Developing a toolkit for integrating child rights in the national strategy for development of statistics

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Background and Justification

The National Strategy for the Development of Statistics (NSDS) is a planning approach and a toolkit for elaborating a country owned strategy and roadmap towards strengthening the national statistical system. It aims to align the statistical development with national development plans and needs and mainstream use to drive development results guided by the principles of inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability.

The guidelines for the development of NSDS[1] was developed by the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21[2]) in 2004. This has gone through several updates since its inception considering lessons learned from decades of experience in more than a hundred countries.

The NSDS is a framework, a process and a product built through the collective and coordinated work of the National Statistical System[3] (NSS). They are government owned strategies and are used for the benefit of the country.

• A framework from which the strategic planning is outlined for the statistical development.
• A process following a results-based, stage-phase-step approach in designing a strategy. This helps in enabling collaboration and coordination between stakeholders in the national statistical system and development partners.
• A product for statistical development providing a country with: a medium-term vision, detailed and costed action plans, and comprehensive advocacy tool

Data and evidence are instrumental for guiding policy, programming, and advocacy work at all levels of the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF). The UNICEF Strategic Plan, 2022–2025 affirms the organization’s global commitment to “transforming the landscape of data for children” as a cross-sectoral systemic outcome that is critical to addressing the underlying causes of children’s vulnerability, gender inequality and exclusion in all settings, including humanitarian crises and other fragile contexts. UNICEF also supports countries with their Universal Periodic Review and reporting on the convention on the rights of the child, which includes quantitative assessments of the situation of children and their rights.

While global availability and quality of data has been improving, critical challenges remain with the accessibility of demand-driven, quality and quantity data for driving results for children, including the systematic uptake and use across all relevant stakeholders, especially in low and lower middle-income countries and fragile states. Addressing these challenges is necessary for identifying effective and efficient policies, leave no one behind and drive the 2030 Agenda and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

NSDS is a strategic opportunity for UNICEF to support governments and statistical authorities in the prioritization of bottlenecks and strategic interventions for resilient, inclusive, and sustainable NSS for monitoring child rights and leaving no one behind. UNICEF is, thus, well-positioned to leverage country NSDS processes for children given its extensive country presence, its long history supporting government and ministries on development (national, sectoral plans and strategies across line ministries), broad partnership networks and global mandate and expertise on child rights.

There is also widespread uptake and utilization of NSDS processes and framework across low and middle-income countries in developing strategies for strengthening their NSS. In 2021, 28 International Development Association (IDA) borrower countries were engaged in NSDS process (planning, designing or implementing)[4]. In Sub Saharan Africa most countries have a version or iteration of it. UNICEF engagement and investment on this process can have multiplier effects within and across regions.

Furthermore, UNICEF has a strong partnership with National Statistical Offices (NSO) and various line ministries on data and statistics. Since the 1990’s UNICEF has been supporting national statistical offices on conducting child rights focused surveys through its MICS programme, and strengthening administrative data systems[5] related to children and their interoperability.

Towards this, UNICEF in collaboration with PARIS21 are in pursuit of a hiring an expert to lead the development and drafting of guidelines for the integration and articulation of child rights and child related statistics needs in NSDS processes and relevant toolkits.

Scope of Work

The main purpose of this consultancy is to develop a toolkit that supports countries in advancing and mainstreaming children’s rights in all aspects of national planning and policy making through the generation and use of inclusive, timely and pertinent data and statistics on the situation and wellbeing of children.

Under the supervision of the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office Child rights monitoring manager (UNICEF) and PARIS21 Inter-regional Adviser the consultant will lead the work on developing guidelines for mainstreaming child rights in the global NSDS[6] guidelines (framework, process, product) and identify, reference existing and/or develop relevant tools and templates to support countries in articulating child related statistics needs in their NSDSs.

