About Save the Children
Save the Children is the leading independent organization for children, working to ensure that all children have access to quality basic services including health, education, protection and social welfare. Save the Children’s global priority campaign for 2016-2018 ‘Every last Child’ aims to catalyse positive change for the most marginalized, vulnerable and excluded children. Save the Children East and Southern Africa, Regional and Multi-Country Programme Unit (RMCPU) engages with regional and national processes in a bid to accelerate transformative change for children within development and humanitarian contexts in East and Southern Africa. This is achieved through implementation of a portfolio of innovative Pan-African and multi-country programs that model effective programme approaches, which further seek to generate evidence for policy influencing, while replicating at scale evidenced-based programs and good practice models.
Background
Official development assistance (ODA) is defined as government aid designed to promote the economic development and welfare of persons in a country. Official Development Assistance (ODA) can contribute significantly to the aggregate revenue of governments. In Africa, Domestic Resources are the most reliable and sustainable sources of revenue for governments to invest in children, however rapid growth in the population of children and youth puts a strain on these resources. In order to decrease the deficit that subsequently occurs in the amount of resources available to invest in children, there is need for an increase in ODA allocations that are sensitive to child rights.
The rapid growth in ODA has largely stagnated in the wake of the global financial crisis, amid constraints on donor budgets. International phenomena such as migration, climate change, humanitarian crises have resulted to the shrinking of ODA where the regular donor environment is constrained by the need to address such issues within donor countries. The donor targets as per the Istanbul Programme of Action (2011) is to provide ODA to Least Developed Countries (LDC) equivalent to between 0.15% and 0.20% of donor gross national income (GNI). In 2014, just 8 of the 28 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) members disbursed over 0.15% of GNI, down from 9 in 2013. 50 countries are currently on the OECD list of ‘fragile states’, of which around two-thirds are LDCs. These countries received US$50.3bn of ODA in 2014 – a reduction of US$3bn from 2013 and US$800m lower than in 2010. A total ODA rise in 2014 of 1% coincided with a 22% rise in humanitarian aid and a 36% rise in spending on refugees in donor countries. This meant that ODA for non-emergency-related activities fell by 2% between 2013 and 2014.
Funding for child protection emergency response work is significantly lower than for other humanitarian sectors. In any emergency situation, children are particularly at risk of significant protection problems related to separation from families, abandonment, physical, psychological and sexual abuse, exploitation and neglect, and lack of access to vital rights and services such as health, shelter, nutrition and education. The implications of lower levels of funding for child protection are that vital responses by humanitarian agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to these problems are severely reduced, further compromising the protection and survival of children in emergencies.
In East and Southern Africa, ODA continues to be an integral element of domestic resource mobilization which stimulates sustainable economic growth, accountable governance and catalyses effective humanitarian assistance. ODA remains relevant and should be directed to improving the most vulnerable populations in a country including children. However, aid effectiveness in Africa continues to be a challenge with much needed to be done to ensure efficiency in spending in key sectors that have a high impact on children such as education, health, social welfare and child protection, particularly in fragile states and countries impacted by humanitarian crises. The effective use of funds from ODA therefore contributes to ensuring that governments meet their promises to children and most vulnerable groups. In East and Southern African there remains a lack of adequate data broken down by age, sex diversity on how development aid has been used to benefit children.
Humanitarian crises remain a challenge in East and Southern Africa, from acute water and pasture shortages, epidemics, cyclical drought and flooding, acute malnutrition, cyclones, insecurity and conflict. Nearly 5 million children in the region under 5 years are facing increased vulnerability due to malnutrition and disease outbreaks. Children are particularly at risk of significant protection problems related to separation from families, abandonment, harmful child labour including association of children in armed conflicted, physical, psychological and sexual abuse, exploitation and neglect, and lack of access to vital rights and services such as health, shelter and education. Furthermore, there is an exacerbation of harmful practices such as child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation in humanitarian contexts.
The core areas of child protection programmatic activities in emergencies include: identification of separated and unaccompanied children; provision of interim care as well as family tracing and reunification; establishment of child-friendly areas for children; gender-based violence interventions for children; community messaging to prevent family separation, violence, exploitation and abuse; provision of psychosocial support; and reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups.
