BACKGROUND/CONTEXT
Fighting child poverty and investing in children’s well-being has featured on the agenda of the European Union (EU) for many years. In the last decade, an emphasis has been on the quality of education and care services and their impact on the society in the long run. This includes an equitable distribution of welfare, as well as a way to promote the social inclusion of children in need, particularly children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In February 2013, the European Commission published the recommendation on Investing in children: Breaking the cycle of disadvantage, which was endorsed by the EU Council in July 2013. This recommendation has provided a clear and comprehensive policy framework for tackling child poverty and promoting child well-being. More recently, the adoption of a European Pillar of Social Rights (2017) and of the Action Plan for its implementation (2021), as well as of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child (2021) have reinforced the importance of promoting children’s rights. It is also important to note that all Member States have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which should thus guide EU- as well as national and (sub-) national policies and actions that have an impact on the rights of the child. Despite this growing political commitment to promoting children’s rights and well-being as well as a stronger legal framework and a clearer policy guidance, progress has been slow and high levels of child poverty or social exclusion persist in many EU countries, for some groups of children
Principle 11 of the European Pillar of Social Rights:
Children have the right to affordable early childhood education and care of good quality. Children have the right to protection from poverty. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds have the right to specific measures to enhance equal opportunities. In 2019, in the Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission, President Ursula von der Leyen announced the creation of a European Child Guarantee with a view to ensuring that every child in Europe at risk of poverty or social exclusion has access to the most basic of rights like healthcare and education. The objective of the Council recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee, which was adopted in June 2021, is to prevent and combat social exclusion by guaranteeing the access of children in need to a set of key services. The Council recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee addresses specific aspects of child poverty and social exclusion. It recommends to the Member States to provide for every child at risk of poverty or social exclusion free and effective access to:
- early childhood education and care;
- education and school-based activities;
- healthy meal every school day, and
- healthcare.
Effective access – meaning a situation in which services are readily available, affordable, accessible, of good quality, provided in a timely manner, and where the potential users are aware of their existence, as well as of entitlements to use them – to adequate housing and healthy nutrition is also to be guaranteed. The European Child Guarantee recommendation foresees that within 9 months after its adoption (i.e. until 15 March 2022) Member States will develop action plans, which should cover the period until 2030 and:
- identify specific groups of children who should benefit from the guarantee;
- set targets to be achieved;
- outline corresponding measures;
- indicate the sources of necessary funding; and
- outline monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
While the Member States will report to the Commission every 2 years on the progress in the implementation of the national plans, the Commission will review the implementation of the Recommendation after 5 years and report to the Council.
THE OBJECT OF THE EVALUATION
The object of evaluation is the preparatory action for a Child Guarantee (Phase III), outlined in the Action Proposal in Annex 1: “Testing the Child Guarantee with the Aim of Ending Child Poverty and Social Exclusion for all Children in Europe”. The intention of Phase III is to build a Child Guarantee Programme framework in support of the operationalisation of the Child Guarantee at all levels. This framework is being developed and verified in Phase III, under concrete and controlled circumstances. Throughout the implementation of the early stage of this preparatory stage, Phase III, UNICEF refined the theory of change for its activities. Theory of Change of preparatory Stage, Phase III is summarized below
PURPOSE OF THE EVALUATION
This evaluation purpose is to provide information to decision makers regarding the implementation of the Preparatory Stage of the Child Guarantee, as part of the agreement between UNICEF with the European Commission. As the European Child Guarantee is in process of establishing mechanisms at different levels for planning, implementation and monitoring, the evaluation process intends to inform the ongoing specific political processes that can lead to decisions concerning actions to be taken, monitoring of progress and results, and implementation. It is therefore expected that the evaluation adopts a developmental character, allowing to feed into key decision-making moments. In addition to UNICEF, primary audience and users of evaluation findings, conclusions, and recommendations include European Commission, national governments, civil society organizations, academics, and other practitioners and decision makers in the area of child poverty and social exclusion of children in the European Context, and other contexts dealing with similar child-related matters. The evaluation will add transparency to the implementation of Phase III. It shall be managed by the independent Evaluation Section at UNICEF ECARO and conducted by an external institution to ensure that evaluation principles are safeguarded. An Evaluation Reference Group will be established to ensure technical soundness as well as guide the process in the integration of the findings, conclusions, and recommendations in the implementation of the preparatory stage of the Child Guarantee.
