understandable tables, charts, graphs, maps and reports (including snapshots and dashboards) for different audiences
• Excellent planning and organizational skills
• Strong inter-personal skills and communication skills - both oral and written

Desirable:

• Experience of designing and delivering training on information management systems
• Excellent knowledge of the latest tool in the field of information management within social science sector
• Familiarity with child protection and the systems strengthening approach would be beneficial
• Experience of working on information management and reporting systems within the public sector
• Experience of undertaking assessments of management information systems
• Working knowledge of the local languages

Application Closing Date
7th October, 2016.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online