UNICEF Office: Office of Emergency Operations, New York
TERMS OF REFERENCE for SITUATING THE CCCs AS UNICEF’S EQUITY STRATEGY FOR HUMANITARIAN
ACTION1
UNICEF seeks to hire a senior consultant who will assist in identifying the main challenges and
opportunities in applying the organization’s equity approach to humanitarian situations; and defining
the potential impact of the organizational core humanitarian policy (the Core Commitments for
Children in Humanitarian Action, CCCs) towards the achievement of equity.
Background
UNICEF has recently completed the revision of its Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian
Action, which provides the framework for its operational and sector specific commitments in
humanitarian action. For both chronic and sudden onset emergencies, the revised Core
Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action outline specific sectoral and operational results,
commitments and benchmarks that all offices should be working towards. For all other countries,
they outline the minimum preparedness necessary to ensure the overall equity strategy is not wiped
out by disaster or conflict. This organizational policy requires all offices to monitor the situation of
children and women, so that all humanitarian emergencies are detected, including slow onset
emergencies.
As the revised CCCs are being rolled out, UNICEF is embarking on developing an equity strategy as the
way forward to accelerating progress towards achievement of the MDGs by 2015 and addressing the
needs of the poorest and marginalized populations in the countries that UNICEF works in. This is
motivated by the fact that UNICEF recognizes the growing evidence that as we make progress toward
the MDG's, that progress is highly uneven. As we work towards the rights of all children, we must also
understand that globally these inequities are concentrated in a number of countries, many of which
are coping with either humanitarian, fragile and/or post-crisis situations. For example, we know that
half of the under-5 deaths worldwide2, and nearly half of the children out of primary school are in
fragile and conflict-affected states. This does not include those children in states where fundamental
rights to health, education and protection are threatened with every disaster. In addition, recent
research3 strongly confirms the impact of conflict/fragility and qualifies conflict as a global crisis
(“conflict constitutes a global crisis”). A crisis that is global because it affects everybody: 22 out of 34
countries furthest from reaching MDGs are in or are emerging from conflict, conflict affected and
post conflict populations account for between two out of three infants and children dying and three
out of four mothers dying in childbirth.
1
This ToR is based on the Executive Director’s 9 July 2010 letter to Regional and Country Directors; guidance from Programme Division to ROs and COs
to help offices reflect on the Equity focus of their country programmes and to refocus UNICEF’s work on the most disadvantaged children and families;
and ongoing analysis by Programme Division and others on the cost-effectiveness of an equity-based strategy.
2 Based on analysis of under-age five deaths in Sate of the World’s Children 2010 against the 43 states listed in OECD/DAC Secretariat’s February 2010
report Ensuring Fragile States are not Left Behind http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/38/33/44822042.pdf: “The list of fragile and conflict-affected states
used for this analysis (not an official DAC list or definition) is a compilation of three lists: the World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment
(CPIA) 2008, the Brookings Index of State Weakness in the Developing World 2009, and the Carleton University Country Indicators for Foreign Policy
(CFIP) 2008 index.”. These account for 52.3 per cent annual under age five deaths worldwide. For primary school age children out of school in 2008, 48.7
are in OECD-DAC countries.
3 Interim results of research conducted by the World Bank in preparation for the World Development Report 2011
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There is available evidence which shows that in most crises, whether resulting from a natural disaster
or conflict, the populations that are usually the worst affected are also the groups who showed the
lowest social indicators prior to the emergencies. Recurrent natural disasters result in groups
experiencing chronic vulnerabilities; conflicts destroy individual and social coping mechanisms and
local service provision modalities. Thus humanitarian assistance that is well targeted as a result of
sound needs assessment targets the most vulnerable and may at least prevent them slipping further
into marginalization in times of crisis. But to be effective and to avoid the trap of aid dependency,
this assistance must be provided in a certain way, based on strategies that include early recovery
considerations from the onset, that emphasize capacity development, risk reduction, community
engagement and participation, and gender equity. The CCCs lay out such an approach.
