Job no: 562979
Contract type: Consultant
Duty Station: Addis Ababa
Level: Consultancy
Location: Ethiopia
Categories: Health

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, vaccination

Ethiopia is situated in the Horn of Africa and is the second most populous country on the continent with an estimated population of 115 million. It borders six African countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, and covers 1,104,300 square kilometers. Approximately 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas. Ethiopia represents a melting pot of ancient cultures with Middle Eastern and African cultures evident in the religious, ethnic, and language composition of its people.

Over the past two years, children and their families across Ethiopia faced multiple and complex emergencies, such as the conflict in the northern Ethiopia and the drought, which resulted in millions of people in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. UNICEF has programmes in Child Protection, WASH, Health, Nutrition, Social Policy, and Education and serves over 15 million children in Ethiopia. Join UNICEF Ethiopia to contribute to improving the lives of children and women.

Watch a video about Improving conflict-affected health systems Here

How can you make a difference? 

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

To provide demand promotion related technical support for the COVID-19 vaccination roll out and routine immunization while ensuring monitoring and reporting of COVID-19 and routine immunization demand promotion interventions as a key liaison with FMOH.

Scope of Work:

The overall objective of this consultancy is to promote public acceptance, uptake and demand of COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization in Ethiopia at the national level. The consultant is expected to understand key drivers of immunization demand among caregivers, the COVID-19 vaccine-eligible population, and frontline health workers to successfully promote and sustain the desired behaviour based on evidence.

With technical support and guidance of the SBC Specialist (immunization & PHE), Health Section of UNICEF Ethiopia, the consultant will be responsible for the coordination of national communication technical working group to accelerate demand generation approaches and strategies to promote evidence-based social and behavior change interventions including advocacy, community engagement, community empowerment, social listening, monitoring and evaluation for the COVID-19 vaccination and routine immunization in Ethiopia.

The consultant is expected to provide technical support to following activities:

• Provide technical support to Immunization Service Desk of MOH and Communication Technical Working Group (C-TWG) to ensure the demand generation strategies and approaches are developed and implemented to reach the eligible population with COVID-19 vaccine and to reach zero-dose and under-immunized children with routine immunization
• Coordinate and liaise with EPI team, UNICEF, and partner agencies for monthly C-TWG meetings and ad-hoc meetings including preparation of meeting agenda, meeting minutes and any necessary follow up actions

• Ensure that C-TWG is supported to develop plans and activities to promote acceptance among the caregivers for routine immunization and among COVID-19 vaccine-eligible (above 12 years of age) population
• Support Immunization Service Desk of MOH and C-TWG on implementation, monitoring and evaluation of demand promotion interventions in reaching zero-dose and under-immunized communities
• Support the development and endorsement of demand promotion activities for the vaccination (routine immunization, COVID-19, HPV, etc.) at the federal level including development, review and pre-testing of multi-channel communication materials and support sub-national team to contextualize and translate into local language
• Coordinate with the government and media agencies at the federal level on regular public opinion monitoring and social listening particularly on rumors, fake news, media coverage on AEFI cases and misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines, HPV, polio, and broader immunization services
• Provide support for capacity building of frontline health workers, social mobilizers, media, and hotline operators on demand generation activities including risk/crisis communication
• Facilitate and participate in monitoring and evaluation for demand generation and risk communication activities for the COVID-19 vaccination and broader immunization services including conducting rapid assessment for awareness, acceptance, hesitancy and trust around the vaccines/vaccination and field visits to regions in close collaboration with MOH/RHB and UNICEF
• Ensure SBC approaches are inclusive, gender transformative, and participatory in close collaboration with relevant stakeholders
• Collect human-interest stories from the field on the voices and experiences of communities and stakeholders around the vaccination (routine, COVID-19, HPV, etc.) in Ethiopia
• Submit the documents and reports mentioned in Work Assignment Overview table to UNICEF and MOH

At the beginning of the assignment, the consultant is expected to discuss and agree with UNICEF and Immunization Service Desk team of MOH on work plan schedules for the assignment period.

Work Assignment Overview:-

Tasks/Milestone:

https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/562979

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in  Social science, public health, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication for development/Social and behavioral change communication   
• A minimum of Five [5] years of relevant professional experience in  SBC/demand promotion experiences in immunization or health sectors at national level

• In-depth understanding of Ethiopian communities and SBC/demand promotion for immunization key stakeholders at national level

• Capacity in the designing, planning, monitoring, evaluation, training and skills-transfer of participatory governance in demand promotion for immunization interventions

• Proven ability to work effectively with government/MOH and multi-stakeholders.

• Experience in generating evidence around social and behaviors around immunization practices.

• Capacity in documentation of best practices and lesson learned around demand promotion for immunization interventions  

• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset. 
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset. 

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

Core Values:

• Care
• Respect
• Integrity
• Trust
• Accountability
• Sustainability

Core competencies

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1)
• Works Collaboratively with others (1)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (1)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (1)
• Drives to achieve impactful results (1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic. For this position, eligible and suitable female candidates are encouraged to apply.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts. 

Advertised: 14 Jun 2023 E. Africa Standard Time
Deadline: 27 Jun 2023 E. Africa Standard Time