Consultancy for Technical Support on Early Childhood Development (Health, Nutrition,... Tender

Procurement Summary

Country : Azerbaijan

Summary : Consultancy for Technical Support on Early Childhood Development (Health, Nutrition, Early Learning and Protection of Children Age 0-8) Project

Deadline : 24 Apr 2019

Other Information

Notice Type : Tender

TOT Ref.No.: 32285985

Document Ref. No. :

Competition : ICB

Financier : United Nations Secretariat

Purchaser Ownership : -

Tender Value : Refer Document

Purchaser's Detail

Purchaser : UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND
24, Neftchilar avenue, Dalga Plaza Baku AZ1095 Tel: 4923013 (multiline) / 4980578 / 4372283 / 4372284 Fax: (944.12) 4922.468
Azerbaijan
Email :baku@unicef.org
URL :http://www.unicef.org/

Tender Details

Tenders are invited for Consultancy for Technical Support to UNICEF on Early Childhood Development (Health, Nutrition, Early Learning and Protection of Children Age 0-8) Project.

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, development

Children are central to sustainable development. Early childhood period starting from conception and up to 8 years of age is the most critical period for children and human capacity development. In a 2016 Lancet series, Advancing Early Childhood Development: From Science to Scale, leading neuroscientists found that in their earliest years, babies- brains grow at an astounding rate, creating up to 1, 000 neural connections every second. In the brain-building process, neural connections are shaped by genes and life experiences - namely good nutrition, protection and stimulation from talk, play and responsive attention from caregivers. This combination of nature and nurture establishes the foundation of a child-s future. Because of poor health, under nutrition and poor learning environments that fail to provide adequate responsive stimulation and nurturance, too many children around the world are not developing their learning capacities, entering school late, performing poorly at school and not achieving their full potential. As more and more children are surviving, ECD is becoming increasingly important to ensure that the children who survive are able to reach their full potential and become productive members of society.

Thanks to the compelling scientific evidence and sustained advocacy, governments and society are beginning to realize the criticality of investing in the earliest years of child-s life. In 2015 early childhood development was included in the Sustainable Development Goals, reaffirming its growing status in the global development agenda. This built on earlier efforts which saw early childhood development included in the Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that child has a right to develop to “the maximum extent possible” and recognized “the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child-s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development”.

Azerbaijan has made important progress in child health and nutrition in the last 20 years, with child and infant mortality rates falling by two-thirds since 1990, and neonatal mortality by about half in the same period. Over the last two decades, the Government of Azerbaijan has focused on improving neonatal care, attended and safe child delivery, and prevention of illnesses among children. However, challenges still exist for young child growth and development. Child malnutrition remains relatively high compared to other countries in the region, with stunting affecting nearly 1 in 5 children[1]. One in three women suffer from anaemia along with a quarter of children under five. Nearly half of all pregnant women suffer from anaemia[2]. The rate of exclusive breastfeeding is only around 12 per cent, with only 20 per cent of new-borns received early initiation of breastfeeding within the first hour after birth[3]. There are around 72, 000 children with disabilities but only one in four children with disabilities have their condition detected before the age of three[4]. The enrolment rate for children aged 1-5 in early childhood care or pre-school facilities remains low apart from the recent improvement for children at age 5. Little attention has been paid to parenting skills, with no government entity having direct responsibility on family education, and limited services and resources invested in the early childhood development.

Over 1.3 million children below six years old in Azerbaijan should be benefiting from early childhood development (ECD) interventions to ensure optimal brain and behavioural development. There is an urgent need to develop and strengthen integrated and community-based ECD services, including parenting and family education through home-visiting, knowledge sharing and counselling for parents on adequate nurturing care, early stimulation, early detection and early prevention of development delay and disabilities, early learning and protection from violence, neglect and exploitation.

