Recrutement de 01 Home-based Consultancy Behavioral Insights expert - Improving Child Allowance Use in Montenegro

Recrutement de 01 Home-based Consultancy Behavioral Insights expert - Improving Child Allowance Use in Montenegro

Contract type: Consultant
Duty Station: Geneva
Level: Consultancy
Location: Switzerland
Categories: Social and Behavior Change
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.

For every child, hope

Purpose of Activity/Assignment

UNICEF Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia is looking for an expert in behavioural insights to support UNICEF regional office and UNICEF Montenegro in designing and testing BI solutions (messages) and formulating recommendations on using BI solutions for utilizing the child allowance programme to support children enrollment in pre-school education services.

Background

Recent reports show that one in three Montenegrin children (33.7%) face monetary poverty, making them one of the most deprived groups. In this context, child allowance (CA) coupled with ‘plus’ complementary services and interventions could provide significant support for the finances of these families.

However, even if this implementation predicts positive outcomes, some parents may still choose to not use the benefit accordingly, or less likely even to misuse the benefit. In view of this, it is important to develop strategies to optimize the use of child allowances by families and caregivers in favour of children. The use of messaging of an informative nature but also based on behavioural strategies has been shown to have relevant results in relation to the correct use of money and adherence to treatments. Interventions designed through a behavioural strategy would facilitate parents' decision-making, allowing them to reduce cognitive dissonance, while taking advantage of social norms and peer pressure to influence their behaviour, as well as helping to prioritize goals and change ingrained behaviours. Taking this into account, we consider that the implementation of behavioural science interventions would be an optimal element that accompanies the child allowances given to Montenegrin families.

UNICEF Montenegro in collaboration with the Center for Advanced Hindsight (CAH) at Duke University has already completed initial steps to understand spending habits of Montenegrin families and prototype relevant interventions. Information was gathered through the design and analysis of a household expenditure survey in collaboration with local partners, two stakeholder workshops, stakeholder interviews, and stakeholder focus groups. Intervention design is ongoing with an expected implementation in the fall of 2023. Intervention results will be used to assess the ability of BI framed messages to increase children enrolment in pre-school facilities/programmes.

Scope of Work

The consultant will engage with UNICEF ECARO and Montenegro country office and partners to:

Review draft solutions, methodology, research protocol and provide inputs for their finalization. Provide technical support for the finalization and implementation of a full-fledged test of BI interventions (the interventions, messages and approaches are currently under development) through a co-creation workshop with the national stakeholders.
Provide support and technical guidance - research protocol, to validate the quality and relevance of the to-be-implemented BI intervention materials and workplan against the proposed design through detailed plan and recommendations. Support the pre-test of BI solutions, data analysis and report writing. Review the final results of the pilot study and provide expertise for the development of the scale-up methodology.
Provide support in development of a case study to share the lessons learnt for UNICEF with external stakeholders (e.g., Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review).
Develop an ‘Options paper’ describing the various opportunities to apply behavioural insights for cash transfers to maximize results for children in ECA region.
A detailed workplan will be developed once the consultant is onboard.

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks / Milestone Deliverables / Outputs Timeline / Deadline
Review draft solutions, methodology, research protocol and provide inputs for their finalization. Provide technical support for the finalization and implementation of a full-fledged test of BI interventions (the interventions, messages and approaches are currently under development) through a co-creation workshop with the national stakeholders. Proposed BI solutions, methodology for pretesting. Co-creation workshop report
12 working days;

Between Aug and Sept 2023

Provide support and technical guidance - research protocol, to validate the quality and relevance of the to-be-implemented BI intervention materials and workplan against the proposed design through detailed plan and recommendations. Support the pre-test of BI solutions, data analysis and report writing. Review the final results of the pilot study and provide expertise for the development of the scale-up methodology. Final set of BI solutions, methodology. Report on pre-test results.
18 working days;

Between Sept and Oct 2023

Provide support in development of a case study to share the lessons learnt for UNICEF with external stakeholders (e.g., Harvard Business Review, Stanford Social Innovation Review). Case study
3 working days;

By November 2023

Develop an ‘Options paper’ describing the various opportunities to apply behavioural insights for cash transfers to maximize results for children in ECA region. Options paper. Final report
7 working days;

Between Nov and Dec 2023

Estimated Duration of the Contract

40 working days (between August and December 2023)

Consultant's Work Place and Official Travel

The assignment will be home-based.

As part of this assignment, some travel to Montenegro is expected. The consultant will arrange her/his travel as and when they take place, and related costs will be reimbursed per UNICEF travel policy.

Travel Clause

All UNICEF rules and regulations related to travel of Consultants apply.
All travels shall be undertaken only upon the prior written approval by UNICEF.
The consultant must be fit to travel, be in a possession of the valid UN BSAFE certificate, obligatory inoculation(s) and have a valid own travel/medical insurance and an immunization/vaccination card.
Estimated Cost of the Consultancy & Payment Schedule

Payment will be made on submission of an invoice and satisfactory completion of the above-mentioned deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines. All materials developed will remain the copyright of UNICEF and UNICEF will be free to adapt and modify them in the future.

Please submit a daily rate (in USD) in your application based on 40 working days to undertake this assignment. Please do not include travel fees as this will be reimbursed as and when they take place.

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

Masters in one of the following fields is required: social and behavioural science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, social policy or another relevant technical field.
A minimum of five (5) years of professional experience in one or more of the following areas is required: social development programme planning, social and behaviour change or another related area.
Demonstrated expertise and previous experience in designing, testing, and scaling up behavioural insights interventions.
Previous experience in implementing behavioural insights interventions applied to cash transfer or a similar area is an asset.
Experience in applying human-centred design approaches.
Fluency in English is required.
For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS), and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most marginalized children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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:

Please include a full CV and/or a Personal history form (downloadable from http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/P11.doc) in your application, as well as a summary of similar relevant experience in designing, implementing, testing BI solutions to influence policies and utilization of cash transfer programmes. Additionally, indicate your availability and daily rate (in USD) to undertake the terms of reference above. Applications submitted without a professional fee will not be considered. 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.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants 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.

Advertised: 14 Jul 2023 W. Europe Daylight Time
Deadline: 28 Jul 2023 W. Europe Daylight Time