Home-based: VPRU & Child Protection Consultant

Requisition ID: req43477

Job Title: VPRU & Child Protection Consultant

Sector: Child Protection

Employment Category: Consultant

Employment Type: Consultant

Open to Expatriates: Yes

Location: Remote

Job Description: 

Introduction: 

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home. The IRC’s vision is to provide high-impact, cost-effective programs for people affected by crisis and by using our learning and experience to shape policy and practice.

To achieve that vision, the IRC’s Technical Units provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and shares sectoral learning to influence policy and practice. The Violence Prevention and Response Unit (VPRU) is one of IRC’s 5 technical units. VPRU leads IRC’s work in the field of protection through specialized interventions in Child Protection, Women Protection and Empowerment and Protection Rule of Law in with an overarching vision of preventing, interrupting, and responding to violence, abuse, discrimination an exclusion. VPRU leverages partnerships with our clients, partnering as the first choice and as equals with those closest to the contexts we operate in and engages with duty bearers and policymakers at all levels to co-deliver at-scale, evidence-base and client-informed solutions.

Background: 

Violence against children has a lasting impact and deprives children of their childhood and a chance to fulfil their potential. Children experience violence in all settings, with violence in the home and peer to peer violence reported to be the most prevalent form of violence against children.[1] Humanitarian settings and protracted crisis are known to erode protective factors which can further expose children to protection violations by reducing livelihood opportunities leading to economic stressors and drivers of exploitation of children, separation of children from caregivers, and exacerbating negative social norms in the society.  Emergencies also carry crisis-specific risks to children including being associated with armed forces and groups.

Common Thread: 

Childhood is a common lived experience of all humanity, a period that sets a foundation for all adults. In protracted situations, including refugee settings and internal displacement situations, children’s trajectories are severely impacted as they and their caregivers navigate systemic exclusion, crisis-induced vulnerabilities compounded by gendered, social and other form of inequities.

While there is general recognition that crisis, conflict and disaster impact the environment in which children evolve, their safety and wider protective environment, there is still limited understanding and consideration for the intergenerational effects of violence against children in humanitarian settings and the way care responsibilities impacts the trajectories, choices, opportunities and vulnerabilities of the majority of the people we serve.

Many adults and older children have a care responsibility and are directly impacted by the violence and abuse that the children in their care experience. Childcare responsibilities, along with other care responsibilities (for the elderly, persons living with disabilities etc.) shape the way women and men in crisis experience hardship, displacement and exclusion.

They may also afford them with specific opportunities. The demographics are clear and point to a clear accountability case: with children accounting for at least 50% of people in need in humanitarian situations, our industry’s impact on children should be one clear metrics of success and relevance.

Existing Efforts: 

Child Protection has been recognized for years now as a specialized area of work in humanitarian contexts. The establishment of the Child Protection Area of Responsibility (AoR) and Alliance have helped advance the positioning of Child Protection as a prioritized, specialized area requiring dedicated resources and expertise.

Furthermore, in recognition of the cross-cutting nature of child protection needs, the Child Protection sector has successfully advocated for attention to the needs of children across all sectors. Child Protection mainstreaming is clearly articulated in the Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS).[1] While mainstreaming advances child rights and can reduce risks and protection vulnerabilities, it does not all lead to Protection of children. The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action calls for heightened attention and recognition of the centrality of children and their protection as a key industry-wide responsibility.[2]

The intergenerational benefits of investments in child protection have been clear for some time and have led the development of sophisticated child-centered social welfare systems across the world.

These are recognized in the fields of health nutrition and education as key human development investments which helped spearhead development for many f this world’s nations.

However, and despite existing evidence on the inter-generational impact of violence, abuse and neglect, including on health, socio-economic status, child protection in emergencies does not seem to have driven the same kind of attention, nor levels of investments.

Cost of Inaction studies have leveraged economics and public health to shed light on the short-, medium- and longer-term impact of violence, abuse and neglect of children. Carried out in different contexts ranging from the US (CDC 2008) to multi-country studies covering Asia and the Pacific (UNICEF 2015), these studies estimate the global cost of violence against children to 11% of global GDP or $ 9.5 trillion (Copenhagen Consensus).[1]
These business cases have been used to advocate for strengthened investments by governments in child protection services, mostly in middle-income countries. Yet, one could assume that this is true across countries and that protracted emergencies compound the societal cost of inaction to some of the world most vulnerable children and their caregivers.

This would make the business case all the more compelling not only for governments, but also for humanitarian donors, policy makers and practitioners. The Copenhagen Consensus attempted to put a figure on the global direct and indirect costs of VAC.

Failure to acknowledge the care responsibility of most persons impacted by crisis fails not only children but overall prevention, response and recovery efforts.

