Youth and Child Marriage Local Consultancy

UNFPA ESARO is looking for a national consultant in South Africa to support our work related to:

1. The SYP communication and social media functions
2. AMAZE project, Comprehensive Sexuality Education/Social and Behaviour Change initiatives
3. UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme on Child Marriage Phase II; and Child Marriage Stream II work under the Africa Spotlight Programme

Scope of work:

The consultant will be hired under the overall guidance of the Deputy Regional Director and under direct supervision of the SYP Regional Coordinator and the Adolescent and Youth Team lead. The consultant will also be expected to work closely with the Adolescent      and Youth Program Specialist and the CSE Specialist and the rest of the ESARO Youth team. The main tasks are:

Support the media and communication tasks for the SYP Regional Program  (45% the consultant time)

• Maintain and improve TuneMe mobisite and App (TuneMe.org) and ensure support to country offices that have already launched the platform while facilitating the expansion of TuneMe to other ESA countries including regular management of the TuneMe FaceBook page. This will be done in collaboration with the JPO - Youth analyst.
• Conduct at least one refresher training on TuneMe content management system to countries and support content generation.
• Expand the online and offline visibility of UNFPA ESARO regional youth programme including the      ;scale up of existing social media presence and strategies for increased coverage and reach, and improve content of the webpage within the ESARO website specifically on the Safeguard Young People Programme
• Maintain and improve the SYP social media pages including regular generation and posting of social media posts related to the UNFPA youth programme.      
• Mobilize young people to utilize social media to advocate for increased investment in youth developments and programmes at national and regional levels;
• Provide leadership on the graphic design and layout of SYP regional documents and products;
• Support documentation of best and/or promising practices working in close collaboration with the Country Offices for SYP programme.
• Produce media articles for the regional and country specific SYP program and contribute to the UNFPA ESARO and HQs’ websites including monthly collections of SYP articles and stories of interest from the implementing countries;    
• Support SYP virtual and in-person events alongside the youth team and the broader UNFPA Communications team.      
• Co-lead on the Communications Engagement for the ESA Commitment follow-up including communications related to the Let’s Talk Early and Unintended Pregnancy Campaign
• Co-lead on the development and dissemination of Communications materials for the broader adolescent and youth work in collaboration with the Communications team. These tasks include development and maintenance of Communications Engagement Strategies for key regional and global events and international commemoration days
• Contribute towards quarterly and annual reporting and participate in youth team, ESARO and thematic meetings as appropriate

Support the AMAZE video project and other Comprehensive Sexuality Education/Social and Behaviour Change Communication Initiatives under the leadership of the CSE Specialist (35% of consultant’s time)

• Co-lead in consulting young people and youth serving professionals on the identification of priorities for new and adapted annual video playlists
• Assist with the development of content briefs, scripts, and storylines on new and adapted videos including literature reviews to ensure emerging issues and latest evidence based content feature within the videos.
• Support the documentation of AMAZE related emerging issues, human interest stories, good practices and other suggestions by adolescents and youth
• Draft and action a social media engagement strategy for new and existing UNFPA ESARO platforms based on new and original AMAZE inventory.
• Catalogue new and original AMAZE video titles on the UNFPA ESARO website and SYP social media channels.
• Establish and manage a database on new and original AMAZE video titles which includes scripts, translation elements and visualizers.
• Support collaboration with UNFPA ESARO country offices to plan, promote and host local screenings of AMAZE, facilitate local adaptations if relevant into local languages and measure the online impact of new and original AMAZE video titles.
• Participate in AMAZE donor/partner monthly meetings
• Develop and action dissemination strategy, including webinars, trainings, articles and social media engagements for the mew components of the CSE regional package (CSE out of school basic package, Breaking the Silence CSE for Young People with Disabilities, Tertiary Orientation Package, Climate Change CSE package)
• Develop content briefs for at least 2 other CSE related videos (Climate Change, CSE advocacy)

Support the assessment, knowledge management and communication activities of the Child Marriage programmes under the UNFPA-UNICEF Global Programme and the Africa Spotlight Programme (20% of consultant’s time).
 

These tasks include but are not restricted to:

• Support the development of knowledge products and south-south sharing on Child Marriage
• Support the African Union Campaign on Child Marriage particularly the communications and capacity building initiatives
• Support country offices within the Global Programme on Child Marriage particularly on their communications and knowledge management
• Lead the regional communications for the Global Programme on Child Marriage - for example, video and photo documentation of stories from the field on Child Marriage, as well as on development and dissemination of animated videos on the SADC Model Law on Child Marriage

Duration and working schedule:

The consultancy will last for a duration of 11 months from 15 January to 15 December 2022.      

Place where services are to be delivered:

The consultant will be expected to work from the ESARO office premises once the premises are fully open and all staff are working from the offices again. If remote working modalities are still in place at the time of recruitment, the consultant will work from home.

Delivery dates:

At the start of the consultancy, the consultant will be expected to develop a work plan with clear deliverables and timelines in collaboration with the Youth team. The work will be delivered electronically, in hard copy, and in various media formats as needed. 

Monitoring and progress control, including reporting requirements, periodicity format and deadline:

The consultancy is expected to commence by 15 January 2022 and must be completed no later than 15 December 2022.

The consultant will be expected to attend all the youth team meetings and programme meetings in addition to ad hoc      meetings with the Youth team, when needed.

Supervisory arrangements: 

The consultant will be hired under the overall guidance of the Deputy Regional Director and under direct supervision of the SYP Regional Coordinator and the youth team lead.

Expected travel:

Some mission travel may be expected.  All travel related costs (transport and DSA) will be borne by UNFPA.

Required expertise, qualifications and competencies, including language requirements:

• At least four (4) years’ experience in the field of SRHR and communications is required
• A Bachelors degree in a relevant field is required
• Prior experience in the East and Southern Africa region required
• Prior experience in supporting adolescent and youth work as well as child marriage required
• Strong presentation, communication, and writing skills in English required; working knowledge of another UN official language desirable.

Inputs / services to be provided by UNFPA or implementing partner (e.g support services, office space, equipment), if applicable:

ESARO will provide the consultant with a working space including desk, phone and computer, when COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted and staff are back in office

Other relevant information or special conditions:

• The deadline for applications is Tuesday, 28 December 2021.
• Interested applicants should send a short letter of motivation and a detailed CV with the subject clearly stated "Application for Youth & Child Marriage Local Consultancy" to jobs.esaro@unfpa.org. 
• UNFPA will only respond to those applicants in whom we have further interest.
• The United Nations does not charge a fee at any stage of its recruitment process (application, interview, processing, training) or other fee, or request information on applicants’ bank accounts or HIV status.