National Individual Consultant to Develop a Costed National Hygiene Roadmap and Review of the National Hygiene Strategy for South Africa, Pretoria, 3 months (Remote)

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential. 

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone. 

And we never give up. 

For every child, health. 

Health | UNICEF South Africa - committed to ensuring that every child survives and thrives. Making basic hygiene services accessible to all people in South Africa is a top priority for the government and development partners.  Access to safe hygiene services remains a fundamental component of public health, critical to achieving universal health coverage, disease prevention, and social development. Globally, poor hygiene practices and lack of adequate services contribute significantly to the burden of preventable diseases such as diarrhoea, respiratory infections, and neglected tropical diseases particularly among children under five. In South Africa, while efforts to improve water and sanitation infrastructure have progressed, hygiene promotion has often lagged in both investment and implementation. This has led to persistent gaps in hygiene access and behavioural uptake, particularly in rural areas, informal settlements, and marginalized communities. The COVID-19 pandemic served as a wake-up call, underscoring the critical role of hand hygiene in infection prevention and control (IPC). Yet, despite increased public awareness, many communities and institutions still lack sustainable hygiene infrastructure and behaviour change programmes.   The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) estimates that only 66% of South Africans have access to basic hygiene services. The 2016 South African Demographic and Health Survey (SADHS) found diarrhoea to be the one of the main causes of child mortality for children under the age of 5 years. These statistics highlight the urgent need for an integrated, adequately resourced national hygiene response.   Ensuring universal access to hygiene requires a multi-faceted, society-wide approach. This includes urgent improvements in access to sustainable hand hygiene services, such as functional handwashing facilities, consistent water supply, and the availability of soap and/or alcohol-based hand rubs. Behavior change interventions must address the full spectrum of determinants influencing hand hygiene practices. Critical enabling components including policy, coordination, regulation, human resources, and financing also need to be strengthened to support both service delivery and sustained behavior change.   UNICEF and the National Department of Health (NDoH), in collaboration with partners such as the Department of Basic Education, the Department of Water and Sanitation, the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, WaterAid, and the South African Medical Research Council, aim to review and update the existing hygiene strategy, develop a realistic, costed, and multisectoral roadmap, strengthen coordination and integration of hygiene in key national systems, promote inclusive hygiene access and practices in diverse settings including health care facilities, schools, public institutions, and communities.   This work is aligned with South Africa’s commitments under SDG 6.2: Achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all, SDG 3.3 and 3.9: Reduce illness from water- and hygiene-related diseases, WHO/UNICEF Hand Hygiene for All Initiative, National Development Plan and Integrated Planning Frameworks. This roadmap will provide a strategic framework to guide national action, align resources, and ensure hygiene is positioned as a driver of improved health outcomes and socio-economic development. It will integrate global and national commitments, enhance multi-sectoral coordination, and build institutional capacity to monitor and scale hygiene interventions. The process is grounded in lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and recent outbreaks that reinforced the central role of hygiene in resilient health systems.  

How can you make a difference? 

The main purpose of this consultancy is to support the National Department of Health in developing a comprehensive, costed National Hygiene Roadmap and reviewing the current hygiene strategy to strengthen hygiene policy, coordination, financing, and service delivery systems in South Africa. This roadmap will strengthen hygiene service delivery across diverse settings, enhance systems for coordination and monitoring, and provide financial, and policy guidance aligned with national and global targets. This costed roadmap will provide specific guidance for implementation of the hardware and software components of hygiene in households, communities and open spaces, institutions, schools and health care facilities as well as the required financial allocations by the Government and other WASH sector partners.

This process aims to improve hygiene access and behaviors in households, communities and open spaces, institutions, schools and health care facilities through strategic planning, systems strengthening, stakeholder engagement, and financial analysis. The roadmap will serve as a guiding framework to Integrate hygiene into national development priorities and health systems strengthening efforts. Align South Africa's commitments with global frameworks, such as SDG 6.2, SDG 3.3/3.9, and the WHO/UNICEF Hand Hygiene for All Initiative. Enable coordinated, sustainable, and inclusive hygiene interventions that prioritize equity, resilience, and cross-sector collaboration.

The consultant will contribute to the creation of an enabling environment by developing the strategy and roadmap through participatory consultations, evidence-based analysis, and practical recommendations for implementation, coordination, financing, and monitoring.

Activities and Tasks:

The assignment will directly contribute to strengthening national hygiene policy, planning, and service delivery frameworks through evidence-based and consultative processes. The developed costed roadmap needs to advocate on the direction of the prioritization of delivery of hygiene services in all places such as institutions, public places, rural, urban and informal settlements with provision of
inclusive, adequate and affordable hygiene infrastructure, its management and maintenance, targeting hygiene behaviour change towards socio-economic development.

The strategy should focus and align to promoting, transforming and sustaining hygiene behaviour in key settings which includes household and community settings, health care facilities, schools, day care centres, orphanages, workplaces, commercial buildings, prisons and jails, markets and food establishments. Other key settings are transport hubs, places of worship, public spaces, institutional settings responsible for policy making and refugees, under emergencies, migrants and other camp-like settings with the aim to cater for people with disabilities, as benchmarked from other strategy documents. The key hygiene behaviours that will be targeted at are aligned with handwashing with soap, food hygiene, safe drinking water management, safe faecal management and disposal, menstrual hygiene, and waste management.

Work relationships:

The consultant will work under the overall supervision of the WASH Officer and will collaborate closely with the Nutrition Manager at UNICEF South Africa and work closely with designated officials from the National Department of Health particularly the Environmental Health Directorate as well as focal points from the Department of Basic Education (for schools), and the Department of Water and Sanitation (for WASH systems).

Deliverables:

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… 

The following skills are required to undertake the work:

Languages needed:

Computer skills:

Please indicate your ability and availability; and attach a technical proposal and financial proposal in ZAR to undertake the terms of reference above (including admin cost if applicable). Proposals submitted without a detailed financial proposal aligned to the assignment will not be considered.
UNICEF does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Should you receive a solicitation for the payment of a fee, please disregard it. Furthermore, please note that emblems, logos, names and addresses are easily copied and reproduced. Therefore, you are advised to apply particular care when submitting personal information on the web.

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic background, and persons with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization. To create a more inclusive workplace, UNICEF offers paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements. Click here to learn more about flexible work arrangements, well-being, and benefits.

According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. In its Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy 2022-2030, UNICEF has committed to increase the number of employees with disabilities by 2030. At UNICEF, we provide reasonable accommodation for work-related support requirements of candidates and employees with disabilities. Also, UNICEF has launched a Global Accessibility Helpdesk to strengthen physical and digital accessibility. If you are an applicant with a disability who needs digital accessibility support in completing the online application, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

Remarks:  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.