Duration and working schedule :
The entire mission will last about 15 workdays over a 1-month period from the first week of January 2021.
Purpose of consultancy :
The key objective of this review is to assess the added value of the COVID-19 WCA EC in responding to the pandemic and make recommendations that would have strengthened the R_UNSDG actions towards similar pandemic situations.
Background :
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which started in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, has spread at an alarming rate all over the world, from one region of the globe to the other. Africa got its first case of the COVID-19 on 14 February 2020 when the Egyptian health authorities announced the infection of the first case of COVID-19. Since then it has been a race against the clock from Italy, France, Germany, UK, to the Africa continent where, as of today, a cumulative 634 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 17 associated deaths have been reported from 33 countries. It is faced with this exponential explosion of COVID-19 in the West and Central Africa that, the R/UNSDG-WCA Chair a.i. in consultation with West and Central Africa (WCA) Regional Directors, exercising their leadership role in the oversight, guidance and coordination, decided to establish a COVID-19 Regional Executive Committee (COVID-19 WCA R/EC). Its composition includes IOM, OCHA, OHCHR, UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNHCR, UNOWAS, WFP, WHO, UNOWAS, and OCHA.
The key objectives of the COVID-19 WCA EC include serving as a regional platform of coordination and communication to ensure that the regional level is prepared and provides an effective, coherent, and coordinated support to the various initiatives at the countries level through regional agencies collective efforts while building on past experiences and lessons learned to propose targeted services to address the crisis in specific areas and on specific issues, including regional and transboundary ones.
The COVID-19 WCA Regional EC held its first meeting on 19 March 2020. To date, the Regional EC met virtually twice a week to provide leadership support to emerging COVID19 issues and solve problems within and across the region as well as explored ways for enhancing the joint efforts with engagement with the global level.
Seven months down the line, during its meeting on 15th September 2020, a recommendation was made to implement a review of the actions and decisions of the COVID-19 WCA Regional EC to assess how the pandemic was handled and make recommendations moving forward.
Scope of work: (Description of services, activities, or outputs) :
The review will specifically target the actions of the COVID-19 WCA EC from its creation (March 2020) to October 2020 as well as the contribution of each individual agency. The consultant will lead the review of the COVID-19 WCA EC actions and decisions of the COVID-19 WCA Regional EC to assess how the pandemic was handled. To this end, he/she will exploit assigned documentation, particularly the minutes of all meetings; may run monkey survey to get perspectives of RCs and RDs; hold in-depth conversations with the EC members and RCs in countries to understand how having RCs present their countries’ situations at the EC meetings helped the group in the Covid-19 context. The review will assess the extent to which recommendations and decision points were implemented and monitored at countries and regional levels, what are the key stakeholders’ perceptions on the timeliness and relevance of the agenda items to the context, what specific actions have been implemented to different recommendations, draw lessons for future outbreaks and regional engagement of the RDs in general and make recommendations moving forward
It will also assess the extent to which having RCs to present their countries’ situations helped the group in addressing the pandemic in the region.
Deliverables :
- At the end of the mission, the consultant will produce and deliver:
- A brief outline (max 2 pages) of the methodology including the objectives, data collection approaches; and targeted population for data collection (content analysis will be the preferred mode of data management)
- A draft review report of not more than 15 pages including a 2 page- executive summary
- A final review report integrating the comments provided by the WCA R_UNSDG members
- A PowerPoint presentation summarizing the findings, conclusions, and recommendation (not more than 10 slides)
Monitoring and progress control, including reporting requirements, periodicity format, and deadline :
The consultant will work under the direct day-to-day support and supervision of UNFPA/WCARO as lead and 2 other UN agencies willing to support the conduct of the assessment.
Supervisory arrangements:
On behalf of the UN system, the UNFPA/WCARO M&E regional adviser will provide day-to-day technical oversight to the assessment together with 2 volunteer UN agencies.
Place where services are to be delivered:
The consultant will mainly organize virtual consultations with identified informants from the COVID-19 WCA EC and RCs of the region. Respondents’ contact info will be provided by the UNFPA/WCARO’s coordinating team in consultation with the WCA Regional Entities coordinator At the start of the assignment.
Required expertise, qualifications, and competencies, including language requirements:
Education:
- Minimum of Master’s Degree in public health, social sciences, development studies or a related field; A Ph. D will be an added advantage;
- Familiarity with the UNSDG work will be an added advantage.
Experience:
- Minimum of 10 years’ experience in program design and management
- Excellent communication and facilitation skills
- Excellent analytical and writing skills (the consultant will need to include a similar report/study which she/he has been the primary author of
- Ability to work with a multi-disciplinary team of experts
- Excellent problem identification and solving skills
- Solid experience in qualitative studies
- Solid experience working with the United Nations at the regional and global level will be an added value;
Language:
Excellent written and spoken French and English Language skills.
How to apply:
Applicants with the required qualifications and experience stated above (Required expertise, qualifications, and competencies, including language requirements) should submit soft copies of their proposals to unfpa.wcaro.recruitment@unfpa.org no later than the 1st January 2021 at 5 pm (Dakar time).
Only those candidates who meet all qualifications and experience will be contacted for further consideration. Incomplete applications will be automatically disqualified.
Disclaimer :
UNFPA does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing, or another fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you have received a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names, and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web. Should you feel that you have received a fraudulent notice, letter, or offer that makes use of the name or logo of UNFPA, you may submit a report through the UNFPA fraud hotline http://www.unfpa.org/help/hotline.cfm
We are no longer accepting applications for this position.
