CALL FOR APPLICATIONS no: CFA-ALBA-2014-004

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Guidingthe team of Albania’s State Agency for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SAPRC)in the preparation of an annual progress report (2013) on the situation of children in Albania[1]

  1. Background

Albania’s State Agency for the Protection of the Rights of the Child is responsible for child’s rights monitoring and reporting as per the Law #10347 (dated 4 November 2010) and for monitoring the implementation of the National Action Plan for Children 2012-2015. With respect to this Law, the Decrees of the Council of Ministers#266and #267 (dated 12 April 2012) acknowledge the responsibility of SAPRC to collect and analyzedata and to produceperiodical reports which address the most critical issues, concerning the rights of the child in Albania.

SAPRC and UNICEF have agreed to collaborate to implement a list of tasks pertaining to the implementation of the “Delivering as One”UN Country Program, Outcome 1.1, with the purpose to “strengthen public oversight, civil society and media institutions make authorities more accountable to the public, and better able to enforce gender equality commitments in planning, programming and budgeting processes”. In this respect, there is an imperative need for the monitoring and reporting system of SAPRC to be enhanced together with the capacities of staff working with this system in order to deliver the required monitoring reports in line with the CRC reporting standards.

  1. Monitoring and reporting on child rights

SAPRC is in charge of monitoring the implementation of national obligations in the area of child rights by different state authorities at the local and central level. Considering the feedback from different partners on the quality and usefulness of the annual reports produced on the state of implementation of the Law 10347, SAPRC considers it important to revise the methodology of monitoring and analysis, in order to produce a report that will best serve the goal of informing public policies that address child rights issues.

  1. Scope and Objectivesof the consultancy

The objective of the consultancy will be toguide the team of SAPRC in the preparation of an annual progress report to assess the implementation of child rights in Albania in 2013. It is important to highlight that the Consultant will work in synchrony and closely inter-act with another assignment (scheduled until end-October) aimed to assist the SAPRC team in reviewing the current mechanisms of data collection on children in Albania.

More specifically, the Consultant on the annual reporting will be requested to:

play the role of a Team Leader to the SAPRC team in charge of child situation analysis and reporting;

jointly with the SAPRC team, develop an outline of the annual report;

accompany the report drafting process done by the SAPRC staff with technical guidance and advice, to ensure the quality of analysis and the narrative;

identify major data gaps and describe (to the extent possible) systemic data collection bottlenecks behind these gaps;

make recommendations for strengthening institutional responsibilities of various duty-bearers in measuring the realization and reporting on the status of children’s rights;

recommend necessary policy enhancements and mechanisms (in relation to SAPRC’s mandate) to ensure the periodic measuring and reporting of the realization of children’s rights;

exploreand articulate opportunities to include the future system of child rights monitoring into a broader (integrated) monitoring system for the national Social Protection and Inclusion Strategy (currently under development).

  1. Deliverables

The following list of outputs will be required to be delivered by the end of the consultancy:

Policy paper containing recommendations on strengthening the child rights’ monitoring system, including detailed suggestions on strengthening the data analysis and reporting capacity of SAPRC;

As a Team Leader, insure a timely preparation by the SAPRC team of the 2013 progress report on the implementation of child rights in Albania.

  1. Duration of consultancy

The Consultant is expected to work from mid-August till end-October 2014.

  1. Profile and qualifications

Annationalconsultant will be hired for this assignment, withthe following qualifications:

Advanced degree in Economics, Social Sciences, Public Policy, Governance, Development Studies or other relevant fields;

A minimum of 10 years of professional experience specifically in the area of social policy/social protection/public policy analysis and design;

Close familiarity with methodologies of equity-focused analysis;

Substantial track record of different types of studies and reports (please provide internet links);

Excellent communication, inter-personal and networking skills;

Ability and readiness to invest time and effort in guiding and training the team, empowering and building the capacity of supervised team members;

Access to different government and non-government institutions;

Experience in institutional performance assessment;

Excellent report writing skills in Albanian;

Ability to deliver quality results within strict deadlines.

  1. Selection criteria

Recruitment of a consultant will be doneby UNICEF, in accordance with UNICEF rules and regulations, based on a competitive selection of the best bid out of those submitted in response to the advertised call for proposals. The applicants will be asked to submit the following documents:

A letter of interest;

CV;

Proof of technical expertise in the matter (such as hard copies of reports or internet linksto electronic reports);

3 recommendations, which demonstrate team leadership and networking experience;

Financial proposal, stated in monthly bases, as ALL/Month;

After a careful assessment of the proposals, UNICEF and SAPRC will select the most appropriate candidate based on the following criteria:

Technical expertise (40 points);

Educational background (30 points);

Networking and relevance of past experience (20 points);

Reasonability of the cost of proposed activities (10 points).

  1. Submission of applications

Applications should be sent electronically to , copied to nd .

The subject line should state the call for applications no CFA-ALBA-2014-004 and read“Assistance to SAPRC in drafting an annual progress report (2013) on the situation of children in Albania”.

The deadline for applications is cob July 30, 2014.

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[1]The Consultant will work in synchrony and closely inter-act with another assignment (scheduled until end-October) aimed to assist the SAPRC team in reviewing the current mechanisms of data collection on children in Albania.