National Individual Consultant to Support WASH Provincial and School Activities and WASH in Emergency Response in Viet Nam

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, water, sanitation and hygiene 

Background:

Over the past two decades, Viet Nam has made tremendous progress in increasing the coverage of water supply and sanitation. Following Joint Monitoring Report 2020, Viet Nam is likely on track to achieve universal basic water and sanitation services by 2030 with an increase at the annual rate of 0.8% and 1.9%, respectively.  In 2020, there were 90% of the population with improved water on their premises regardless of geographical locations (urban/rural) and 89% with improved sanitation facilities. However, issues are still there: data on safely managed water and sanitation (the end SDGs) are not available, particularly in quality of water and on the off-site treatment of fecal sludge. In addition, there are differences in water and sanitation access between urban and rural. Nearly 2.5 million people in the rural areas cannot access basic water, and 10 million people still cannot access basic sanitation facilities, among which the majority live in rural areas. Furthermore, almost 13.6 million people continue to live without access to basic hygiene services (availability of a handwashing facility with soap and water at home). With the increasing national capacity to invest its own resource for the development programs, UNICEF is increasing its role in upstream advocacy and technical assistance to eliminate barriers and bottlenecks across sectors including in the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

UNICEF is developing a new Country Development Partnership Plan for 2022-2026. The Child Survival and Development programme will shift to a stronger public health approach, with an increased focus on strengthening primary health care, prioritizing results at-scale in nutrition and WASH. Increased focus will be given to public financing, policy reform, expanded partnerships – including with the private sector, and social norm change in critical priority areas such as addressing stunting.  The WASH programme will shift its focus to align with new areas of work, including privatization, sector financing, public-private partnerships, climate resilience, among others. WASH in emergency is also one of top priority for UNICEF to act as sector lead and supplies provision for life saving support to vulnerable people, particularly children and women. UNICEF WASH program will be at both national and subnational lever, while national lever will focus on advocacy, policy development, sector coordination, at sub national lever, UNICEF will prioritize service delivery, innovation demonstration and scaling up covering safely  managed water and sanitation and promotion of personal hygiene at school and community.

As a trusted, long-term partner of the Government in Viet Nam, UNICEF is committed to providing support for MARD, MoH, MoET and selected provinces to plan and implement the water supply, sanitation and hygiene activities. Given the workload of the WASH team is increasing to implement the final year of the Vietnam Country program of Cooperation 2017 -2021 and develop new partnership phase 2022-2026, UNICEF Viet Nam is looking for a National Consultant, to support UNICEF and government agency to plan and implement the Partnership Program in WASH from 2021 onwards.

Rationale:

Under the guidance of WASH Specialist, the incumbent will provide technical support to WASH team in development, implementation of water, sanitation and hygiene activities. The incumbent will help fill the growing needs for extending support to provincial WASH program, WASH at school, WASH in emergency response and other WASH activities.

Purposes:

The overall purpose of this consultancy is to contribute to the successful planning and implementation of WASH activities, particularly WASH in school, WASH in emergency and WASH in UNICEF focus provinces.

The specific purposes:

• Provide technical support for Provincial Programme planning and implementation in WASH;
• Support Programme Development and Planning on WASH in school;
• Lead WASH in emergency preparedness and response;
• Provide technical inputs for planning and implementation of other WASH activities per required. 

The consultant will work closely with relevant provinces such as Dien Bien, Gia Lai, Kontum, Ninh Thuan…. and national agencies including Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development, Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Health/Vietnam Health Environment Management Agency, development organizations and other sections at UNICEF Viet Nam.

Location:

The working location for the consultant is based in UNICEF’s Ha Noi Office, UN House with travel to provinces.

Objectives/main tasks:

1. Provide technical support for WASH team in provincial programme planning and implementation in WASH;
2. Lead WASH in emergency preparedness and response;
3. Provide technical support to government partners’ design and implementing WASH in Schools programme, in close collaboration with Education Section;
4. Technical and operational support to other programme implementation.

Tasks, deliverables and timeline, please see the full TOR [1]

Management and Reporting:

The national consultant will work under the direct supervision of the WASH Specialist and overall guidance of the Chief, CSD programme at UNICEF Vietnam.  The consultant will operate in close cooperation with UNICEF Emergency Team, Education Team, Comms of UNICEF Viet Nam, delegated staff of UNICEF focus provinces, MoET, MARD, MOH, as required.

Performance indicators for evaluation:

Indicator for completion and satisfaction measurement will be based on UNICEF Viet Nam own evaluation and judgement, and not that of the Consultant. This means that deliverables will be deemed to be satisfactorily completed by the Supervisor of the Consultancy. The Supervisor is required to provide timely and written feedback to the Consultant in order to avoid miscommunication and hold regular meetings with the Consultant as needed.

Payment mechanism:

Payment will be made on monthly basis with monthly evaluation made by the supervisor on the deliverable tasks.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

For evaluation and selection method, the Cumulative Analysis Method (weight combined score method) shall be used for this recruitment:

a) Technical Qualification (max. 100 points) weight 70 %:

• An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required:  public   health/international health, environmental sciences (with focus on WASH), engineering, public policy, economics/finance (30 points).
• A minimum of 8 years of relevant experience at the national and local levels in WASH programme management and at least 5 years’ experience in WASH at school policy, budgeting at government level, private sector engagement, or other relevant areas (40 points).
• Familiarity with the WASH sector in the country and emergency WASH (preparedness or response) and the Emergency WASH Working Group and cluster approach are preferred (20 points).
• Experience of working in the UN or other international development organizations is most preferable (10 points).

b) Financial Proposal (max. 100 points) weight 30 %

The maximum number of points shall be allotted to the lowest Financial Proposal that is opened/evaluated and compared among those technical qualified candidates who have attained a minimum 70 points score in the technical evaluation. Other Financial Proposals will receive points in inverse proportion to the lowest price.

The Contract shall be awarded to candidate obtaining the highest combined technical and financial scores, subject to the satisfactory result of the verification interview [if needed.]

Submission of applications:

Interested candidates are kindly requested to apply and upload the following documents to the assigned requisition in UNICEF Vacancies: http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/ [2]

1. Letter of interest and confirmation of availability;
2. Performance evaluation reports or references of similar consultancy assignments (if available);
3. Financial proposal: All-inclusive lump-sum cost including consultancy fee, travel and accommodation cost for this assignment as per work assignment. 
4. CV/P11 form (UN Personal History Form [3])

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

To view our competency framework, please visit here [4].

Click here [5] to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

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.