Child Protection and Cash & Voucher Assistance Data Consultancy at Save the Children

Consultancy assignment
Contract length: 40 days (1st October – 31 December 2021)
Location: Home-based (preferably UTC -1, 0, +1, or +2

Background
To protect children in humanitarian contexts, humanitarian and development actors must gain enhanced knowledge and capacity to design, implement and monitor integrated CVA and Child Protection (CP) programmes. In order to do so, an initiative was created within Save the Children to promote learning and develop capacity in Child Protection and Cash Programming

This initiative has been implemented jointly between Save the Children Sweden and Save the Children US and builds on the inter-agency work completed under the Child Protection and Cash Task Force within the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action. While the Task Force is being discontinued in 2021, an inter-agency steering committee comprised of nine agencies has been established to ensure continued coordination and oversight throughout this project’s planning and implementation. The steering committee serve as the reference point for activities and outputs proposed by other SIDA-funded agencies such as Plan International, to ensure efficient use of resources and prevent duplicatio

The steering committee was first established to oversee a scoping study conducted by an independent consultant in 2019 on Monitoring Child Protection within Humanitarian Cash Programmes. Based on the key findings, an expert consultant developed a CVA and Child Protection MEAL Toolkit. In both the development and piloting of the tools, real-time feedback was collected on the needs and gaps faced by colleagues across the globe. The roll out of this toolkit (as well as the use by some Save the Children offices of additional monitoring tools) has enabled over the past year the collection of data on CVA and CP and generation of knowledge that will now be compiled into a Global Evidence Report.

Purpose
The purpose of this consultancy is to support the gathering, processing and analysis of the data collected over the past year in approximately 8 Save the Children offices, including those engaged in the Safe Back to School Initiative. This will inform the development of the Global Evidence Report, which will generate learning on the benefits and potential challenges of CVA programming on CP outcomes. Finally, the purpose of this consultancy is also to support improving the visibility of the CVA and CP initiative, by improving the design and lay out of products generated by the initiatives.

Scope of Work
The CVA&CP Data Management consultant (DM consultant) will work closely with the CVA and CP TAs as well as two consultants involved in writing the Evidence building report, and is expected to provide them with data visualisation products and analysis that will enable the development of the content of the report. In fact, the development of the Evidence Building Report on CVA and CP is divided into two steps:

• Step 1: Support the identification of countries, data collection planning, gathering of data collected by country offices, coordination, data analysis, data visualisation.
• Step 2: Report development, review by Cos/TAs, finalization, design, publication, dissemination

The DM consultant will lead on Step 1, and contribute to step 2 by reviewing and designing the final product.

• Coordination: through the support of the CVA and CP TAs, the DM consultant will be introduced to each Country Office team and will liaise regularly with them to:
  • Map out the data collection cycle, identifying key timeframes and milestones prior to the overall analysis. It should be noted that at this stage, data will already be collected, so while recommendations on improvements for future data collection cycles are welcome, the DM consultant will not be required to develop data collection tools or processes.
  • Understand the monitoring methodology used, and provide support/recommendations if/when needed.
  • Regularly coordinate with the other consultants and TAs to keep them up to date on data collection timeframes, data volume and type, and develop data analysis angles.
  • Regularly coordinate with the Country offices to ensure data collection timeframes are on-track for data analysis stage, and request additional information when/if required
• Data gathering: the DM consultant will be in charge of gathering all data from country offices and compiling it in a way that will facilitate the analysis.
• Data analysis: theDM consultant, in collaboration with the other team members, will support determining key analysis angles (ex: identifying interesting variables, comparison across different program designs), organise the data and provide visualisation that will facilitate the written analysis. Whenever required, the DM consultant will support the consultants during the writing phase of the report by answering any queries around methodology, data visualisation or analysis.
• Review of design of the report: the DM consultant will be tasked to review the draft report to ensure data accuracy. S/he will then be in charge of designing the final version of the report, in line with Save the Children branding guidelines, in a format that can be ready for publication.

Minimum requirements and competencies:

To be successful the DM consultant or team of consultants will have:
 A background working in an INGO or UN environment in fields associated to data management, collection, assessments, monitoring and/or evaluation.
 Operational work at a country level, with a proven track record of successfully leading and facilitating assessments, large scale monitoring and/or evaluation/research.
 Experience designing quantitative questionnaires, analysing and reporting.
 Theoretical knowledge of CVA and CP programming is a plus, but not a requirement.
 Understand of CVA standard indicators
 Good situational agility skills with a high degree of flexibility and adaptability in order to respond to changing needs;
 Proven experience in data analysis and interpretation;
 Working proficiency in English and at least one of the following languages: Spanish, French, or Arabic.
 Strong interpersonal skills, ability to work within a team, diplomacy and cultural sensitivity to interact with persons from a range of socio-cultural backgrounds;
 Ability and proven experience in using design software (ex: In-design)

We need to keep children safe so our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.