National SBC Contractor (COVID-19 Vaccination) at the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) – Enugu & Rivers

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (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.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: National SBC Contractor (COVID-19 Vaccination)

Job No: 556314
Locations: Port Harcourt – Rivers and Enugu
Contract Type: Consultant
Level: Consultancy
Categories: Social and Behavior Change

For Every Child, a Champion

• The Contractor will, under the technical guidance of SBC Specialist in Abuja /Enugu and the focal person for the Rivers field offices, focus on providing support aimed at aligning with UNICEF globally accepted Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) principles on COVID-19 vaccination. The contractor will support research, planning, strategy, and design of social and behaviour change interventions for COVID-19 vaccination.
• COVID-19 vaccines have become a game changer in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government of Nigeria (GoN) is targeting 51.5 percent of Nigeria’s total population (around 111.7 million persons) over a two-year period to build the population immunity. Since the first roll-out of COVID-19 vaccines in Nigeria as at 13th October 2022, only 44,261,782 million people are fully vaccinated (39.6 per cent of the eligible population), while 57,013,442 million people have received their first dose (51 per cent of the eligible population), 21,114,750 million people received the second dose (18.9 per cent) And only around 4,499,691 people have received the booster dose.
• SBC and related community engagement strategy are central to achieving vaccine equity by working with various communities to promote vaccine uptake and remove social and behavioural barriers to vaccination. SBC is a cross-cutting, evidence- based process that uses a mix of social science guided approaches to facilitate participation and engagement with children, families, communities, and networks, for positive social and behaviour change in both development and humanitarian contexts.
• Uptake of COVID-19 vaccines varies depending on diverse factors including geographical/gender disparities, access to quality immunization services and vaccines, trust and confidence in vaccines, health worker attitude and capacity, as well as felt need.  Targeted strategies are needed in this phase of implementation to ensure equitable coverage of the vaccines and vaccine acceptance and uptake.
• It is against this background that an SBC Contractor is required to work with national and state teams in Nigeria to provide strategic direction and technical support on SBC interventions on COVID-19 vaccination. Currently, UNICEF SBC section in Nigeria has provided the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) with technical support on content development, crisis communication and digital engagement. However, there is still gap in terms of providing strategic direction on SBC to NPHCDA.

How Can You Make a Difference?
The contractor will be responsible for the following:

• Coordinate with National/State SBC focal points and support the implementation of National/subnational demand plans based on NDVP global guidelines on COVID-19 vaccine with specific activities to reach all groups targeted for vaccination.
• Support new and strengthen existing National/State partnerships with the appropriate agencies, professional bodies, and academic institutions, and maintaining inter-agency cooperation and coordination in the area of Demand for COVID-19 Immunization.
• Promote COVID-19 vaccine demand programming based on human rights, gender equality and transformation and equity-based approaches to realize social change through innovations in SBC approaches, participatory methodologies, and evidence-driven strategic interventions.
• Support and strengthen the use of behaviour and social data (surveys, studies, social listening reports etc) to inform demand strategies and appropriate programme responses.
• Support development and implementation of SBC strategies targeted and contextualized to vulnerable populations and ethnicities, and key influencers including health workers as early adopters and community-based advocates for vaccines
• Oversee, coordinate with partners to provide technical assistance on development, pre-testing and finalization of evidence-based SBC content and tools as guided by evidence from social listening and based on global guidelines
• Develop SOPs to crisis communication preparedness and response including training of identified spokespersons
• Adapt available training modules and job aids for health workers and vaccinators as both first adopters of vaccines and as advocates for vaccination acceptance and uptake in communities
• Tailor the National community engagement guidance to make it context specific for local contexts at subnational level.
• Support the continuous engagement of key stakeholders, influencers, faith-based groups partners and most trusted sources of information to promote acceptance and uptake of Covid-19 vaccination (eg: public health, nursing associations, organizations working with older adults, faith- based organizations etc.) and in providing orientations to them
• Support training and other capacity building efforts targeted at frontline workers, CSOs, FBOs, media training for journalists etc. linking it with the gains made in RCCE
• Support and coordinate rapid surveys and anthropological studies monitoring and feedback mechanisms (including community feedback, media and social media monitoring) and reporting of ongoing implementation of COVAX introduction and broader SBC/Risk communication activities
• Support documentation of SBC activities including best practices and lessons learnt
• Produce monthly consultancy reports

To Qualify as an Advocate for Every Child You will Have

•  An Advanced University Degree in one of the following fields is required: Social and Behavioural Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Education, Communication, Communication for Development, Public Relations or another relevant technical field.
• The level of experience required is a minimum of 10 years in relevant areas – psychology, social sciences, health education/promotion, public health, crisis communication, and risk communication. Applicants with expertise in multiple areas will have an advantage.

Successful candidates will have to demonstrate competency in the following areas:

• Experience and/or training in the application of social change theories and current developments and new approaches in the field of social and behaviour change communication, and demonstrated ability to apply them participatory processes, media, strategic communication planning, behaviour analysis, formative research and evaluation and/or capacity building.
• Strong technical knowledge and demonstrated experience in designing tools and strategies for quantitative, qualitative and/or participatory research in the fields of SBC, including, for example, research into drivers of social and behaviour change identification; formative research; monitoring and evaluation of social and behavioural communication interventions and/or community engagement.
• Demonstrated experiences in developing theories of change and linking a chain of causal results.
• Proven experience in the design and development of SBC strategies and action plans for specific SBC interventions, sector programmes, or country programmes.
• Proven experience in SBC capacity development, including systems strengthening and institutional integration of SBC; development and delivery of training programs; development of online learning tools, and/or facilitation.
• Demonstrated experiences in designing rapid assessments in humanitarian context and disease outbreaks including behaviour identification; formative research; monitoring and evaluation of social and behavioural communication interventions and/or applying community engagement standards.
• Demonstrated expertise in the use of ICTs for SBC, including but not limited to the use of U-Report,
• Demonstrated skills in effectively packaging and communicating SBC-related data and results.

Deadline: 31st October, 2022.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

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.