Provincial Consultant AAP and Community Engagement

The Provincial Consultant – Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) will provide technical assistance to UNICEF and the Government of Balochistan to institutionalize Community Engagement (CE) and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) within the Child Friendly Community Initiative (CFCI) in Mastung and Killa Abdullah districts. The consultant will work closely with UNICEF programme sections, government counterparts, implementing partners, district administrations, and community structures to strengthen participatory planning, accountability systems, community feedback mechanisms, and evidence-based programme implementation.

The consultant will undertake the following key responsibilities:

1. Baseline Assessment and Community Profiling

• Develop the methodology, assessment tools, data collection protocols, and quality assurance mechanisms for the AAP baseline assessment.
• Conduct baseline assessments in all 20 CFCI villages (10 in Mastung and 10 in Killa Abdullah) to assess community participation, social accountability, inclusion, existing feedback systems, and grievance redress mechanisms.
• Identify barriers affecting participation of women, adolescents, persons with disabilities, and other marginalized groups.
• Prepare district-level and village-level baseline reports with findings, gap analysis, and practical recommendations to strengthen AAP systems throughout the CFCI implementation cycle.

2. Community Engagement and Participation

• Support implementation and strengthening of Community Ownership and Engagement Systems (COES) in CFCI villages.
• Facilitate inclusive community consultations and ensure meaningful participation of women, children, adolescents, persons with disabilities, and marginalized populations in programme planning and implementation.
• Support integration of community priorities into Village Development Plans (VDPs) and other local planning processes.
• Strengthen community-led accountability approaches, including community scorecards, participatory monitoring, and social accountability mechanisms.
• Support establishment and strengthening of Village Development Committees (VDCs), youth forums, women's groups, and sectoral committees to promote community ownership and sustainability.

3. Feedback and Grievance Redress Mechanisms (FGRM)

• Design, establish, and operationalize accessible, safe, and inclusive community feedback and grievance redress mechanisms across all CFCI villages.
• Develop standardized tools, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), referral pathways, reporting formats, and data management systems for feedback handling.
• Ensure community feedback is systematically collected, documented, analyzed, referred, responded to, and closed, with timely communication back to communities.
• Support implementation of community dialogues, Open Kachehris, suggestion boxes, community scorecards, and other appropriate feedback channels.
• Ensure confidentiality, safeguarding, and accessibility of feedback mechanisms, particularly for women, adolescents, persons with disabilities, and vulnerable groups.

4. Cross-sectoral Coordination and Programme Integration

• Serve as the focal technical resource on AAP and Community Engagement for all UNICEF programme sections implementing CFCI, including Health, Nutrition, Education, WASH, Child Protection, SBC, and PMDA.
• Promote geographic convergence and integrated service delivery across sectors at village level.
• Facilitate joint planning, coordination meetings, field reviews, and problem-solving sessions among UNICEF, government departments, implementing partners, and community structures.
• Ensure community priorities and feedback inform sectoral planning, implementation, monitoring, and adaptive programme management.

5. Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening

• Develop training materials, guidance notes, and practical tools on Community Engagement and Accountability to Affected Populations.
• Conduct orientation sessions, workshops, and on-the-job coaching for UNICEF staff, government counterparts, implementing partners, district authorities, and community structures.
• Strengthen capacities of Village Development Committees (VDCs), youth groups, women's groups, and sectoral committees to manage community engagement and feedback mechanisms.
• Facilitate cross-learning and experience sharing among districts and programme teams to promote institutional learning and sustainability.

6. Monitoring, Data Management and Reporting

• Establish and maintain systems for tracking community participation, feedback, complaints, referrals, actions taken, and case resolution.
• Analyze quantitative and qualitative community feedback data to identify trends, implementation challenges, emerging risks, and opportunities for programme improvement.
• Develop periodic dashboards, scorecards, analytical reports, and presentations to support evidence-based decision-making by UNICEF and government counterparts.
• Support integration of AAP indicators into CFCI monitoring, reporting, and performance review processes.

7. Documentation, Knowledge Management and Learning

• Document lessons learned, case studies, good practices, success stories, and innovations related to Community Engagement and AAP.
• Support preparation of knowledge products, technical briefs, presentations, and donor reporting materials.
• Contribute to end-of-project assessments and documentation of evidence on community participation, accountability, and programme outcomes to inform future scale-up of the CFCI model.

8. Workshops, Field Missions and Travel

• Plan, facilitate, and document stakeholder consultations, community dialogues, training sessions, coordination meetings, review workshops, and learning events required under this assignment.
• The consultant will undertake regular field missions to Mastung, Killa Abdullah, and other locations within Balochistan as required for implementation, monitoring, capacity building, coordination, and supervision.
• All travel shall be undertaken in accordance with UNICEF travel policies and the approved workplan. Travel costs and the time required for field missions should be reflected in the financial proposal.

Required Qualification

• Advanced university degree in Social Sciences, Development Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Public Health, Communication, Public Policy, or a related field.

Required Experience

• At least minimum of five years of progressively responsible professional experience in Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP), Community Engagement, Social Accountability, Social and Behaviour Change (SBC), Governance or related areas.
• Demonstrated experience in conducting baseline/endline surveys and qualitative assessments.
• Proven experience in establishing or strengthening community feedback, complaints and grievance-redress mechanisms, including referral pathways, feedback-loop closure and confidential reporting channels.
• Experience working with Government departments, development partners and community organizations.

Required Skills and Competencies

• Strong analytical, facilitation and report-writing skills.
• Excellent communication skills in English and Urdu. Knowledge of Pashto and/or Balochi is desirable.
• Strong interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to work effectively in multicultural, cross-sectoral and field-based environments.

Travel Requirements

• Willingness and ability to travel frequently to project sites and remote communities.
• Regular travel between Quetta, Mastung, and Killa Abdullah throughout the consultancy period.
• Frequent visits to all 20 CFCI villages (10 in each district) for implementation, monitoring, community consultations, and capacity-building activities.
• Additional travel within Balochistan may be required, subject to programme needs.

Duty Stations

• Mastung District, Balochistan
• Killa Abdullah District, Balochistan

Disclaimer:

• MicroMerger is an equal-opportunity and female-friendly employer. Qualified women are strongly encouraged to apply.
• Selection will be based on merit, qualifications, experience, and job requirements, without discrimination.
• Only eligible and shortlisted candidates will be contacted for tests or interviews.
• Incomplete, inaccurate, or late applications may not be considered.
• Any attempt to influence the recruitment process, including bribery, favouritism, pressure, or personal references, will result in immediate disqualification.
• MicroMerger has zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, corruption, fraud, discrimination, and workplace misconduct.
• Positions may be offered on a contract basis and extended according to performance, project needs, and funding availability.
• MicroMerger reserves the right to change the number of positions, close the vacancy early, reject applications, or cancel the recruitment process at any stage.
• By applying, candidates consent to the use of their application information in MicroMerger’s internal recruitment and applicant tracking system.