Individual Consultant to Develop the Practical Handbook for Governments on National Action Plans to End Child Marriage

UNICEF seeks an experienced individual consultant to develop a Practical Handbook for Governments on Developing, Financing, and Implementing a National Action Plan to End Child Marriage. The handbook will provide practical, evidence-informed guidance to strengthen national leadership, planning, financing, implementation, and accountability for ending child marriage globally.

Responsibilities

• Conduct a systematic review of good practice country national action plans to end child marriage across regions, applying quality criteria to identify the most instructive examples.
• Map the global landscape of National Action Plans to end child marriage, including prevalence, scope, and financing approaches.
• Review relevant academic and grey literature on NAP design, implementation, financing, and monitoring for child marriage and analogous sectors.
• Conduct Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) with government NAP leads, UNICEF and UNFPA country office staff, donor representatives, and civil society organisations to gather practitioner insights and identify common challenges.
• Produce an evidence synthesis technical note summarising the findings from the literature and policy review and stakeholder consultations.
• Develop a first full draft of the handbook (~120 pages, English), structured around the full NAP lifecycle phases: Develop, Negotiate, Finance, Implement, and Monitor & Renew.
• Ensure each chapter provides evidence-informed conceptual framing, practical step-by-step operational guidance, common implementation pitfalls and how to address them, illustrative country examples and case studies, financing and governance considerations, implementation checklists, links to relevant global guidance and normative frameworks, and cross-references to accompanying tools and templates.
• Incorporate feedback from the Reference Group in iterative review cycles, producing a revised draft before piloting.
• Develop a package of nine practical annexed tools including a NAP situation diagnostic, stakeholder mapping template, NAP structure template, drafting framework, indicator menu, Terms of Reference templates, and a risk log.
• Develop an Excel-based NAP costing companion tool designed for adaptation by ministry of finance and planning teams.
• Support the planning and design of three regional government workshops to validate the handbook in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and MENA, including workshop methodology, facilitation materials, technical presentations, and integration of findings into the revised handbook.
• Produce the final publication-ready handbook and supporting products including executive summary, policy brief, implementation tools, publication, and workshop materials.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree (Master's or equivalent) in public policy, public administration, international development, social sciences, gender studies, law, public health, or a closely related field.
• A minimum of 8 years of progressively responsible professional experience in child protection, ending child marriage, harmful practices, gender equality, or related social policy areas.
• Demonstrated experience leading global guidance documents, operational handbooks, implementation toolkits, or policy resources for governments or multilateral organisations.
• Proven experience supporting governments to develop, strengthen, or implement national action plan (NAP) or comparable national strategy processes — across design, costing, financing, implementation, and monitoring.
• Direct experience with public finance for children (PF4C) — including budget analysis, costing, domestic resource mobilisation, and the integration of child-focused priorities into national and sectoral budgets — is strongly required.
• Familiarity with qualitative methodologies including key informant interviews.
• Fluency in English (written and spoken) is required, including demonstrated ability to produce high-quality, publication-ready written outputs in English.
• Working knowledge of French or Arabic is a strong asset given the three-region piloting (MENA, Asia-Pacific, and Africa).
• Strong thematic expertise in child marriage prevention— including policy engagement, multisectoral coordination, costing and financing, implementation, and monitoring — for child marriage or analogous social sectors.
• Demonstrated expertise in public finance for children, including costing methodologies, budget formulation and execution, domestic resource mobilisation, value-for-money analysis, and the integration of child-focused and gender-responsive priorities into national and sub-national budgets.
• Practical experience engaging the full range of government ministries involved in ending child marriage — with the Ministry of Social Affairs (or equivalent) often serving as the lead, alongside ministries of finance and planning, health, education, justice, gender/women's affairs, and interior.
• Proven ability to conduct systematic evidence reviews and key informant interviews, and to synthesise evidence into clear, actionable practitioner guidance.
• Excellent technical writing and editing skills, with a track record of producing published policy guidance, handbooks, or toolkits for senior government audiences.
• Demonstrated experience designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder workshops with government counterparts across diverse regional and cultural contexts.
• Ability to manage multiple simultaneous deliverables and work independently to tight deadlines over a sustained (10–12 month) engagement.

Skills

• Child Protection
• Ending Child Marriage
• Gender Equality
• Social Policy
• Global Guidance Development
• Operational Handbook Development
• Implementation Toolkit Development
• Policy Resource Development
• National Action Plan Development
• National Strategy Design
• Costing and Financing
• Implementation Monitoring
• Public Finance for Children
• Budget Analysis
• Domestic Resource Mobilization
• Qualitative Methods
• Key Informant Interviews
• Technical Writing
• Policy Guidance Writing
• Multi-Stakeholder Facilitation

Languages

English, French, Arabic