Procurement Summary
Country : USA
Summary : Consultancy : Support to Development of Case Studies on Strengthening the Enabling Environments
Deadline : 05 Oct 2018
Other Information
Notice Type : Tender
TOT Ref.No.: 27242776
Document Ref. No. : 516639
Competition : ICB
Financier : United Nations Secretariat
Purchaser Ownership : -
Tender Value : Refer Document
Purchaser's Detail
Purchaser : UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND
3 United Nations Plaza
44th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues
New York
Tel: +1-326.7000
Fax: +1-887.7465 / 887.7454
USA
URL :http://www.unicef.org/
Tender Details
Tenders are invited for Consultancy : Support to Development of Case Studies on Strengthening the Enabling Environments for WASH in schools, WASH Section, PD - NYHQ.
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
Background and Context
Over 30% of schools globally do not have basic drinking water service, improved sanitation and hygiene services. Of these, nearly half of schools in Sub-Saharan Africa, and over a third in Small Island Developing States had no drinking water service, a third Sb-Saharan Africa and Eastern and South- Eastern Asia had no sanitation service and more than a third of schools worldwide and half of schools in Least Developed Countries had no hygiene service.
While the recently launched SDG baseline report on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in schools presents very encouraging results on coverage (69% had a basic drinking water service, 66% had a basic sanitation service and 53% had a basic hygiene service), these figures also suggest that there is still a lot to be done to reach all school children with basic WASH services by 2030- a commitment to meet the UN Sustainable Development (SDG) targets. The current policy, regulatory and institutional environment around WASH in schools is either lacking or not strong enough to enable national governments contribute to SDGs 6 and 4 of the Agenda for Humanity. The lack of policies, weak monitoring systems and the lack of standards, poor planning and the inadequate or lack of resources, poor accountability and poor coordination mechanisms, all render provision of WASH services and their sustainability in schools, ineffective.
SDG 6, targets 6.1 and 6.2, envisions universal, equitable and adequate access to safe affordable drinking water and sanitation for all by 2030, while SDG 4, target 4.a includes WASH in schools with an associated indicator of the “proportion of schools with access to: (e) basic drinking water; (f) single-sex basic sanitation; and (g) basic handwashing facilities” as part of “safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments. But unless governments recognize that a strong enabling environment is essential to improve and sustain WASH services in schools, and unless they start to address the key bottlenecks that impede provision of these services, meeting the SDG targets will remain an upheaval task.
The lack of safe water, adequate sanitation and proper hygiene in schools is one the major causes of infections and diseases like diarrhea amongst school children, yet a growing body of research and evidence shows the link between access to WASH in Schools (WinS) and equity, improved education and health outcomes for children. WASH has also been shown to decrease rates of acute upper respiratory illness, soil-transmitted helminths and diarrhea among children. A randomized control trial on the effectiveness and impact of a WASH intervention in schools Laos, 2014-2017, indicate that the WinS program had a positive impact on pupil-s health. During the dry season (November-April), pupils in the intervention group were 44% less likely to report having had diarrhea in the past week compared to pupils in comparison schools. At the same time, the percentage of pupils in intervention schools reporting use of toilets at last defecation during the school day increased from 6% at baseline to 93% at last visit, compared to only 18.4% of pupils in comparison schools. This evidence suggests that WASH improvements both encouraged toilet use and discouraged open defecation at school and improved children-s health.
UNICEF contributes to the realization of the SDG targets through its WASH in schools programme, one of the five results areas in its WASH strategy (2016- 2030), through direct provision of WASH facilities. Over the strategy period, UNICEF-s work on WinS will focus on among other things, strengthening the monitoring of WASH services in Schools, policy development and strengthening, development of standards and modelling cost-effective approaches like the Three Star Approach to scale up and sustain it. It is for this reason that UNICEF would like to develop case studies on best practices for strengthening enabling environment.