In addition, Children often face multiple child protection issues at the same time. The root causes of these issues are diverse, entangled, and may even be hidden. Programming approaches in the humanitarian sector historically focused on one single child protection issue at a time. Programming activities were developed around a set of assumptions or logic set out at the beginning of an intervention period, without the flexibility to adapt as new information came to light or systems changed. This has not always been successful, as the reality on the ground is more complex. Strengthening of child protection systems is therefore crucial to ensure flexible programming with integrated learning and adaptation as implementation takes place. The systems approach looks at an entire situation, taking into account all the different elements and factors and how they interrelate to one another, rather than looking at protection issues in isolation, or a specific service available to children, systems thinking brings together the range of problems facing the child, the root causes, and the solutions provided at all levels. Child protection systems that are responsive to humanitarian issues have certain key components: ‘living’ disaster and preparedness plans; disaster and emergency aware and prepared families and communities; skilled, knowledgeable protection actors and workforce and flexibility in functions. Despite the severity of the crises, allocation of financing for child protection emergency response work is significantly lower than for other humanitarian sectors particularly food and coordination & support services. Thus, the vital responses by humanitarian agencies to these problems is significantly impaired, consequently worsening the protection and chances of survival of children in humanitarian and emergency contexts.
In view of this, SCI wishes to engage the services of qualified consultant/s to undertake a mapping of ODA in East and Southern Africa, focusing on humanitarian and emergency contexts.
Purpose and Objectives of the Consultancy
The purpose of the consultancy is to generate evidence on ODA trends in East and Southern Africa, focusing on humanitarian and emergency contexts for informed advocacy on increased donor allocations that are sensitive to child rights.
Scope of the Consultancy
The consultant will be expected to conduct a mapping aimed at developing a baseline assessment of current available data on ODA in East and Southern Africa that is channeled towards implementation of child rights; demonstrate comparison of ODA allocated to specific child focused sectors including health, education and social protection, against other sectors- in both instances giving practical examples of the situation in particular countries within East and Southern Africa. The consultant will be expected to develop a contextual analysis of the child protection situation in emergency and humanitarian environments in East and Southern Africa and the current data on ODA that is channeled towards child protection programming in these areas.
The specific results are:
Evidence of donor allocations to child rights programmes (focus on Health, Education, Social Protection and Child Protection Systems), infrastructure and systems in East and Southern Africa in comparison to the total percentage allocation to rights based programmes, citing specific examples from countries in the region
Evidence of donor allocations to child specific sectors including health, education, social protection in comparison to other sectors
Evidence of donor allocations to child protection programming, in conflict and humanitarian contexts in East and Southern Africa
Evidence of challenges that persist in ODA allocations to child protection in emergencies and systems strengthening in East and Southern Africa, and potential entry points for improving ODA allocation to these sectors
Concrete recommendations on use of donor allocations to child rights programmes and child protection in emergencies in East and Southern Africa
Key Tasks
Develop a report based on the mapping findings detailing the necessary gaps in ODA in East and Southern Africa that is sensitive to child rights, the report should also include recommendations on how to ensure ODA allocations are increasingly child sensitive *The data findings in the report should be presented in visually appealing diagrammatic representations indicating patterns and/or relationships to facilitate easier comprehension for the reader
Key Deliverables
A Mapping and Analysis report on ODA that is sensitive to Child Rights in East and Southern Africa detailing the scope of work, methodology and analysis of findings
Duration of the Consultancy Save the Children envisages the consultancy taking 20 working days from the time the contract is signed. The consultant should develop a feasible work plan covering the maximum 20 days and submit as an integral part of the proposal for this consultancy. The successful bidder must commit to accomplish and deliver the consultancy services and deliverables before or on 30th August 2017
Expected Profile of the Consultant
For this consultancy, Save the Children is expecting to contract 1 lead consultant dedicated to achieving the key deliverables.
The consultant should have the following qualifications and experience * Post graduate degree in any social science or economics * At least 10 years’ experience working on Child Rights and Child Protection, experience working on economic justice and in humanitarian and emergency contexts in East and Southern Africa will be an added advantage * Demonstrated experience in carrying out research projects and fiscal policy analysis * Good understanding of the politico-economic contexts of countries within East and Southern Africa * Good interpersonal skills and understanding different perspectives. * Strong analytical and report writing skills * Demonstrable capacity to deliver high quality outputs within a proposed timeframe. * Knowledge of donor systems, structures and ways of working an added advantage
Submitting expressions of interest (maximum 5 pages)
Interested individuals must submit a technical and financial proposal of a maximum of five (5) pages including:
A cover letter introducing the consultant and how the skills and competencies above are met, with concrete examples as appropriate.
An expression of interest including proposed methodology, time schedule and work plan for carrying out the consultancy.
A CV detailing relevant skills and experience, including 3 contactable referees
Proven record of experience in child rights, child protection and economic justice.
Reasonable budget breakdown and cost consideration commensurate to expected deliverables.
Applications should be submitted to: Save the Children East and Southern Africa Regional Office by 9th of August 2017
HOW TO APPLY:
Application Email: Please apply with a covering letter and up-to-date CV to: ‘MKogi.96130.3830@savethechildrenint.aplitrak.com’