Purpose of consultancy:
The UNFPA Country Office in Lao PDR is seeking to hire a census communication consultant to provide technical support to the Lao Statistics Bureau (LSB) in the rollout of the 2025 population and housing census communication strategy/plan including the technical and programmatic support to:
- Implement the Census Communication Strategy to create engagement and visibility;
- Contribute to the internal and external branding of the census;
- Contribute to creation and design on the census materials;
- Organize census media and advertising activities as needed;
- Improve partnerships for the census;
- Plan and implement advocacy and resource mobilization efforts/events to close the funding gap of the census;
- UNFPA Communication/Partnership Unit to improve and scale up communication initiatives in various areas as needed;
The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the UNFPA Policy and Census Coordinator, and collaborate closely with UNFPA Communication and Partnership Team, UNFPA Population and Development Team, Lao Statistics Bureau and other external consultants involved in the preparation of the census, ensuring consistency between the census instruments including the census communication strategy/plan and related activities.
The work will be conducted in accordance with the UNFPAโs policies and procedures, as the hiring agency, and in close collaboration with the Lao Statistics Bureau (LSB).
How you can make a difference:
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. UNFPAโs strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the ICPD and SDGs in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to โbuild forward betterโ, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on womenโs and girlsโ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.
In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.
Background:
The Lao Statistics Bureau is in the final year of preparation for the 5th Population and Housing Census (PHC) scheduled in 2025. The 5th Population and Housing Census of Lao PDR is the first digital census in the history of census taking in Laos using CAPI applications (CSPro software) for data collection and satellite imagery for GIS mapping.
The census project document was finalized, and the draft of the census questionnaire and CAPI applications was developed in 2023, and tested several times during the past few months. In line with the census timeline, LSB conducted the pilot census in May-June 2024. All the census instruments and procedures including the draft census communication plan/activities have to be ready and tested during the pilot census, and have to be finalized after the pilot and be ready for the actual census in 2025.
The census can only be accomplished successfully if all groups in society give their support. The interaction between the LSB, the stakeholders and the wider public is important to gauge the opinion of society on the census. The UN Principles and Recommendations discern three distinct target groups for the publicity and communication campaign:
1. Users of census data
2. Persons and institutions participating in the census operations.
3. General Public
In the case of the Lao PDR, the international donor community can be added as a fourth group. A different communication approach and tools have to be adopted for each of these groups. The general public will have to be aware and informed to cooperate with the census and provide accurate information. This will need an extensive publicity and awareness raising campaign in which the purpose of the census is explained. It is essential that the publicity campaign is nationwide and reaches all groups in the lowest administrative areas including the villages, using the capacity of Districts and Villages Offices for awareness raising, educating, encouraging and acknowledging the citizensโ collaboration with the census enumerators.
Given the importance of this process and taking into account limited technical capacities in LSB, specially in the implementation and finalization of the communication plan, there is an urgent need for external technical expertise to assist the entire process and ensure timely and quality rollout of this important plan with a focus on preparation for the pilot census.
The UNFPA CO, therefore, plans to recruit an international consultant to provide technical support to LSB in development of the census communication and publicity tools in line with the existing plan to ensure the relevance to the context and target audiences, and eventually timely and effective preparation for the census in 2025.
Scope of work:
In line with the Project Document of 5th PHC, and the Census Communication Strategy/Plan, the consultant will provide overall technical support and guidance to LSB for further preparation of the census communication tools, implementation of communication activities. In collaboration with UNFPA technical staff and LSB the consultant will provide technical guidance and support to:
- Develop comprehensive communication tools, activities, materials and events in line with the communication plan to ensure various target groups are informed about the census.
- Improve effective communication and partnership approaches to target stakeholders such as policymakers, government officials, students, journalists, youth, women, the private sectors, NGOs, and development partners to engage them in the census activities.
- Strategy, vision, and implementation of activities aiming to promote engagement, understanding, and utilization of population-related data, leveraging data visualization, graphic design, multimedia, and public speaking skills to enhance public outreach on population dynamics and the demographic dividend.
- Collaborate closely with country office staff, the UN system, government entities, development partners, and civil society organizations to ensure visibility and publicity campaigns for the Population and Housing Census.
- Collaborate and provide technical guidance to the UNFPA Communication Unit to scale up and improve the communication and partnership initiatives as needed.
The census Communication Activities will be implemented based on the Census Communication Plan and should include the following elements: media products, graphic products, social media promotion and public events i.e. gamification for youth, and online/offline platforms for data dissemination and publicity.
To evaluate the impact of the communication activities, the plan should also include the monitoring and evaluation methodology mentioning the key performance indicators, including indicators for key targeted audiences and communication channels. In addition, each component ofplan should have an estimated budget, including detailed calculations for each media product and activity based on the census overall budgeting tool.