Children in Adversity Strategy Consultant

Job Description

GH-TAMS is seeking candidates for a Children in Adversity Strategy Update consultant for a five-month assignment with USAID/Washington DDI/ID. The consultancy will be Mostly virtual, occasional in-office meetings at 68 days of effort. Start date is approximately May 15, 2023.

Background:

USAID’s Children in Adversity Team within the Development, Democracy and Innovation Bureau’s Inclusive Development Hub (DDI/ID) leads interagency efforts to implement Public Law (P.L.) 109-95, the Global Child Thrive Act (GCTA), and Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity: A U.S. Government Strategy for International Assistance 2019-2023 (APCCA Strategy). The APCCA Strategy was developed by and is implemented in partnership with other USAID Bureaus, including the Global Health Bureau (GH), and four additional USG Departments and Agencies. The Children in Adversity Team also manages the Vulnerable Children (Global Health) account.

USAID seeks support to update its APCCA Strategy, which ends in 2023. The core commitments in APCCA include:

1. BUILD STRONG BEGINNINGS
Central to USAID’s approach is a focus on promoting nurturing care for the most-vulnerable newborns and young children, starting before birth, by funding and supporting comprehensive and integrated programming in early-childhood development to provide for children’s health, nutrition, safety and security, responsive caregiving for social and emotional well-being, and opportunities for early learning.

2. PUT FAMILY FIRST
USAID supports those most vulnerable children who are, or are at risk of, living outside of family care by promoting, funding, and supporting nurturing, loving, protective, and permanent family care.

3. PROTECT CHILDREN FROM VIOLENCE
USAID promotes, funds, and supports the protection of children from violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect by investing in preventative and responsive programming.

The GH-TAMS consultant(s) will assist USAID to hold a series of consultations with U.S. government partners who have signed onto APCCA and who are named in the Global Child Thrive Act, as well as other relevant stakeholders within civil society and beyond.

They will bring these pieces together to update the APCCA Strategy with consideration for global development trends over the last 5 years.

Role and Responsibilities:

Under the direct supervision of the USAID Children in Adversity team lead, or their designee, the Consultant will:

Provide support to the USG Special Advisor and the Children in Adversity team to draft the follow-on strategy to the APCCA Strategy. The consultant(s) will manage all logistics of organizing and facilitating consultations to elicit feedback on strategy updates with USAID, interagency, civil society, and other relevant partners. The consultant(s) will consolidate and analyze feedback from the consultations, facilitate content review with the Children in Adversity team and the USG APCCA interagency working group, including recommendations based on the consultations, and update the existing APCCA Strategy based on inputs and prioritization by the Children in Adversity team. This effort will be done in alignment with USAID’s strategy guidance.

Major tasks and activities will include:

• Organizing and facilitating consultations to elicit feedback for consideration when updating the APCCA strategy with USAID, interagency, civil society partners, and others
• Consolidating and analyzing feedback from the consultations, and providing streamlined recommendations for suggested APCCA strategy language updates to USAID’s Children in Adversity team and the APCCA interagency working group
• Editing and updating the existing APCCA strategy based on consultations. This will include drafting new technical content.

The APCCA strategy update will be undertaken in alignment with USAID’s guidance on strategy development. See: USAID Strategy Definition and Content

Other tasks will include, and are not limited to:

• Creating a timeline and consultation schedule for the APCCA strategy update with relevant milestones and deliverables. This should include facilitation of discussions to enable strategy updates.
• Support, coordination, and logistics for any related meetings, including invites, agendas, and notes.

Additional activities as needed to facilitate the completion of the new APCCA strategy.

Qualifications:

• Master’s level or above in child and family studies, international development, social work, public health, community development, or another relevant discipline.
• Minimum 8 years’ experience working on childcare and protection issues, at least 2 years of which includes being based overseas.
• Consultant must understand the landscape of development partners working in early childhood development, family strengthening, child protection, care, and social protection.
• Thorough understanding of global best practices on early childhood development, family strengthening, child protection, care, and social protection.
• Strong notetaking ability, including synthesizing oral feedback and transferring to written recommendations and lessons learned is required.
• Experience facilitating stakeholder engagement, including but not limited to focus groups, strategy review sessions, etc. with interagency partners is required for this role.
• Strong writing skills, excellent interpersonal skills, and oral communication skills are required for this role.
• Experience coordinating and supporting logistics for meetings across stakeholders is an advantage in this role.

About the Organization

International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI), is the prime contractor implementing the $125 million USAID-funded Global Health Technical Assistance and Mission Support Project (GH-TAMS) activity. Along with its subcontractor, Dexis Consulting Group (Dexis), IBTCI provides the Bureau for Global Health (GH) and USAID field missions with high quality technical expertise to achieve the Agency's foreign assistance global health mission (October 2019-October 2024). GH-TAMS technical assistance supports over 65 Missions and 19 GH Offices and other Bureaus covering a broad range of technical areas and cross-cutting issues such as HIV/AIDS, family planning, MNCH, infectious disease, TB, health finance, reproductive health, organizational development, OVC, project design, facilitation, M&E and strategic planning.

Project assignments are located in Washington D.C. and worldwide in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Assignments typically range from two weeks to six months in duration.