Many of the principles and service delivery modes to ensure the implementation of the CCCs – and
that area already taking place in many humanitarian situations – are consistent with the approach
needed to ensure equitable programming, such as assessments to identify the most vulnerable,
campaign style service delivery that aims to reach high coverage even in the hard-to-reach
populations, etc. In essence, our hypothesis is that the CCC’s should be the recognized as UNICEF’s
policy and approach towards achievement of equitable programming in humanitarian and post-crisis
situations. Given that the bulk of UNICEF’s programme expenditure occurs in these contexts (nearly
half in 19 fragile and conflict-affected states)4 and the fact that these contexts are the ones that are
lagging behind in terms of progress towards MDGs, it is critical that UNICEF is effective in delivering
results in these settings both in terms of progress towards MDGs as well as in ensuring greater
equity.
In short, the hypothesis is that the CCCs are our organizational strategy for not only reaching the
most marginalized in humanitarian situations, but saving the most lives.
Purpose and Objective
The project’s overall purpose is to understand how humanitarian assistance provides entry points for
targeting the most marginalized in countries, and to assist in defining the potential impact of the
organizational core humanitarian policy (the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action,
CCCs) towards the achievement of equity. In the end, this should confirm or infirm the claim that
UNICEF’s revised Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action are the organization’s
equity strategy for humanitarian situations.
The specific objectives are:
 Identify the main challenges and opportunities in applying the organization’s equity approach
to humanitarian situations;
 Build an evidence base of how emergency interventions used in different humanitarian
responses helped or could have helped to reach the most marginalized, notably through a
review of the Equity Tracker submissions from fragile and conflict/disaster affected countries;
 Use the evidence to argue how the interventions and approaches outlined in the CCCs present
UNICEF’s strongest equity strategy for working in humanitarian situations.
4
In 2009, three-quarters (72.7 per cent) of UNICEF country level expenditure was concentrated in the top 30 Country Offices (of more than
120 country programmes) in terms of country level expenditure. Nineteen of these were considered fragile (by OECD-DAC classification),
and these alone consumed nearly half (48.9 per cent) of UNICEF expenditure (COGNOS. Programme Budget (All Programme Accounts,
Excludes Trust Funds) + Support Budget Expenditure (Local) (As of 08 March 2010).
2
Implementation – key tasks and process
The consultant will work with HQ colleagues across programme sectors, building off the existing work
of PD sectors, and review country-level analysis (notably through a review of the Equity Tracker
submissions from fragile and conflict/disaster affected countries) to identify whether and how the
CCCs present UNICEF’s equity strategy in humanitarian contexts.
Questions, and possible answers, to be addressed by the project are:
Why UNICEF?
Founded on emergency response, UNICEF has sixty years of humanitarian experience. New evidence
and best practice has shaped our core strategies for humanitarian action, incorporating recognized
global standards, technical justifications and recommended programme actions. UNICEF’s work in
countries before, during and after an emergency make it best positioned push equity strategies in
humanitarian situations, when rights are most threatened and social and protective systems most in
danger.
Why humanitarian action?
 Humanitarian programming reaches more children and saves more lives than regular
programming (ex. measles campaigns in emergencies).
 Emergencies require intense analysis to target the most affected populations. Assessments are a
critical part of humanitarian action, and are undertaken to identify the most marginalized and
gaps.
 Humanitarian action offers entry points to introduce services to those that did not previously
have access and build sustainability, e.g. through building national capacities in humanitarian
response (tsunami); introducing nutrition status monitoring (Sri Lanka); changing government
policies (Haiti); or making programmes more gender sensitive (DRC).
Why the CCCs?
The new framing of humanitarian action to include early recovery, capacity development and a focus
on risk reduction as is laid out in the revised Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action
is in itself a reframing of humanitarian goals consistent with the objective of addressing inequalities
not only through a simple service delivery approach but rather through a human rights lens and the
need to address underlying vulnerability to go beyond a 2015 target. Because we are now concerned
with promoting capacity development, preparedness, prevention and mitigation, and recovery from
the onset of a response to crises, we are thinking about influencing social policies so that they
address inequities from the start. The CCCs state clear entry points to advocate with governments
and sector / cluster partners; to use disaggregated data for better situational and performance
monitoring; to promote policies that address rights violations and inequities that existed before the
emergency (e.g. gender discrimination in education); and provide proven approaches for
governments and sectoral partners to take to scale.
