Home-based: Protecting Children in Conflict and Centrality of Protection REALM Framework and Guidance

1.    Background: 

Protecting Children in Conflict Centenary Commitment: 

In 2019, to commemorate its 100th anniversary, Save the Children (SC) mobilised around three commitments: to end pneumonia, boost early childhood education, and protect children in conflict.  These align with SC objectives for children to survive, learn and be protected, and were designed to contribute to a breakthrough in the results for children by 2030. To support progress in the Breakthrough objective that ‘violence against children is no longer tolerated’, SC established the Protecting Children in Conflict (PCiC) initiative. 

For 2019-21, the Protecting Children in Conflict strategy focussed on the following three pillars:

• Pillar 1: Consistently uphold international laws and standards to protect children in conflict;
• Pillar 2: Perpetrators of violations of children’s rights in conflict must be systematically held to account;
• Pillar 3: Programmes and interventions to protect children in conflict and to rebuild shattered lives much be properly funded and effectively implemented.

In February 2021, SC commissioned a strategic review of the work under PCIC to provide a light touch evaluation of the achievements made, and constraints faced, through the implementation of PCIC thus far, with a view to informing its future direction during the next strategic planning period for SC from 2022-24. The review concluded that a lack of a comprehensive MEAL framework made it difficult to measure progress in consistent ways across contexts and recommended that systems be developed to better measure the results and outputs of Protecting Children in Conflict.  

Centrality of Protection Policy and Procedure: 

In 2021, Save the Children endorsed its Centrality of Protection (CoP) procedure and policy. This policy and procedure is a key result of PCiC with its focus on addressing grave violations against children within all sectors that Save the Children works in.  However, it is broader than PCiC, extending to all humanitarian contexts, not just those affected by conflict.  It also recognises other serious child rights violations (e.g. family separation) that need to be addressed.  The Centrality of Protection outlines our individual and collective responsibility to focus on protecting the vulnerable from harm as a central purpose of humanitarian action.

This commitment is derived from the IASC Principals Statement: The Centrality of Protection in Humanitarian Action (2013), the subsequent Policy on Protection in Humanitarian Action (2016), Humanitarian Principles and the four Sphere Protection Principles. It is built upon a commitment to uphold child rights within international human rights, humanitarian, refugee and criminal law.

As a child-rights based organisation, we focus on protecting children from harm caused by: 

• Violations of their rights 
• The disproportionate impact of human rights violations on children

The roll out of the Centrality of Protection policy and procedure is an important component of the Live Free from Violence strategic goal for 2022-24. 

As the objectives of both Centrality of Protection and Protecting Children in Conflict have a strong focus on grave and other serious violations of children’s rights in conflict and crisis, and on ensuring accountability for duty bearers and accountability to children and communities, it has been decided to develop a combined framework and guidance for research, evaluation, accountability, learning and monitoring across the two initiatives.

For Centrality of Protection, this will include measuring progress towards the following results:

• Conflict sensitivity has been analysed and taken into account in operational decisions and programme design
• Protection risks are being analysed and monitored 
• A cross-sectoral approach is taken to achieving Child Protection outcomes
• Systems are in place to identify, respond, monitor and report grave and other serious violations of children’s rights
• Advocacy strategy addresses CP risks and vulnerabilities, including grave and other serious rights violations at local, national and global level
• We use our interagency role to escalate child rights concerns and build collaboration to address them 

For the Protecting Children in Conflict initiative, in addition to the above, the following results must be considered:

• A thorough situation/context analysis (using situation analysis tools existing within SC’s programme guidelines on both monitoring and reporting and responding to grave violations and addressing recruitment and use) is completed, including examination of factors contributing to conflict and drivers of grave violations and barriers to violations being addressed.  
• Clear understanding and application/implementation of key legal and normative frameworks are built into programming and advocacy work. This includes instruments such as the Paris Principles and Commitments (PP/PC) and Safe School Declaration, the UN-led Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism, as well as relevant articles within the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), its relevant Optional Protocols relevant to armed conflict and international juvenile justice standards, including the UNIC.
• Systematic monitoring and reporting and feeding into the MRM (where it exists).
• Application of the Child Protection Minimum Standards and other standards for quality of interventions to address grave violations, including integrated programming across sectors. 

2. Objectives: 

• To provide a framework and guidance for output and outcome measurement for Protecting Children in Conflict programming
• To set in place a process to measure operationalisation of the Centrality of Protection procedure during its first phase of rollout
• To put in place necessary tools and guidance to support filling of the 2022-24 priority evidence gap “What works to prevent and respond to grave and other serious violations of children’s rights in conflict and crisis?”
• To facilitate learning and capacity building between country teams about measurement and evidence generation connected with PCIC and CoP

3. Tasks: 

Suggested tasks include:

• Interviews with key stakeholders, including from at least 4 country office teams, on measurement and evidence needs for Centrality of Protection and Protecting Children in Conflict 
• Identification of existing measurement tools and processes, and where necessary developing new ones, to compile into a PCIC/CoP REALM framework, tailored for use in projects in fragile/conflict settings. 
  • This will include a focus on both humanitarian and, in the case of some chronic crisis environments, longer term programme cycles and associated MEAL processes
  • This should align with Save the Children’s strategy monitoring for 2022-24, Humanitarian Plan Indicators for 2022, Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns monitoring processes, and relevant interagency frameworks (e.g. Child Protection Minimum Standards indicators)
• Written guidance on the use of the REALM framework for offices working on conflict and crisis settings. This should include particular guidance on the monitoring of the roll out of the CoP policy, as well as guidance on how to measure outcome-level changes in challenging contexts, including ethical considerations
• Identification and write up of a small number of case studies of good/promising practice for measurement. 
• Design and delivery of training (at least 2 webinars) on the use of the framework, tools and guidance
• Facilitation of at least 1 learning online learning session, enabling knowledge sharing between different teams

Suggested Timeframe: 30 days spread over 3 months. Work must finish by end of December 2022. 

4. Profile: 

• At least 8 years background in developing measurement tools and guidance for child protection, MHPSS and/or related topics
• Demonstrable knowledge/experience of Child Protection in Emergencies.
• Skills in providing capacity building/training to child protection, MEAL and/or operations staff
• Desirable: prior experience rolling out MEAL tools in humanitarian contexts
• Desirable: prior experience of Save the Children’s organisational ways of working
• Desirable: French/Arabic/Spanish 

Those who are interested are invited to send their applications to Christine McCormick (C.McCormick@savethechildren.org.uk) and Lauren Stephens (Lauren.Stephens@savethechildren.org) by 7th September.