The key activities of the consultancy are outlined below, these will be further augmented during inception phase:

• Conduct a desk review of the latest NSDS guidelines vis-à-vis country implementations and lessons learned[7]
• Identify entry points across the phases, stages and steps of the development lifecycle of NSDS for mainstreaming child rights
• Draft a model framework for mainstreaming child rights across NSDS through consultations with expert groups, country level stakeholders and other relevant partners
• Draft the complete set of guidelines covering every stage of the NSDS process/lifecycle on integrating child rights ensuring concepts are clear with internationally coherent definitions
• In consultation with the relevant stakeholders identify and develop the necessary tools and templates to support mainstreaming of child rights in NSDS and provide examples for operationalization
• Draft a supporting summary document to accommodate the posting of the guidelines on web-page and make it user-friendly
• Conduct validation workshop(s) with various stakeholders on the guidelines and the tools
• Develop a 3–5-day training schedule and materials
• Submit finalized guidelines, toolkit and training materials after incorporation of all inputs and comments

This work is part of a broader and multiyear partnership between UNICEF and PARIS21 on supporting the strengthening of national statistical systems towards realizing children’s rights. As part of that work, this activity supports the strengthening of strategic engagement in national statistical planning processes and articulating the specifics needs for ensuring statistical systems deliver results for children and leave no one behind.

An expert task force will be convened to support the development of this toolkit and provide inputs at the critical phases of the project. This task force will be consisting of UNICEF and PARIS21 relevant experts, including technical experts from national statistical offices and relevant partners.

Deliverables/tasks	Duration (Estimated # of working days)	Tentative Deadline	Schedule of payment
Kick-off meeting	1	Mar 15th
Inception report	5	April 1st	20%
Desk review and consultations	17	May 1st
Draft guidelines on mainstreaming child rights in NSDS, and Tools and templates developed	6	May 15th	30%
Validation workshop	2	June 5th
Finalized guidelines and toolkit submitted, including user-friendly summary web page document	4	June 15th	30%
Training materials finalized	5	July 1st	20%

Kickoff meeting – after the contract has been awarded a meeting call will be scheduled with the immediate managers of this consultancy. A whole working day is budgeted but the meeting itself will be 1-2 hours maximum. It is expected that the consultant conducts an initial background review and familiarizes with the background and requirements and uses the opportunity to discuss the way forward and clarify any ambiguities before proceeding with the inception phase.

An inception report[1] – that further elaborates the context, scope and understanding of the work with a complete description of the approach, sample, instruments, processes, ethical considerations, details of the deliverables and outlines, and a detailed workplan and quality assurance mechanism – should be submitted and approved before proceeding to next phase.

Desk review and consultations – based on the inception report this stage consists of documentary review and specific consultations with a pre-determined list of stakeholders that can contribute and further articulate on how best to structure the guidelines and its content, including the identification what sort of tools and templates can best facilitate child rights and related statistics in NSDS processes. The list of the stakeholders will be agreed upon during the inception phase.

Draft guidance document and tools – a first complete draft of the guideline articulating how child rights and children related statistics are incorporated across all steps of the NSDS guidelines – organized according to global NSDS structure. This should also facilitate integration on the global NSDS webpage. The tools should also be incorporated as annexes and referenced within the guidelines – these will also be hyperlinked as part of the final package.

Validation workshop – this will be an opportunity to present the toolkit for wider group of stakeholders and validate the guidelines and various products. The mode/venue and timing will be decided later[2].

The final guidelines and toolkit – the final package building on the initial drafts, review and validation workshop is delivered incorporating at least one round of feedback and inputs from the task force and other relevant stakeholders. The revised toolkit should be shared in clean and track changes with responses to all provided comments before final clearance. The consultant will also produce a user-friendly

summary web page document to be included in the main NSDS Guidelines website. The summary page should explain the rationale and the concrete actions to be taken at every stage of the NSDS lifecycle to integrate child rights data. The actions should make reference (link) to the corresponding stage in the main NSDS Guidelines and overall reference to the tools and template of the toolkit. The full toolkit will be uploaded in this specific web page in the main NSDS Guidelines website.

Develop training materials – develop a 3-5-day training programme including relevant materials encompassing presentations, cases studies, quizzes and handout to help with the dissemination and capacity building of relevant stakeholders on the toolkit and facilitate uptake – the material should be adaptable to both online and face-to-face training.

All products will be delivered in accessible relevant electronic formats: Microsoft office suite formats as relevant in docx, pptx and xlsx. The products should be copy-edited with clear and concise language and publication ready as per UNICEF book style guidance.

