Home-based: Individual Consultancy Service on Child Care Reforms

1. About Us: 

SOS Children’s Villages International (SOS CVI) is non-governmental and non-denominational organization working with communities, partners and states to ensure that the rights of all children are fulfilled in every society. SOS CVI is a global federation working to protect and care for children who have lost parental care, or who stand at risk of losing the care. We respect all religions and cultures and work with trusted partners in places where we can contribute to social development. Everything we do is made possible through the generous support of sponsors and donors, institutional and corporate partners, and loyal friends worldwide. Envisioning that every child belongs to a family and grows up with love, respect and security, we exist to build families for children in need, we help them shape their own futures, and we share in the development of their communities. Everything we do is guided by the firm belief that no child should grow up alone and that we need to improve care for children who are at risk, enabling them to overcome precarious conditions and to succeed in life. To achieve our mission, our strategy for the upcoming decade focuses on ensuring the best care of children, innovation, and effective collaboration with more partners. Our core values guiding who we are and what we do include courage to take action, commitment to keep our promises, trust to believe in each other, and accountability to be reliable partners.

SOS Children’s Villages East and Southern Africa (ESAF) region headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia provides support to 26 member associations in all work areas including programme implementation, advocacy, fundraising and governance.

2. Background: 

The global programme expert group approach aims at enabling the SOS CVI federation to make use of the available programme expertise across our organisation by applying more decentralised and collaborative forms of cooperation. The ultimate goal is that SOS Children’s Villages member associations, IORs, and other stakeholders can grow expertise and learn on key topics in a non-bureaucratic way, ultimately allowing our federation to increase the quality of services delivered for our target group.

Childcare reform has become a prominent topic in the field of children's rights. The Committee on the Rights of the Child as well civil society organisations and academia have put it on the agenda and produced a number of relevant documents, the main being the UN Resolution (2019) focusing on children without parental care as well as the most recent recommendations from the Day of General Discussion on Children`s Rigths and Alternative Care (Sept.2021) . In recent decades, governments, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners from all over the world have been involved in childcare reform debates and actual implementation of the reform agenda by supporting children and families through early intervention, prevention services, strengthening gatekeeping, facilitating reintegration of children, providing high-quality family and community-based alternative care, and closing institutions.

Childcare reform represents significant opportunities for SOS CVI to promote the needs and rights of children and young people. This provides momentum for SOS CVI to trigger a positive dynamic of reform, reshape ongoing care reform processes and become a leader of change for children and young people.

The overarching goal of the program expert group to strengthen the Federation's role in influencing and implementing global and national child care reforms in the best interests of the child in order to ensure child care reform meets the needs and rights of children.The child care reform programme expert group brings added value to the federation promoting a comprehensive understanding of child care reform across the Federation and contributing with the organization’s expertise to transform governance and services with implications also for communication and fundraising in the best interest of the children.

Resulting policy brief and recommendations shall complement existing strategic guidance and policies , contributing with peer knowledge to MAs’ efforts to continuously adapt their programmes to evolving child care quality standards and the context of child care systems – in particular for MAs where a care reform process has not started yet or is foreseen to happen soon.

3. Objectives of the Assignment: 

• To provide technical guidance and assistance to the Global Expert Group on Child Care Reform (GEGCCR) as they conduct case studies in 3 Member Associations and develop policy and key recommendations for SOS Children's Villages International on its role and participation in child care reform processes, specifically in program delivery, advocacy, fundraising and programming advisory to the child care system, based on an analysis of existing evidence and our knowledge and
• To Assist the GEGCCR in their effort to develop glossary of terms on child care reforms and child care reform toolkit

4. Scope of Work: 

The Individual consultant will closely work with the Co-leaders and members of the GEGCCR to develop a policy brief on child care reforms based on evidence that will be collected from three selected Member Associations such as Macedonia, Ghana and Columbia. As such, the individual consultant will adopt a TOR for the case studies using the existing TORs, assist in data collection and write-up of the case study reports as well as policy brief. The individual consultant is also expected to provide technical support and guidance in the development of child care reform toolkit and glossary of terms for child care reforms.

