International Consultancy - Development and Awards Management Consultant-ESARO

How you can make a difference:

UNFPA is the lead United Nations agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is intended, every childbirth is safe, and every young person's potential is fulfilled. The UNFPA Strategic Plan for 2026-2029 articulates the organization’s response to a complex global environment, providing a roadmap for resilience and renewal. It is designed to accelerate the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. This mandate is pursued through a focus on four interconnected outcomes: ending the unmet need for family planning; ending preventable maternal deaths; ending gender-based violence, harmful practices and HIV; and adapting to demographic change through evidence and rights-based policies.

In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.

UNFPA is seeking candidates who transform, inspire, and deliver high-impact and sustained results and ensure effective external relations, communications, and partnership-building and resource mobilization in a rapidly changing development and funding landscape. We need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them, and who commit to delivering excellence in programme results.

Background and Purpose of consultancy:

The Resource Mobilization and Partnerships Unit at UNFPA ESARO is seeking to strengthen staff capacity in narrative and financial proposal development, as well as post-award management. Training materials/Toolkit for this initiative will be piloted at the Regional Learning Retreat in November 2026, organized in collaboration with the UNFPA ESARO Communications Team. The retreat will convene Resource Mobilization and Communications focal points, including select International Operations Managers from the 23 Country Offices within the East and Southern Africa region.

The Proposal Development and Post Award Management training package is aimed at responding to the increasing need of Country Offices to strengthen their capacity in proposal development, programming design, budgeting, and award management in an increasingly constrained development financing environment. The learning programme will institutionalize a standardized process for these core areas across the 23 Country Offices, while strengthening technical writing, budget development, proposal management, and award management skills.

UNFPA seeks to engage an experienced individual consultant to:

• Develop a three-day training module on proposal writing (narrative and financial) and post-award management.
• Develop practical training materials, including checklists and learning exercises.
• Facilitate a three-day in-person regional training workshop; and
• Produce a final training package that incorporates participant feedback from the 2026 regional retreat.

Scope of work:

The consultant will work under the guidance of the Resource Mobilisation and Partnerships team to produce a proposal development and post-award management training package as well as lead the in-person training/pre-testing for UNFPA staff.

Key Responsibilities & Activities:

1. Curriculum Development & Material Preparation:

Design a practical, interactive training module covering the 7 core sessions outlined below:

• Topic 2: Editorial Discipline and the "Short Pitch" (under 3-page executive pitches, Corporate Shared Value models, integrating visual evidence).
• Topic 3: Aligning Intervention Logic and Theories of Change (narrative pathways, risk mitigation, logical consistency).
• opic 4: Drafting Robust Logframes and Measurable Indicators (SMART output indicators, Means of Verification, baseline tracking).
• Topic 5: Activity-Based Budgeting, including Alignment and Costing Realities (cost justifications, direct and indirect costs, cost-effective budgeting, value for money, pre-budgeted visibility plans).
• Topic 6: Narrative Sign-Off Governance Workflows and Submission Governance (6-step proposal management workflow, internal review and quality assurance).
• Topic 7: Post-award management: program Implementation, M&E and close-out.

2. Prepare and design in-person training for the seven topics of the module using appropriate methodologies for adult learning.

❖ Develop presentations and training materials to pretest the module at the 2026 regional training retreat.

❖ Develop pre- and post-training evaluation tools to assess participant capacity gains

❖ In-Person Training Workshop Facilitation:

• Deliver and facilitate a 3-day interactive regional workshop in South Africa in November 2026 for resource mobilisation and communication focal points.
• Conduct and lead hands-on practical writing labs, peer-review exercises, logframe simulations, and financial alignment exercises.

❖ Post-Training Deliverables:

• Five-page report capturing key training outcomes, participant feedback, lessons learned, key capacity gaps identified, and practical recommendations for strengthening proposal development and quality assurance across the region.
• Proposal Development Toolkit comprising practical, editable tools for use by the 23 Country Offices, including a proposal development quality checklist and standardized proposal development templates and workflow. The toolkit should be designed for immediate post-training use.
• Consolidated and finalised standardized Proposal Writing and post-award management toolkit incorporating comments and lessons from the training.

The duration of the consultancy is 20 working days spread over three months (September – November 2026), starting from contract signature:

The following key activities will be carried and the actual days to be charged are shown.

• Inception Meeting with UNFPA Resource Mobilisation Team to determine the understanding of the assignment and sharing of relevant documents (1 day - September)
• Content Development: Module and Quality Control Toolkit(10 days - September- October)
• Addressing comments on the two drafts - 2 days (October)
• In-Person Facilitation: 4 days including travel and setup (November)
• Reporting on the training, incorporating comments from training and finalization: 3 days (November)

Duration and working schedule:

The duration of the Consultancy is for 20 days working days spread over three months, starting from the contract signature

Place where services are to be delivered:

Module development will be done remotely. The three-day training will be held in person in South Africa.

Delivery dates and how work will be delivered:

The consultant shall utilise the following implementation plan and the deliverables payment structure;

Deliverable Timeline Payment Percentage of the contract

1. Approved drafts of the Proposal Development and award management Module and quality control tool kit to used at the training Beginning of October 50%

2. In-person facilitation of the training workshop report Early November 20%

3 Finalised module incorporating comments from the training Mid November 30%

Monitoring and progress control, including reporting requirements, periodicity format and deadline:

The selected consultant will be required to provide regular updates via email to the Resource Mobilisation Unit to monitor adherence to tight deadlines.

Supervisory arrangements

The selected consultant will work under the supervision of the hiring manager, the Regional Resource Mobilisation and Partnerships Advisor.

Expected travel:

The consultant will be expected to travel to attend the in-person training. UNFPA will be responsible for the travel costs in accordance with applicable UNFPA travel policies.

**Required ex