Individual International Consultant to Evaluate One Stop Centers

The Position:

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe, and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025) aims at ending unmet needs for family planning, preventing maternal deaths, and eliminating gender-based violence (GBV) and harmful practices. UNFPA is committed to protecting the lives of women, adolescents, and youth, including adolescent girls who live in humanitarian emergencies, addressing their health and psychosocial support needs. In this framework, critical parts of GBV programming have been respectively on creating “safe spaces” for women and girls (WGSS) to feel secure and receive tailored services, and to build “one-stop centers” (OSC) to offer holistic, integrated, and multi-sectoral services for survivors of GBV. 

In 2013, the GBV One Stop Center (OSC) model was adopted in Liberia to provide a holistic, comprehensive and coordinated approach to providing services to survivors of sexual violence. While the implementation of this model has achieved some successes, major bottlenecks continue to exist, including limited access to OSCs due to long distances and poor road connectivity; lack of access to information about the available services; insufficient human resources and infrastructure; limited local ownership of OSCs and overall gaps in availability and efficiency of services. One Stop Centres (OSCs) in Liberia are usually based within health centres/hospitals. They connect survivors of GBV to information about their rights, options to report GBV cases and response services (medical, psychological, police, referral to safe home and justice) in a single location, helping to minimize the risk of survivors to experience further trauma and re-victimization.

The primary aim of creating OSCs in Liberia for Gender-Based Violence (GBV) case management was to provide holistic, integrated, and multi-sectoral services to survivors in a coordinated and survivor-centered manner. Prior to the establishment of the OSCs, survivors often encountered fragmented services. They were required to navigate multiple continuums of care (e.g. health, police, legal, social) in different places. This situation not only made services difficult to access but also risked re-traumatizing survivors and discouraged survivors to come forward. OSCs are designed to provide a direct response to a survivor who has experienced an incident of violence (SGBV/GBV). There isn’t a globally standardized definition of what an OSC is. OSCs may vary in “structure and services provided”. For example, the majority of OSCs are hospital-based, typically within tertiary care facilities. However, others are standalone centers that provide basic health services on-site and referrals for specialized and emergency services. Some OSCs may be strongly linked to the judicial system or psychosocial care/women empowerment institutes. OSCs usually provide integrated, multidisciplinary services in a single location.

OSCs are designed to provide a direct response to a survivor who has experienced an incident of violence (SGBV/GBV). There isn’t a globally standardized definition of what an OSC is. OSCs may vary in “structure and services provided”. For example, the majority of OSCs are hospital-based, typically within tertiary care facilities. However, others are standalone centers that provide basic health services on-site and referrals for specialized and emergency services. Some OSCs may be strongly linked to the judicial system or psychosocial care/women empowerment institutes. OSCs usually provide integrated, multidisciplinary services in a single location.1

Job Purpose:

   The main purpose of the evaluation is to determine the extent to which the OSC model has achieved its objective of providing integrated, multi-sectoral SGBV response services in a cohesive way. It will also evaluate the performance of the centers and the quality of services provided to survivors, and considerations of value for money. This evaluation is intended to inform the work of the work of the Liberia Spotlight Initiative 2.0 on enhancing essential service delivery to GBV survivors through the OSC model, the work of UNFPA country office, and initiatives of government agencies and other relevant stakeholders, on the effectiveness, relevance, and impact of these centers in supporting survivors of GBV. The evaluation will also identify obstacles, barriers, needs, and opportunities to improve the centers, including support needed, tools that might be missing, and provide recommendations for future programming and policy advocacy. 

The evaluation will focus on the following areas: 

Delivery of services:

Operations of the OSCs 

• Evaluate the level of training and expertise of staff in GBV response, including medical, psychosocial, and legal aspects. 

• Assess the availability of adequate funding, supplies, equipment, and other resources necessary for providing comprehensive services. 

• Assess the number of trained workforces, general infrastructure, record keeping, and reporting. 

• Evaluate the center's integration within the broader GBV response system, including coordination with other service providers, law enforcement, and community-based organizations.