5. Reporting: 

The consultant will report to the Regional Program Advisor and Co-lead of the Global Expert Group on Child Care Reform of the SOS Children Villages International, East and Southern Africa Regional Office based in Addis Ababa.

6. Deliverables: 

1. 3 case study reports
2. A policy brief on child care reform
3. Child care reform toolkit and glossary of terms on CCR

7. Duration of Assignment: 

The assignment will be for six months from signing of contract. The case studies and development of the policy brief should be completed before December 2023.

8. Working Location: 

The consultant/s will be expected to work from their convenient location. Required and frequent consultations may be conducted through online platforms.

9. Minimum Requirement: 

• Minimum of a master’s degree or equivalent in child rights, law, political sciences, social policy, sociology, social work, development studies or similar and relevant fields of study
• Minimum of seven years of experience in policy analysis, alternative care, advocacy, child rights, legislation, child protections systems at national or international level;
• In-depth knowledge of child care reforms, advocacy and policy development processes
• Highly professional in researching, synthesizing, analysing and writing skills and conducting trainings
• A good command of written and spoken English language

** Applicants that do not fulfil the above requirements need NOT apply.

Application Information: 

a. General Information: 

• Costs must be quoted in US Dollars

b. SOS Children’s Villages International, East and Southern Africa Regional office has the right to:

• Contact any or all references supplied by the individual consultant;
• Request additional supporting or supplementary data from the individual consultant
• Arrange interviews with the individual consultant
• Reject any or all applications submitted;
• Accept any application in whole or in part;
• Negotiate with the individual consultant who has/have attained the best rating/ranking, i.e. the one(s) providing the overall best value proposal(s);
• Contract any number of candidates as required to achieve the overall evaluation objectives

c. Taxes and payment (as per the regulation): 

• Fees for Ethiopian nationals will be paid in ETB as per the prevailing exchange rate
• Fees for non-Ethiopian nationals will be paid through bank transfer in USD
• Two percent (2%) tax will be deducted from Ethiopian consultants with business license and business TIN. 30% tax will be deducted from Ethiopian consultants with personal TIN
• 15% tax will be deducted from consultants who are non-Ethiopians
• Payment details will be communicated to the winning bidder

11. Application Documents to be Submitted: 

Interested applicants should submit:

• Signed and scanned CV with letter of motivation/interest
• A credential and past experience in child care reforms, research and policy development
• Financial proposal with detailed cost breakdown (– Quotes must be in US
• Copy of highest educational qualification earned (degree/diploma)

­Any application that doesn’t include any one of the above requirements and does NOT adhere to the application information under paragraph 10 will be disqualified.

Eligibility: Individuals and/or a group of individuals organizations, associations, or companies are eligible to apply for this consultancy service.

How to Apply: 

Applications must be submitted to:

Applicants MUST copy all these emails addresses in their application. ESAF.HROD@ssos-kd.org, Kifleyesus.Gezahegn@sos-kd.org, Eyob.Berhanu@sos-kd.org and Bedilu.Shegen@sos-kd.org. 

Application Deadline: All application must be submitted by Sunday 16 July, 2023 16:00 hrs East African Time/13:00 Hrs GMT.

Clarification: Please email all requests for clarification to: Eyob Berhanu Berhanu@sos-kd.org before July 13, 2023 – 9:00 Hrs GMT/12:00 PM East African Time

Annex 1: 

Application and Declaration Form
For Office Use Only
1 Applicants Full Name
2 Please indicate either organization/association/ /firm/company or individual
3 Full contact details of individual consultant
Name:
E-mail:
Office line:
Mobile:
Skype address:
Full Physical Address:
4 Have you submitted all the required documents listed as requirements under paragraph 11?
Yes /NO
5 Please indicate where or how you were informed about this call:
6 I/We hereby confirm that all the information included, and documents contained in this bid application are true and authentic. I/We give permission to organizations evaluating this bid to verify the information included and documents we submitted.
Name: ___________________________________________
Date: _____________________________________________
Signature: _______________________________