Justification and Rationale
The lack of safe and adequate WASH in schools can lead to the spread of preventable disease and increase school absences, ultimately leading to disruption of school attendance and performance. It is the main cause of faecally-transmitted infections, including cholera and diarrheal disease, which remains the second leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children under the age of five. It is also strongly associated with neglected tropical diseases such as guinea worm, schistosomiasis, helminths and trachoma that have a debilitating effect on children.
Diarrhea is the most serious of these diseases, alone killing 1, 600 children each day. More than half of diarrheal disease deaths are attributed to unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. A high percentage of children suffer from intestinal infections caused by parasites as a result of poor hygiene and inadequate sanitation. Parasites consume nutrients, aggravate malnutrition, retard children's physical development and result in poor school attendance and performance. Household chores, such as fetching water, keep many girls out of school. Also, the lack of separate and decent sanitation and washing facilities in schools discourages girls from attending school full time and forces some to drop out. Most the 121 million school-age children not in school are girls.
Conversely, improving WASH conditions in schools and teaching children healthy behavior-s helps prevent infestation with soil-transmitted worms. Additionally, hygiene education helps children avoid re-infestation and adequate water and sanitation prevents children from re-exposure. When hand washing is practiced in schools, acute respiratory infections could be reduced by 25 per cent. Because safe water, improved sanitation and good hygiene practices are so directly linked to better health, reducing the disease burden through WinS also cuts corresponding costs in health programmes.
The WinS SDG baseline report, 2018, notes that poor monitoring systems and the lack of reporting was one of the key bottlenecks to improving WinS. Data collection tools in most countries are not harmonized, resulting in various datasets reported on access, availability, coverages, etc. In some countries, the Education Management Information System (EMIS) is rarely updated and when it is, analyzed reports are not shared with education officials at national and subnational level. One of the WASH sectors six programming approaches in the 2016- 2030 WASH Strategy, which will be used by UNICEF country offices to determine context-specific interventions, is that on “strengthening the enabling environment”. Within this approach, UNICEF, has supported several countries to improve WinS monitoring by integrating core indicators and questions for monitoring WASH into EMIS, something that many countries are still struggling with.
Policy formulation and or strengthening and the development of standards for WASH in schools, is another area of focus for strengthening the enabling environment. Just over 30 countries of the 90+ countries where UNICEF is supporting WinS programmes have a WinS policy or have it integrated into a national water and sanitation policy. It is not uncommon to find countries reporting WASH services using different measures or standards- making regional comparison and national tracking of progress, planning and decision making a huge challenge. Further, the lack of funding and poor resources allocation to the WinS subsector, coupled with poor planning, with hardly no resources set aside for maintenance of facilities, poses a great challenge. In a recent WASH in schools meeting, participants decried how WASH services were the least priority within Ministry of Education sector plans and strategies.
It is within this context that UNICEF HQ would like to hire a consultant to support develop case studies on strengthening the enabling environment for WinS. These case studies will help other countries, particularly those will low WASH coverages, learn best practices for improving their enabling environments for WinS to accelerate progress towards the SDG targets by 2030.
Purpose
The purpose of the consultancy is to develop 3 case studies highlighting best practices, approaches and mechanisms for strengthening the enabling environment for WinS programming at the sub- national and national levels for acceleration towards SDG targets.
Activities and Tasks
The consultant will be expected to:
a. Review UNICEF Annual Reports (10 days)
i. The consultant will review UNICEF country annual reports (and regional and HQ reports) to obtain information relating to WinS monitoring, policy and standards development, planning and budget allocations for WinS and processes and procedures followed, sources of WinS funding, coordination of WinS at national and sub national level, partnerships and community and civil society engagement, etc to inform the case studies.
b. Coordinate with HQ, regional and country office focal points and WASH Chiefs/Managers (15 days)
i. The consultant will liaise with UNICEF HQ, regional and country offices, as well as with government officials and partners to obtain relevant information and inputs for the case studies on strengthening the enabling environment (focusing on above areas) for WASH in schools.
ii. The consultant will provide feedback
Documents
Tender Notice