All documents, including reports, files, analytical tools, and resulting data are the intellectual property of UNICEF and will follow UNICEF open access policy requirements as and when publication ready documents are produced.

Some of the preliminary background documentation available:

1. PARIS21 NSDS guidelines (including gender statistics)
2. Country NSDS strategies and plans (PARIS21 repository and national statistical office websites)
3. Country NSDS evaluations (ibid)
4. Sectoral strategies and documentations
5. UNICEF Strategic plan 2022-25
6. UNICEF country reports and country programme documents
7. UNICEF and PARIS21 NSDS checklist 2021

Payment Schedule

The payment schedule is based on deliverables as per the above table upon delivery of satisfactory and complete products.

Desired competencies, technical background and experience

The candidate should have:

• At least a master’s degree in public policy, development planning, economics, development studies, statistics, or similar disciplines.
• At least 10 years proven experience in development planning, and data and statistics strategies.
• Possess strong knowledge of national statistical systems, development data initiatives, advocacy for data use and financing for data and statistics, negotiation and influencing, etc.
• Have proven experience working with integrating child rights related issues in national policies and strategies, at least one core child rights related sector.
• Experience with consultative and participatory approaches in developing guidelines and strategies
• Excellent drafting, interpersonal, communication, and problem-solving skills, and ability to think innovatively and strategically
• Excellent command of Microsoft Office software.
• Fluency in English. Working level of French is an advantage.

In addition, the candidate must exhibit the UNICEF Core Values of:

1. Care
2. Respect
3. Integrity
4. Trust
5. Accountability
6. Sustainability

Administrative issues

• As this is a remote-based consultancy the working hours will be arranged with the consultant – ideally to be available within the core hours of CET/EAT.
• Any planned travel will be by most economical fare and reimbursement will be as per UNICEF policy.
• The consultant is expected to be home based with potential[1] travel for a validation workshop (date and location to be determined) depending on COVID-19 travel restrictions for which the UNICEF office would cover subsistence allowances and travel costs.
• 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.

Conditions

• 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 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.

Risks

The consultant should also identify potential risks that can impact quality and timeliness of the work and suggest relevant mitigating measures. A more comprehensive risk assessment and mitigation measures will be developed as part of inception report, though some challenges include:

• Delays in securing the relevant stakeholders for consultations and/or incomplete or insufficient responses
• Limited availability of high-quality documentation
• High volume of documentation
• Various and differing ideas and inputs from stakeholders

How to apply

Qualified candidates are requested to submit to the online recruitment portal (Talent Management System):

• a cover letter – highlighting their suitability and experience for the job
• CV or P11 form, and
• technical proposal (not more than 4-5 pages)
• Two references of similar work and published/accessible writing samples that can be shared

Interested candidates to indicate their ability, availability, and rate (daily/monthly) expressed in US$ to undertake the terms of reference. The fees should be inclusive of other costs incurred such as travel or subsistence allowances for international consultants who might have a travel.

Applications submitted without a fee/ rate will not be considered.

• Applicants should quote a potential 3 days travel plan to Nairobi, Kenya as a tentative within their budgets.

• This should be crisp document with no repetition at most 10 pages without annexed tools.

Point to note

• All consultations will be done remotely though an in-person validation and launch workshop could be planned as part of other regional events depending on the opportunities.
• This should be crisp document with no repetition at most 10 pages without annexed tools.
• All consultations will be done remotely though an in-person validation and launch workshop could be planned as part of other regional events depending on the opportunities.

Resource materials

[1] Find the latest version of the guidelines here

[2] Established in 1999, by the United Nations, the European Commission, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank to promote the better use and production of statistics throughout the developing world.

[3] See PARIS21 and UNICEF glossary for definitions of terms for further clarification throughout the document

[4] NSDS Status report, March 2021. Click here to access the report

[5] CRVS, HMIS, EMIS, CPiMS

[6] NSOs are usually the lead in NSDS development they do so in coordination and collaboration with a range of stakeholders, such as Ministries, departments, institutions who are producers and or users of data and statistics including other international and national partners and agencies, including UNICEF Country Offices.

[7] This will be based on the review of available documentation from country NSDSs and evaluations

Original Article