UNICEF is to start a programme on Early Childhood Development (health, nutrition, early learning and protection of children age 0-8) with government of Azerbaijan and local NGOs. The programme will support the government of Azerbaijan and civil society to introduce the concept of ECD, build partnerships, develop technical standards and resources, and build capacity of the country to better support children from very early stage, that for a long term to contribute to the country-s human capital development. The programme includes a component of pilot on integrated and community based ECD services through non-governmental and civil society organizations in four locations (Gandja city, Shirvan city, Aghdjabedi and Absheron districts). The interventions aim to increase access to essential early childhood development services on health and nutrition, education and protection, particularly among the most vulnerable groups in these districts to build strong parenting skill in all aspects of early childhood development. The resources developed, and good practices generated from the pilot will support national policy development and further scale-up. The project will be implemented with the support of national and local government and in coordination with other partners including academic and private sectors.

[1] National Nutrition Survey. UNICEF and Ministry of Health, 2013.

[2] National Nutrition Survey. UNICEF and Ministry of Health, 2013.

[3] National Nutrition Survey. UNICEF and Ministry of Health, 2013.

[4] State Statistics Committee. www.stat.gov.az

How can you make a difference?

Under the supervision of the UNICEF Azerbaijan Office and in consultation with relevant government entities and civil society organizations, the consultant is expected to provide professional technical, operational and administrative guidance and support as well as quality assurance to implementation of the ECD Programme, with specific focuses on development and implementation of an integrated facility and community-based parenting and family education project.

Duty station: Baku, Azerbaijan with frequent travel to the pilot sites in Absheron, Aghdjabedi, Gandja and Shirvan

Major tasks to be accomplished:

1. Provide technical and administrative support to UNICEF and implementing partners including NGOs through all stages of the implementation of the following project outputs:

· Output 1: Development of quality and integrated ECD services standards and training packages and capacity building of service providers (health, education, social workers)

· Output 2: Scale-up of early learning programmes for girls and boys of 3-5 age, including children with disabilities

· Output 3: Establishment of National ECD Resource Centre

· Output 4: Design and implementation of integrated community-based parenting programme on ECD through various platforms

The consultant will execute and administer a variety of technical programme actions, prepare materials and documentations in compliance with organizational processes and management systems; work closely and collaboratively with internal colleagues and partners to collect, analyse and share information on implementation issues.

2. Regularly monitor and evaluate the outcomes of the ECD programme-s implementation vs the agreed project objectives, indicators, deliverables and timelines and performance of the partners/contractors. Submit monthly work completion and monitoring visit reports.

3. Suggest solutions for the ECD programme implementation and to alert UNICEF and appropriate officials and stakeholders for higher-level intervention and/or decisions.

4. Provide support in identifying, capturing, synthesizing, and sharing lessons learned for knowledge development and capacity development of stakeholders. Follow up on unresolved issues to ensure resolution.

5. Verify compliance of the projects with approved allocation, organizational rules, regulations/procedures, standards of accountability and integrity. Report on issues identified to ensure timely resolution by management/stakeholders. Follow up on unresolved issues to ensure resolution.

6. Based on the UNICEF/EU project activity plan prepare and submit schedule of monitoring visits to pilot institutions in the selected districts prior to implementation of work. Undertake field visits and surveys and share information with stakeholders to assess progress and refer to relevant officials for resolution. Report on critical issues, bottlenecks and potential problems for timely action to achieve results.

7. Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with implementing partners and local stakeholders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate project implementation and build capacity of stakeholders to achieve and sustain results on the nutrition projects.

8. Support any other related task, as required.

Deliverables and timeframe:

The contract will cover the period of May 2019 - April 2020 (11.5 months) with possibility of extension subject to satisfactory performance.

Key deliverables include:

May 2019 - April 2020: Every 30th of each month - work completion report submitted to UNICEF

30 April 2020 - Final Report submitted to UNICEF Azerbaijan

Trip reports submitted following each monitoring visit with findings and recommendations for improving project imp

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