 • Assess the center's adherence to survivor-centered principles, such as safety, confidentiality, non-discrimination, and respect for survivors' autonomy. 

• Evaluate the center's systems for documenting services provided, collecting data on GBV cases, and reporting on its activities. 

• Assess the center's outreach efforts and engagement with the community to raise awareness about GBV and promote help-seeking behaviors. 

• Evaluate the center's systems for monitoring and evaluating its effectiveness and making improvements based on feedback in line with international standards. 

• Consider the long-term sustainability of the center, including its funding, staffing, and capacity to continue providing services at the end of the LSI 2.0 implementation. 

• Finally, the evaluation will investigate how clients (especially women and girls) became aware of the one-stop center, solicit their perceptions, incorporate the opinions of service providers, and where appropriate survivors/clients on the functionality of the OSC. Key areas of focus will include the relevance, accessibility, utilization, and availability of services offered.

Duration and working schedule:

The assessment will be conducted over a period of three months. The process will commence with a preparatory phase (development of evaluation tools, workplan, methodology, etc), followed by phase two (training, data collection, and data analysis), and phase three (report writing, validation, and finalization). The final report will be submitted to UNFPA within 3 months of the start of the evaluation.

Place where services are to be delivered:

The evaluation will be conducted in seven counties including Montserrado, Bong, Nimba, Grand Cape mount, Lofa, and Grand Gedeh. The consultant will be required to work from their home country and travel to Liberia for the national consultations and field data collections.

Delivery dates and how work will be delivered (e.g. electronic, hard copy etc.):

The deliverables or milestones of the consultancy will include: 

● An inception report 

● Data Collection Tools (Proposed instruments used to gather data). 

● Draft Evaluation Report 

● Stakeholders' validation of the draft report 

● Final Report 

● Consultancy report

Monitoring and progress control, including reporting requirements, periodicity format and deadline:

Methodology The evaluation will use a mixed-methods approach, including:

 ● A desk review of documentation, such as existing literature, reports, policies, and procedures on setting up, implementing, and monitoring OSC.

 ● Analyze existing data on the utilization of the OSC in Liberia 

● Assess the type and quality of the services provided.

 ● Conduct key stakeholder interviews with: 

○ OSC and WGSS staff 

○ Government officials/Ministries linked to GBV case management 

○ Civil society organizations and women-led organizations 

○ Patients or survivors currently in OSCs including persons with disabilities and LGBTQI+

 ○ Previous survivors

 ● Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with women groups, adolescent girls /youth clubs

Supervisory arrangements:
The consultant will be supervised by the Data and Population Program Specialist with support from the M&E Analyst, and Program Specialist for GBV and harmful Practices.

Expected travel:

The consultant will be required to work from their home country and travel to Liberia upon final arrangements.

Required expertise, qualifications and competencies, including language requirements:

Inputs / services to be provided by UNFPA or implementing partner (e.g support services, office space, equipment), if applicable:

Travel ticket and in-country travel for the consultant will be covered by the hiring office

Other relevant information or special conditions, if any:

Data Confidentiality:

The assessment will ensure anonymity and confidentiality of all participants throughout the data collection and analysis process. Informed consent will be obtained before any interview is conducted.
 

UNFPA Work Environment:

UNFPA provides a work environment that reflects the values of gender equality, diversity, integrity and healthy work-life balance. We are committed to ensuring gender parity in the organization and therefore encourage women to apply. Individuals from the LGBTQIA+ community, minority ethnic groups, indigenous populations, persons with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups are highly encouraged to apply. Reasonable accommodation may be provided to applicants with disabilities upon request, to support their participation in the recruitment process. UNFPA promotes equal opportunities in terms of appointment, training, compensation and selection for all regardless of personal characteristics and dimensions of diversity. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is at the heart of UNFPA's workforce - click here to learn more.

Disclaimer:

Selection and appointment may be subject to background and reference checks, medical clearance,  and other administrative requirements. 

UNFPA does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process .