OBJECTIVE OF THE EVALUATION
The overall objective of the evaluation is to assess the progress of the preparatory stage, Phase III of the Child Guarantee in the evidence generation, institutional aspects, and operational aspects of implementing services on the ground. Specifically, the evaluation team will examine the period between July 2020 – June 2022:
- The progress made by the Phase III of the preparatory stage, in terms of paving the pathway towards the implementation of the Child Guarantee in Europe; and
- Factors and/or group of factors facilitating or hindering the Child Guarantee preparation at the regional level and in countries participating in this Phase.
The evaluation will build on routine monitoring data collected throughout Phase III in all countries based on the agreed results framework and the findings of the Operational Research, which includes two rounds of data collection in the four implementation countries. The data and information gathered through routine monitoring and the operational research are answering questions pertaining to whether:
- all activities (e.g., systematic review and meta-analysis, deep dive analyses) have been implemented, as planned and the expected immediate outputs (e.g., synthesis of lessons learned) achieved (for more on activities and outputs, see the summary of the Theory of change for Phase III above),
- the selected services and intervention models meet specific criteria (e.g., innovation, evidence-based and -informed, sustainability, needs-based, gender-sensitive), and
- the results that are measurable in the given timeframe can be constructively used in national action planning.
UNICEF Turkey Country Office invites your company to submit an offer for the attached Request for Proposal for Services. The Proposals must be received at the below e-mail address by latest 4 October 2021, Monday, at or before 10:00hrs (Ankara, Turkey time). Proposals received after the stipulated date and time will be invalidated. Due to the nature of this RFP, there will be no public opening of proposals.
Email Address: [email protected]
An online pre-bid meeting will be held on 23 September 2021, Thursday at 13:00 pm Geneva time (14:00 pm Ankara, Turkey Time) via Teams meeting. Please confirm your participation to the pre-bid meeting via e-mail to: [email protected]
Meeting link: UNICEF Teams Meeting: (https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OTg2M2I3NjUtY2UwYy00OTdhLThhYWEtODUzMzllMTU5ZWZj%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2277410195-14e1-4fb8-904b-ab1892023667%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%221cc9d1ee-cfc0-4c26-b049-919d56c50d99%22%7d)
- Full proposals must be submitted in ENGLISHand must be received not later than the closure date and time as duly signed, stamped and dated.
- Due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, exceptionally for the subject tender, electronic submission of the proposals by email will be accepted.
- Accordingly, bidders are requested to send electronic version of their proposals by email as duly signed & stamped pdf documents to ([email protected]) in two (2) separate emails with the tender reference in their email subjects. Proposals should not be uploaded to any type of cloud/sharing platforms. The submission documents should be sent as email attachments.
Email Subject:
Confidential: RFP-ECA-2021-14 (LRPS-2021-9170025)
– one email / emails for technical proposals (each should have a number such as 1/4, 2/4, etc.)
(Note: page 3 of the tender document should be filled in and signed version should be submitted together with the technical proposal)
– one email for financial proposals (password protected)
Financial proposals shall be secured by a password and sent in a separate email, and the password will only be asked when an offer is evaluated technically acceptable and therefore eligible for opening of the financial proposals. Please do not put the passwords in the email. The passwords for the financial proposals will be requested only from the technically qualified bidders when the technical evaluation is finalized.
*** Please note that this tender is open both for national and international institutional consultancy companies which are legally registered.
- All requests for formal clarification or queries on this RFP must be submitted in writing to Supply Unit via email (till 29 September 2021, 13:00hrs Turkey time at the latest) to: [email protected]
- To help us track our procurement effort, please indicate in your email where (vacanciesinturkey.com) you saw this tender/procurement notice.
Please make sure that the e-mail mentions the RFP reference number. Only written inquiries will be entertained. Please be informed that if the question is of common interest, the answer will be shared with all potential RFP bidders.
Yours Sincerely,
UNICEF TURKEY COUNTRY OFFICE | SUPPLY & PROCUREMENT UNIT