Requisition ID: req29169

Job Title: Early Childhood Development & Climate Change Consultant

Sector: Education

Employment Category: Consultant

Employment Type: Full-Time

Compensation: USD 0.00 - 0.00 Salary

Location: IRC Global

Job Description

Background of the project

The Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) is a global network of over 18,000 individual members, affiliated with more than 4,000 organizations from 190 countries with representatives from UN agencies, International and National NGOs, donors, governments, universities, schools, and affected populations working together to ensure all persons the right to quality education in emergencies (EiE) and post-crisis recovery. As INEE is a network hosted by its membership, the IRC hosts the INEE Secretariat.

The INEE Early Childhood Development (ECD) Task Team aims to improve outcomes for young children in humanitarian and fragile settings by strengthening ECD programs, practices, and policies for children and families affected by crises.

Children deserve every opportunity to reach their full potential, but climate change crises risk their wellbeing and development. That is why it is critical to safeguard early childhood care and education and to increase young children's knowledge, skills, and capacity to adapt or mitigate climate change. To accomplish this, it is urgent to produce accurate information that empowers young children to become climate-conscious citizens.

Scope of Work:

INEE is seeking a consultant to produce a policy brief that contributes to raising awareness about the importance of climate change education and the implications for early learning and early childhood care and education in emergencies.

The consultant will identify and present practical strategies/interventions championing the importance of responding to climate change through creating and experimenting alongside young children and their caregivers, especially with vulnerable populations affected by emergencies and humanitarian settings; this would make a case for the importance of early childhood care and education in providing a path to more profound societal changes needed to fight the climate change crisis.

This consultancy will be comprised of four key areas of work:

• Conducting a literature review, and mapping relevant strategies/initiatives from different emergency and humanitarian settings that seek to educate young children and their families about climate change, including but not limited to: early childhood educators' in-service training programmes; situated and experimental pedagogies; and skills to foster in young children.

• Identify and interview key informants involved in implementing strategies/initiatives identified.

• Providing a succinct overview of current approaches, critiques, and good practices related to climate change early education in emergency and humanitarian settings, based on the desk review and consultations previously mentioned.

• Developing a brief that highlights key findings and presents clear recommendations on the potential for climate change education for young children and their caregivers based on evidence-informed strategies.

In addition, the consultant is expected to:

• Draft a work plan and outline for the brief and finalize based on feedback.

• Maintain regular communications on progress with the INEE Secretariat.

• Manage time effectively

• Be proactive in identifying and approaching key informants for interviews.

Deliverables:

• Work plan and the timeline for deliverables.

• Brief outline proposal for discussion.

• Literature review matrix and a folder containing consulted resources.

• List of potential interviewees and selection criteria.

• Interview guide.

• Draft document and final brief version (approximately 20 pages).

Payment Rate and Schedule:

The consultancy will run from August 15 to September 30, 2022 (approximately 20 working days). Payment rate to be discussed with candidates.

Requirements:

The role requires awareness and sensitivity to different contexts. It requires using your position to support others to connect and influence. You will be great at building relationships with empathy and credibility, as well as:

• A minimum of 7 years of experience working in early childhood development (ECD) in emergencies or related fields, including a minimum of 4 years of experience working on climate change related topics.

• Proven expertise in trends, policies, and challenges related to climate change crisis and early childhood development.

• Excellent writing skills, with the ability to synthesize complex ideas into user-friendly formats; experience of writing advocacy or policy papers.

• Excellent organizational skills, flexible work attitude, ability to work independently, and track and follow up on various tasks.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to successfully manage consultation and feedback processes and interact with a variety of people.

• Fluent verbal and written English, with the ability to work in other INEE core languages highly desirable, particularly Spanish (Arabic, French, or Portuguese).

Application process: Please submit your CV, a letter of interest, a writing sample, and a proposed methodology via email to earlychildhood@inee.org with the subject line “INEE Consultancy - Climate Change & Early Childhood Development Consultant” no later than August 12th, 2022.