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The CCCs provide UNICEF’s equity strategy for humanitarian situations through:
A clear results framework for children: Based on international norms and standards, the CCCs’
approach to results as standards allow UNICEF and partners to identify what percentage are being
reached and who is not.
Application to all Country Offices: The CCCs apply to all countries at all times, requiring all offices to
ensure a minimal preparedness to be able to respond to humanitarian crises.
Improved monitoring and evaluation: The CCCs strengthen UNICEF’s accountability in humanitarian
action, and require improved systems for monitoring and measurement of results. To identify
humanitarian situations, including slow onset emergencies, all COs must ensure that the situation of
children and women is monitored. This does not necessarily mean that UNICEF must necessarily do
the monitoring itself, but support the development of national monitoring and draw from available
data. In identified humanitarian situations, the CCCs commit us to respond within defined
programme sectors to contribute to the sectoral results and activities, given funding and the
presence of partners.
Building on new evidence and best practice: The CCCs re-articulate some of the most effective tools
and strategies for achieving results in humanitarian situations. They outline the need to design
humanitarian programmes based on gender and age disaggregated data, in both situation monitoring
before the crisis and performance monitoring on UNICEF and the sector in the response, to better
identify needs of populations and gaps in the national response.
Context specific interventions: The revised CCCs are contextual in their application, understanding
the different country context and capacities of UNICEF and its partners may vary greatly across
typologies. Applicable to all countries, they must be adapted to each context. This may mean using
analysis in countries where UNICEF may not rely on programme delivery to advocate with
governments, UN partners and other organizations to protect all the rights of children and women.
Clear linkages to regular programming through:
o Monitoring: COs required to monitor the situation of children and women to detect
humanitarian emergencies.
o Preparedness: A minimum level is required of all offices, meaning this is a required part of
regular country programming. This means ensuring UNICEF is supporting national systems
to be able to achieve the CCCs in case of emergency.
o Relevance to protracted emergencies: Country programmes where parts of the country
are in protracted emergencies likely mean that the most marginalized are in those
contexts. This also means that humanitarian action – and therefore the CCCs – should be
part of regular programming.
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Products:
1. A short (no more than 10-page) paper providing a synthesis of the main issues raised by Country
Offices in their inputs to the organization’s equity tracker..
2. A report of approximately 10 pages that provides:
 Concrete examples of how the approach proposed in the CCCs may contribute to equity,
including highlighting the challenges that UNICEF is likely to face when pursuing equity
programming in humanitarian action.
 Links between the equity work of the individual programme sectors with sectoral priorities
outlined in the CCCs and outline complementarities between the two.
 A review of the Equity Tracker submissions from fragile and conflict/disaster affected
countries.
 Suggestions on how the CCCs can be rolled out simultaneously with the equity strategy
agency-wide.
 What are the challenges that UNICEF is likely to face when pursuing equity programming in
humanitarian action.
 How do we work with others in this area? Who are our potential key partners?
3. Presentation of the findings.
Supervision:
The consultant will be jointly supervised by the Chief of HATIS, PD and the Chief of the Humanitarian
Policy Section, EMOPS.
Working Modalities:
The consultant will work with emergency & equity focal points of all PD sections and all relevant
colleagues within EMOPS working on the CCC roll out. The consultant will have access to UNICEF’s
Equity Tracker for the synthesis. Periodic progress updates will be provided to a CCC and equity task
force comprising of PD and EMOPS staff.
Proposed Timeline: 30 days starting immediately
Duty Station: New York
Qualifications or specialized knowledge/ experience required:
Advanced university degree in Social Sciences or a related technical field.
At least 10 years progressively responsible professional work experience at the international
levels in programme planning and management in humanitarian contexts, with emphasis on
strategic planning.
Conceptual and analytical skills including the ability to present complex processes and issues
clearly to a heterogeneous audience and in an actionable manner;
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