Extrapolating from the evidence available, we can infer that failing to address the intergenerational impact of child protection gaps compounds the prospects of whole societies, leaves behind children and adolescents among the most disadvantaged in the world.

Furthermore, it does not account for the fact that care responsibilities of people affected by crisis, most of them women and youth is a determining factor in the way they are impacted by protracted emergencies, from the way they move, to who leaves, who stays all the way to what kind of assistance and protection services they can access and how they recover and contribute to their communities and societies.

Gaps and Funding for Child Protection: 

The humanitarian – development divide has not enabled learning and evidence from child welfare studies (mostly from industrialized countries) to inform the way Child Protection is conceptualized, programs are designed nor the way advocacy is framed, targeted and delivered.

Over the last decades, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance has continued to increase. According to the GHA report, “an estimated 306.0 million people were assessed to be in need in 2021, 90.0 million more than in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic. Half of those requiring humanitarian support (155.9 million) lived in just nine countries. Long-term crisis is increasingly common. The number of countries experiencing protracted crisis rose to 36 in 2021, accounting for three quarters (74%) of all people in need”.[2]

In 2022, 57.3% Humanitarian appeal funding was delivered, whereas child protection was 26.3% funded.[3] In this current year, Child Protection funding is at 16.3%, with situations such as Afghanistan, Mali and Burkina Faso receiving less than 2% of their total appeal.[4]

It is a failure of our industry’s responsibility to care for the populations we serve in a way consistent with their reality and priorities. At a time when the humanitarian sector continues to move towards more attention to resilience-building, to enhance connection across the HPD nexus, Child Protection offers a unique opportunity, particularly in protracted emergency contexts, to shape a different landscape for future generations, engage into meaningful, age, gender and all-inclusive system strengthening.
Objective

The Objective of this consultancy is to lead the conceptualization of a child protection framework centering children’s needs as well as an overarching  and compelling case articulated under the theme ‘Care responsibilities – Responsibility to Care’ in a manner that clearly articulates why investment in Child Protection is not only critical for child wellbeing and development but also is an impactful cost-effective pathway for the humanitarian sector, governments and other duty bearers. 

Expected Overall Outcome:

IRC and the Child Protection sector position Child protection as a compelling strategic objective of humanitarian response across contexts.

Deliverables: 

1. Simplified framework centering care responsibilities as an overarching theme calling for (I) heightened specialized investment and (ii) strategic mainstreaming of child protection issues
2. Proposed advocacy strategy to roll out framework
3. Standard PPT to support socialization of the framework and production of visuals  

Outputs:

1. Desk review of available evidence of the socio-economic impact of VAC 3 - 4 workshops (1 in person) with key stakeholders to define the Child Protection framework
2. Workshops: August (online), September (in-person, 4-day workshop, proposed location Nairobi/UK/Geneva) and October (online)Coordination of launch of report (webinar). Report will be launched during the International Day of Children, 20th November 2023. 

Collaborators in Development of Framework : 

• Child Protection AoR/Alliance
• Duty Bearers and Policy Makers
• Donors
• NGOs (Local, I/National)
• Researchers

Timeline: August – November 2023. An estimate of 50 days

Qualifications: 

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Demonstrated experience in child welfare/child protection policy design and implementation at national level
• Experience of child protection in emergency programming
• Demonstrated experience in research (quantitative and qualitative methods), data analysis with rigour to support conclusions, strategy development and developing advocacy products.
• Understanding of humanitarian architecture, policy and understanding of the different interactions between stakeholders in the humanitarian sector
• Experience in conducting policy analysis with a focus on families with children, persons with disabilities, other vulnerable categories in crisis situations
• Ability to produce high quality write ups efficiently with excellent writing skills in English - Working knowledge of French a plus
• Capacity to articulate child protection concepts and strategies with non-specialist audiences in mind
• Demonstrated capacity to translate concepts and strategies into programmatic frameworks
• Strong written and oral communication skills – Writing samples to be provided with a focus on policy and programming documents.

How to Apply:

Please send your expression of interest, sample of written work for a similar task as in this TOR and CV to Yvonne.Agengo@rescue.org. 

[1] https://copenhagenconsensus.com/

[2] https://devinit.org/resources/global-humanitarian-assistance-report-2022/people-and-crisis/

[3] https://fts.unocha.org/appeals/overview/2022

[4] https://fts.unocha.org/global-clusters/12/summary/2023

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[1] https://alliancecpha.org/en/CPMS_home

[2] https://alliancecpha.org/en/centrality-of-children-visual-and-written-introduction

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[1] Devries K, Knight L, Petzold M, et al Who perpetrates violence against children? A systematic analysis of age-specific and sex-specific data BMJ Paediatrics Open 2018;2:e000180. doi: 10.1136/bmjpo-2017-000180