Title: Long Term Agreement (LTA) for Improving Grants Management in Education Cannot Wait (ECW)

Duration of LTA: Three years

Duty Station: Home-based consultancy contracts

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND / RATIONALE

Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is the first global movement and fund dedicated to education in emergencies and protracted crises. Established in 2016 during the World Humanitarian Summit, ECW was founded by international humanitarian and development aid organisations and public and private donors. The goal was to prioritise education on the humanitarian agenda, foster a more collaborative approach among actors on the ground, and ensure additional funding to guarantee every crisis-affected child and young person is in school and learning.

As a relatively young organisation, ECW’s grant-making work and processes are still in the developmental phase and require further systematisation and streamlining to manage grants effectively and efficiently. Key areas needing improvement include report management, request management, data and file management, and institutional knowledge management.

PURPOSE OF ASSIGNMENT

This assignment aims to hire consultants to enhance and streamline ECW’s grant management processes. The consultants will ensure efficient systems and clear guidelines for reporting submissions, grant extension and budget revision requests, data and file management, and institutional knowledge management. This will help ECW better support its grantees, manage increasing grants, and achieve high operational efficiency. The consultants will report to the Grants Management Manager, Education Cannot Wait.

PROGRAMME AREA AND SPECIFIC PROJECT AREA

Grants management, including administration and tracking of files, data, reports, and requests

OBJECTIVE(S)

• To improve the report management system while ensuring timely submission of all required reports.
• To streamline the request management process for grant extensions, budget revisions and instalments.
• To develop an effective data and file management system that supports the growing number of grants.
• To implement comprehensive institutional knowledge management practices, including developing clear guidelines and training programs

MAJOR TASKS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED

Consultant(s) will contribute to the production of high-quality analytical products. Tasks will include, but are not limited to:

(a) Report Management

• Achieve the 100% submission rate of the required final and annual reports from grantees while ensuring their quality by (a) tracking the submission and (b) providing oversight and support, including facilitation of webinars.
• Conduct one survey at the end of the reporting window to document experiences and input from grantees and colleagues to ensure that systems and procedures can be continuously improved.

(b) Request Management

• Improve the administration of grant extension, budget revision and instalment requests per the established process.
• Keep guidelines updated with clear and user-friendly language to help grantees understand the request process.

(c) Data and File Management

• Support completing and optimising the data management platform for grants-related data and files.
• Collect, enter and quality-assure data in the platform.
• Ensure that files are uploaded and organised in the online library.
• Provide training and guidance to ECW staff and grantees on using the platform.

(d) Knowledge Management

• Develop clear guidelines for ECW Secretariat knowledge management that consider all aspects of grant management, including report submission, request processes, and data management.
• Create and deliver in-person and virtual training sessions, webinars, and other learning opportunities to disseminate the concept and practice of knowledge management in the context of ECW.
• Ensure that institutional knowledge is documented and accessible to all relevant stakeholders.
• Fluency in French is required to support French-speaking grantees and stakeholders.

Responsibilities of the Consultant:

1. The consultant will use their equipment, laptops, microphones, and other accessories that may be required for the tasks.
2. The consultant will not give the content/material, or any part thereof, to any third party without the written permission of ECW. All outputs will be the property of ECW, and the consultant will not share them with anyone else.
3. Unless otherwise specified, the consultant will not put their name, logo/emblem on the content / final product. If required, the only branding for the organisation will be ECW.

Responsibilities of ECW:

1. ECW will provide all the details about the activity and its requirements.
2. ECW will grant the consultant access to relevant internal systems and databases.
3. ECW will provide access to software required for the tasks (e.g. JotForm, CRAFT and Microsoft Office).

DELIVERABLES

The following deliverables are envisioned annually over the next three years. Applicants should estimate the costs for all deliverables by category across the entire duration of the LTA. However, ECW reserves the right to contract for only some of the deliverables, or for a limited duration of time.

*This is an indicative estimate of the number of days for deliverables. Candidates may propose alternative number of days to complete tasks, based on experience.

ESTIMATED DURATION OF LTA

The Long-Term Agreement will last three years. The initial period would be two years, with an option to renew for a subsequent year on the same rates, terms, and conditions, subject to satisfactory performance evaluation and continuing need for the service.

QUALIFICATIONS / SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE / EXPERIENCE/ LANGUAGE SKILLS REQUIRED 

• Advanced degree in a relevant field such as Education, Public Administration, International Development, or a related discipline.
• At least 5 years of experience in grant management, preferably within international organizations or NGOs.
• Proven track record in developing and implementing grant management systems and processes.
• Strong project management skills with the ability to handle multiple tasks and deadlines.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to conduct training sessions and webinars.
• Fluency in English is required. French is desirable except for (d) knowledge management which requires French of DELF C2 or above.
• Experience working in program countries especially in emergency and protracted crisis settings is required.
• Familiarity with data management platforms and tools.

These terms of reference outline the expectations and requirements for a consultant tasked with improving the grant management processes at Education Cannot Wait. The consultant’s work will be instrumental in ensuring ECW can effectively support education in emergencies and protracted crises worldwide.

TECHNICAL EVALUATION PROCESS AND CRITERIA

The selection of consultants for the LTA will be based on technical evaluation and financial offers in the ratio of 80:20. The criteria for technical evaluation will be as follows:

FINANCIAL PROPOSAL:

Include your financial proposal separately in the Financial Proposal template, indicating your professional fee per day. In the financial proposal, indicate your estimate of the maximum number of days to deliver each category of deliverables. Include estimates for proposed number of days per category of deliverable. All costs should be estimated in United States Dollars (USD).

HOW TO APPLY:

The application to be submitted through the online portal in which applicants are requested to outline all their relevant work experiences. The application should further contain three separate attachments:

1. A Cover letter explaining the motivation for applying and explaining how the qualifications and skillset of the candidate and how you would approach the work described in the TOR (to be uploaded online)
2. Three Work Samples – This includes three previous reports that you have developed independently or contributed to (for those contributed to, a clear description of your role and activities in the project is required). It is critical to submit work samples as you will observe from the advertisement that marks have been assigned to these criteria for arriving at the most suitable candidate
3. A financial proposal indicating professional fee as per the  LTA Financial Proposal Template.doc. Please do not forget to specify your name in the file while saving. (To be uploaded under other supporting documents).

Important Note: Please do not indicate financials anywhere else in the online application form, please mark “n/a or 00”, under the fee related questions in the online application form.  

Without all the above three documents your application will be considered incomplete and invalid and will not be considered further.

• Any attempt to unduly influence UNICEF’s selection process will lead to automatic disqualification of the applicant.
• Joint applications of two or more individuals are not accepted.
• Please note, UNICEF does not charge any fee during any stage of the process.
• Female candidates meeting the requirements are strongly encouraged to apply.
• UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion and encourages qualified candidates from all backgrounds including persons living with disabilities to apply.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

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.

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.