Consultant – Supporting child mortality and stillbirth estimation and analysis, D&A, DAPM NYHQ (remote-based)

Consultancy Title: Supporting child mortality and stillbirth estimation and analysis

Section/Division/Duty Station: D&A, DAPM NYHQ (remote-based)

Duration: 12 months (1 May 2024 – 30 April 2025)

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

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

The main objective of this consultancy is to provide support to the mortality and stillbirth data and estimation work, UN IGME report production, the launch of the estimates and reports, and training materials and tools under the supervision of the Statistics Specialist in the Data and Analytics Section, Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring.

Scope of Work:

Support to database management work for empirical data on stillbirths and child, adolescent and youth mortality.

•           Technical support for modelling work for stillbirths and child, adolescent and youth mortality indicators including crisis adjustments.

•           Support capacity building and country consultation.

•           Support the UN IGME report production process on stillbirths and child mortality indicators.

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

Deliverable 1:

Deliverable/Outputs 1. Support to database management work.

1.1 Updated covariate database, updated processing code and documentation

Deadline: 31-May 2024

1.2 Developed code for processing DHS pregnancy histories and produced data quality review of pregnancy history data for each survey

Deadline:15-June 2024

1.3 Supported child mortality and stillbirth rate empirical database update of national values and relevant disaggregations with updated processing code and documentation

Deadline:30-June 2024

1.4 Updated population data for vital registration data processing and death calculation and conducted comparison to previous WPP          

Deadline: 31 July 2024

1.5 Updated and processed covid-19 excess database          

Deadline:15-September 2024

Deliverable/Outputs 2. Technical support for modelling work including crisis adjustments.

2.1 Updated crisis event database and computed crisis adjustments for 2024 round. Applied crisis adjustments to draft estimates for mortality indicators by age and sex

Deadline:31-July 2024

2.2 Updated estimated definitional adjustments for stillbirth data with non-28-week definitions.

Deadline:30-June 2024

2.3 Conducted quality assessment for empirical data and quality checks of estimates by code (internal consistency, consistency to previous rounds for median and trajectories)

Deadline:31-July 2024

Deliverable/Outputs 3. Technical support to capacity building and country consultation.

3.1 Updated and expanded country consultation templates and supporting materials (explanatory notes, data collection templates)    

Deadline:30-August-2024

3.2 Updated and managed mailing lists for country consultations

Deadline:30-August-2024

3.3 Reviewed online consultation tool and successful conducted trial for selected countries   

Deadline:31-October-2024

3.4 Prepared and archived country consultation responses and drafted country consultation summary report   

Deadline:31 November-2024

3.5 Prepared presentations for webinars on data quality assessment and stillbirth definitions

Deadline:31-March-2025

3.6 Updated training materials and tools for regional workshops for child mortality (calculation, data quality, estimation) and contributed to newly developed materials for stillbirth (data quality, definitions, estimation)

Deadline:30-April-2025

Deliverable/Outputs 4. UN IGME report production

4.1 Produced analysis, drafted key messages, charts, infographics, and respective code for stillbirth and child mortality reports; checked numbers and statements in reports and conducted proof reading for reports and documents

Deadline:31-December 2024

4.2 Prepared documents and updated and checked child mortality.org website which is error free

Deadline:31-January-2025

4.3 Produced content including analysis, key messages and charts for UNICEF stillbirths and child mortality webpages

Deadline:28- February-2025

4.4 Drafted presentations and relevant dissemination materials of UN IGME reports for various audiences (health team, field offices)

Deadline:31-March-2025

Qualifications

Education

• Master’s degree in Demography, Statistics, Epidemiology or related social science.
• Knowledge of methods of demographic analysis and mortality estimation.
• Advanced experience in statistical programming with R.

Work experience

Minimum 3-5 years of professional experience in the area of demographic and statistical analysis.

Competencies

• Excellent communication and writing skills.
• Detail-oriented.
• Ability to take initiatives and work independently.
• Creativity and enthusiasm.
• Ability to work well in a team environment.
• Fluent in English.

Requirements:

• Completed profile in UNICEF’s e-Recruitment system
• Upload copy of academic credentials
• Financial proposal that will include:
• the costs per each deliverable and the total all-inclusive (lump-sum) fees for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability
• Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
• At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

Health Insurance:

The Consultant is fully responsible for arranging at their own expense, such as life, health, and other forms of insurance covering the term of the Contract as he or she considers appropriate.  The Consultant is not eligible to participate in the life or health insurance schemes available to UNICEF and United Nations staff members.

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.