Expression of Interest: Child Rights Situational Analysis (CRSA) Consultant

Save the Children International (SCI) is the world's leading independent organisation for children. We work in around 120 countries**. We save children's lives; we fight for their rights; we help them fulfil their potential.**

Objective

It is important that we have a good understanding of the situation for children in the country context in order to inform our strategic decisions/choices, and this means conducting a comprehensive child rights situation analysis (CRSA).

Conducting a good quality child rights situation analysis is a significant undertaking and it is important to be realistic about what can be achieved based on the time and resources available and the prevailing external political, social, cultural and economic environment.

The CRSA will include, among other things, an examination of current rights violations and their root causes, including the accountabilities of duty bearers; analysis of relevant legal frameworks and of the perspectives of other stakeholders, including children as well as looking at environment of changes taking place and likely to take place over the next 5+ years and how these may affect children’s rights. The purpose is to enable us to make the appropriate strategic choices about what needs to be done in order to improve children's lives.

The objectives are:

· To better identify and understand the obstacles and constraints to children enjoying their rights from the perspective of the people: rights holders and duty bearer themselves, so as to see where the Southern Africa region is on Child Rights [CRs].

• A macro overview and analysis of the environment; the changes taking place in Southern Africa currently and future trends which positively or negatively may affect children’s enjoyment of their rights.
• To inform strategic decision making, particularly SCI Global Strategy, Regional Strategy Plan [RSP] for 2016-2020 and Thematic Strategies in the RSP.

· To provide a group of staff members and partners with the opportunity to develop knowledge about children’s rights and the UNCRC, ACRWC and to apply this in the Southern Africa setting.

· To use as a basis for regularly updating data/information re: child rights situations, through desk review of available documents.

The CRSA will be conducted by an external consultant, thorough stakeholders’ interview, FGDs, workshops and desk review of relevant documents. The emphasis will be on both quantitative and qualitative data gathering and analysis. The types of analysis to be conducted include: disaggregation of mapping [who does and does not enjoy rights to which they are entitled and what are the gaps in provision and violation of rights; disaggregation of data by gender, ethnicity; disability, age [infant 0-4; primary 5-9 yrs; secondary & adolescent 10-18 yrs]; problem tree and stakeholders analysis [ link effects, problems and causes; roles and responsibility analysis [who are the duty bearers, how well are they performing their duties, and how are the duty bearers linked to each other]; capacity gap analysis [why are duty bearers not meeting their responsibilities]; trends analysis [Identification of the past, present and future trends in external environment of significance for child rights]; and analysis of urban and rural.

Approach:

1) National/Regional level analysis

[i] Gathering data/information from secondary sources;

[ii] Review of the CRC periodic report, alternative report and concluding observations;

[iii[ Consulting 3 INGOs, 3 national level NGOs , 2 donors, 2 research institutes and 2 relevant government agencies, including ministries: selection of these agencies will be done in CRSA planning workshop and spread across the countries in Southern Africa

[iv] Consulting limited representatives of the National Children’s Task Force Members [in participatory workshop];

2) District level analysis

[i] Consulting relevant district authorities [e.g. District officials]

[ii] NGOs, both SC current partners and non-partners;

3) Community and family level analysis

[i] Head of Households of selected families, esp. women;

[ii] Selected community Adults [a mixed group of people, including religious leaders, members of UP, heads of any existing social and political structures; school teachers]

[iii] FGDs with selected boys and girls, with mixed economic, social, cultural, ethnic and religious background, including disabled.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

· Good knowledge of human rights approach to programming, preferably children’s rights

· At least a Master’s degree in a relevant discipline i.e. human rights, project management, Monitoring and Evaluation, etc.

· Proven experience in monitoring and evaluation

· Experience in survey design, assessment tools and administration

· Ability to manage multiple, complex tasks being undertaken concurrently

· Experience conducting key informant interviews and focus group discussions

· Ability to analyse, interpret and synthesise information from a number of sources

· Excellent report writing and research skills

· Ability to work under pressure and in a multi-cultural environment

· Good knowledge and understanding of human rights programming

· Ability to work effectively and efficiently under pressure and adhere to strict deadlines

· Experience of working with NGOs

· Excellent written and verbal communication skills to motivate influence and negotiate both internally and externally.

For a more detailed description please see the attached Terms of Reference.

How to apply:

To apply, submit an expression of interest to undertake the assignment with a detailed CV, motivational letter (including your capacity and experience, your daily consultancy fee, and your availability) and an example (3-5) page of reports that you have written for similar assignments. Applications should be received on or before 22 of August 2014.All applications should be submitted to scijobssa@savethechildren.org. Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.