Consultancy for Review of CRVS strategic Plan 2020-2024 , Maseru, Lesotho, ( 30 working days) at Lesotho
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Purpose of Activity/Assignment:
A well-functioning national civil registration system is the best data source for generating vital statistics and should be the foundation of a vital statistics system. Information submitted during registration of vital events provides essential data for national and regional planning for a variety of social service programmes, including family planning and mother and child health programmes, infectious and non-communicable disease control programmes, education, public housing and social security programmes, and infrastructure and development programmes.
Civil registration is defined as the continuous, permanent, compulsory, and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events pertaining to the population, as provided through decree or regulation in accordance with a country’s legal requirements.A vital event is the occurrence of a live birth, death, foetal death, marriage, divorce, annulment, judicial separation, adoption, legitimation, or recognition of parenthood.
Registering a child’s birth is a critical first step towards safeguarding lifelong protection and is the ‘first right’ to access other rights. In recognition of this, the right to birth registration features in numerous international human rights instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Articles 7 and 8 of the CRC guarantee every child the right to be registered at birth by the state within whose jurisdiction the child is born, the right to a name and a nationality, and the preservation of their identity without discrimination. In addition, these articles inform how birth registration should be administered and outline the rights that may require birth registration for their fulfilment, the rights to health and education being the most prominent.
With the growing requirement of a birth certificate being presented to access an increasingly wide range of services, such as enrolling in school or the national health insurance fund, applying for a passport or national identity card, access to university education, opening a bank account and even voting, the impact of not having a birth certificate is becoming more evident. In addition, birth registration is also an essential component of an efficient civil registration system that is required to yield vital statistics that are needed to accurately capture progress towards the achievement of national and international development goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SDGs include aspirations for social and economic development and, like the preceding Millennium Development Goals, are dependent on efficient civil registration systems for monitoring progress. For as many as 12 of the 17 SDGs, data for monitoring is needed from the civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system. The global concern regarding the need to have all births registered by 2030 is evident in targets 16.9.1 and 17.19.2 of the SDGs.
In July 2016, African Union Heads of State and Government declared decade 2017-2026 to be the decade for repositioning Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) in Africa’s continental, regional and national development agenda. Furthermore, the United Nations Legal Identity Agenda 2020-2030, was launched as a One United Nations approach to support member states in building holistic, country owned, sustainable CRVS and identity management systems. Its efforts focus on closing the global identity gap, with a benchmark goal of more than 300 million by 2025, and in turn, providing Member States with the vital statistics and demographic information needed for socioeconomic gains, better public administration, planning, and monitoring.
Purpose of assignment:
CRVS systems are complex and span a wide array of actors, agencies, and ministries. The systems contain many subsystems and processes (civil registration, vital statistics, identity management, etc.), and are open to wider political, social, and economic systems that provide the working context. This complexity makes it difficult for any individual stakeholder or actor to understand the systems from end to end. It also makes such systems challenging to improve without applying systems-science and systems-thinking disciplines.
The UNICEF Lesotho CO in collaboration with the Government of Lesotho is working on strengthening the linkages between civil registration, social protection, and the health sector in addition to specific process innovations that are dependent upon the country context.
The purpose of this assignment is to review the CRVS strategic Plan 2020-2024 and provide a comprehensive report summarizing the findings of the review process. The report outlines the achievements, challenges, and overall effectiveness of the strategic initiatives and recommendations for adjusting the strategic plan, if necessary, including revising objectives, reallocating resources, refining strategies, or introducing new initiatives based on the review findings.
The review will further provide information about progress achieved towards outcomes and strategic approaches used by the government and key stakeholders, and document strategic lessons learned from the design and implementation of the programme and based on findings, identify lessons learned and provide practical recommendations for the next strategy.
The assignment will also review the current CRVS business processes for registration of under five children, propose ways for improving birth registration at community councils and health facility and identify barriers for interoperability between CRVS and social protection systems.
The main objective of the assignment is to:
- Review of CRVS strategic Plan 2020-2024
- Review the business processes and associated digital systems and propose the requirements to fill in the gaps identified.
Methodology and technical approach
The proposed methodology for the assignment will include, but not be limited to the following:
- Review and report on the implementation of the CRVS Strategic Plan of 2020- 2024.
- Validation of the current (As-Is) and future state (To-Be) CRVS business processes.
- Work with key stakeholders to validate and update whenever necessary the current state (As-Is) CRVS business processes.
- Work with stakeholders to validate and update whenever necessary issues affecting the performance of business processes in the CRVS system and the root causes of these issues.
- Work with stakeholders to validate and update the proposed future state (To-Be) CRVS business processes.
- Define the future state CRVS digital system needed to support the proposed future state (To-Be) CRVS business processes.
- Assessment and Gap analysis
- Analyse the current digital CRVS systems to determine what changes and improvements that need to be instituted to ensure it is aligned with proposed (future state) business processes and its interoperability with existing e-Government systems.
- Assess the existing CRVS digital systems to establish the data currently available in terms of completeness and correctness.
Scope of work:
- This assignment is expected to start from 3rd March 2025 and a final report should be submitted within 2 months.
- The assignment requires a review and validation of the CRVS Strategic Plan 2020- 2024.
- The consultant will work alongside UNICEF, Ministry of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and Police
Management and supervision
Under the general supervision of the Chief of Section and day-to-day guidance of Child Protection Specialist, the consultant will under the guidance UNICEF, Ministry of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and Police with support from proposed stakeholders
- Produce an inception report based on review of documents provided and consultations with UNICEF and Ministry of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and Police
- Set out the global contexts and trends as related to innovations in CRVS, specifically as related to digitizing CRVS systems.
- Provide a technology landscape of the CRVS ecosystem and linkages (if any) with other national registries and systems (i.e., health and social protection)
- Define key terminology used in the CRVS space and identify specific terminology that is used inconsistently within or across countries.
- Conduct field work to comprehensively understand the CRVS system, including completing stakeholder mapping, defining the business process, and reviewing the technological system and tools, including product road map, technical requirements to maintain and support it, ability, and level of effort to integrate into national registries and systems, and recurrent costs.
- Complete the desk review of CRVS systems in Lesotho.
- Finalise the review based on feedback from the consultation.
- UNICEF will provide background and documents that are relevant to understand the context of this assignment.
- UNICEF will provide direction and technical inputs for this assessment, along with Ministry of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and Police which will be involved at all key stages of the process and will oversee, coordinate the assignment, and validated the processes.
- If Field work is required, it shall be arranged by UNICEF.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
- An advanced university degree (at least Master’s degree) in Social Science particularly Strategic Planning, Public Policy, Human Rights, Public Administration, or any related field.
- At least ten (10) years professional experience in Strategic Planning, Development and Change Management
- Evidence of at least ten (10) years’ experiences in guiding strategic planning processes and similar assignments carried out as required *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:
- Good understating of planning and funding cycles of the public sector and of development partners
- Good understanding of Child Protection sector, Sustainable Development Goals, especially those focused on socioeconomic upliftment of vulnerable groups.
- Excellent understanding, expertise and appreciation of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics systems
- Excellent writing skills in English.
- Strong understanding of the international, regional and Lesotho’s legislation and policies pertaining to child protection and children’s rights.
- Experience in effectively facilitating the collaborative work of a wide range of stakeholders, including government and development partners.
- Familiarity with UNICEF’s mandate and goals is an advantage.
- Have no criminal record in abuse of children
Deadline: 04 Mar 2025 South Africa Standard Time