Individual Consultant: The Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC) National Technical at United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

Job Purpose

Consultants to develop data reports on demographic, health, socioeconomic and environmental thematic areas for the Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC).

• The region under the Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC) remains relatively under-developed because policies implemented in the past to promote economic growth in the region did not result to the intended impact. Additionally, resources were thinly spread across many economic activities, and there was no effective community participation in the development process. To promote the economic growth in this region, the FCDC has initiated various development strategies and programmes. These include: The Common Programme Framework for Livestock Disease Control (CPF-LDC) in the FCDC region; Livestock Fodder and Pasture Strategy for the FCDC Region (2019-2028); The Socioeconomic Blueprint for the Frontier Counties Development Council: Towards a Regional and Territorial Approach for Local Development; and Transforming the Environment through Nexus; Building Resilience to Climate Change for Enhance Food, Nutrition and Water Security in the ASALs; among others Over the last decade, since the introduction of the devolved system of governance, great efforts have been directed towards promoting economic and social development of the region. However, these efforts are far from achieving their objectives. It is estimated that about 19 percent of Kenya’s poor live in the region and on average about 68 percent of the population live below the poverty line compared to a national average of 36.1 percent. Similarly, the region experiences low literacy rates and poor access to health, water and sanitation, energy and ICT services. Moreover, the region is isolated from the rest of the country due to poor roads and other infrastructure. The challenges encountered in this region can be lessened by evidence-based decision making through policies and programming based on the evidence generated in the region and lessons learned from similar communities in various countries that share the same environmental, social and economic situations. However, while the country has wealth of data and information collected on these counties, the data is scattered in various ministries, Government departments, Research institutions, CSOs and in the private sectors institutions. Some of these data has not been analyzed to generate evidence required by these counties for their planning and policy formulation. These may have been caused by inadequate capacity to analyze the data or conduct research to generate required evidence. These factors make the data for decision making unavailable and inaccessible to planners and policy makers from these counties. This ultimately may lead to the country not achieving the ICPD25 commitment number six “Enhance the capacity of relevant Government institutions to increase availability and accessibility to high quality, timely and reliable population and related data at national, county, and subcounty levels, disaggregated by income, gender, age, ethnicity, migratory status, disability and geographic location by 2030”. To achieve the required socioeconomic development of the FCDC region, it is paramount to ensure that high quality data is available and accessible to planners and policy makers. This will ensure programming and interventions initiated by the FCDC are focused and are of high impact. To increase the availability and accessibility of timely evidence to inform policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programmes in the FCDC counties, UNFPA is in the process of recruiting two national experts to support development of data reports on demographic, health, socioeconomic and environmental thematic areas for the FCDC counties.

You Would Be Responsible For

The two consultants will work as a team to carry out the following tasks:

• Conduct literature review on the development performance of the counties under FCDC and develop a list of indicators key to the development of the counties.
• Facilitate County consultations and dialogue processes on prioritization of the indicators.
• Conduct mining, collation and analysis of data for the agreed indicators.
• Draft the county reports in consultation with FCDC and UNFPA.
• Facilitate County validation of the collated and analyzed data and the draft reports.
• Develop final county reports.
• Develop a Popular version and power point presentation for high level dissemination.

The Expected Outcome Of The Consultancy Will Include

• List of indicators key to the development of the counties.
• Draft 10 county specific reports and one (1) combined report.
• Final 10 county specific reports and one (1) combined report.
• A power point presentation for high level dissemination

The consultants will be based in Nairobi and will be required to attend meetings as may be requested by the necessity of data collection, county consultations/dialogue sessions as well as the validation process.

Deliverables

• Inception report
• Draft Report
• Final county reports and power point presentation

Education Qualifications And Experience

• An advanced degree or equivalent level in one of the following fields: Demography, Population Studies, development studies, Economics, and Statistics
• At least 10 years of work experience in socioeconomic or health development programmes
• Experience of working on national surveys and censuses, monitoring and evaluation or data analysis.
• Experience in working with government at national and county levels.
• Experience working with a multidisciplinary team of experts.
• Experience in writing national/county reports (Provide an example of such report).

Core Competencies

• Achieving results,
• Being accountable,
• Developing and applying professional expertise/business acumen,
• Thinking analytically and strategically,
• Working in teams/managing ourselves and our relationships,