Program Performance Report

The project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) through Award #720FDA20GR00349, has a total budget of $599,756 and operates from September 2020 to September 2022. During the first period of the project, which covers September 2020 to March 2021, efforts focused on clarifying the mandates, interests, and priorities of the three key stakeholders - UNICEF, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), and ICMC. The project deployed one child protection specialist, Joshua, to UNICEF's Libya program, which is run remotely from Tunis. Joshua has been coordinating UNICEF's Child Protection Sub-cluster, supporting increased information sharing between UN agencies, INGOs, and national NGOs in Libya, capacity building, and the coordination of more coherent responses to identified gaps in child protection. The project has made significant advances, including coordination for complementarity, capacity building, increasing access to information, and mainstreaming child protection across sectors. Joshua has also contributed to guidance on protection as related to evictions, in accord with international legal protection, national legal frameworks, and key protection principles. Additionally, he is working to identify a co-coordinator for the CP sub-cluster from among the national NGOs to foster deeper engagement and ensure continuity beyond the deployment. The project has also initiated two key processes to build capacity in protection: the Child Protection Minimum Standards training and the Case Management training. The Child Protection Minimum Standards training, supported by the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility, will offer a comprehensive curriculum on child protection standards in Arabic, targeting 30 case management staff globally. The Case Management training, planned in collaboration with the Case Management Task Force, will target 30 members of the sub-cluster, in addition to government social workers from the Ministry of Social Affairs. The project has achieved several key indicators, including the deployment of one child protection specialist, the training of 0 individuals in protection, and the completion of 0 positive appraisals of Terms of Reference (TORs). The project has also made progress in reducing the time between the request of deployment and the actual arrival of the deployee, with a current average of 95 days. ICMC is awaiting further information from UNICEF on two potential deployments, one to support UNICEF's work in Sudan and the other to support child protection for the Libya program, specifically focused on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The project will continue to work towards its objectives, including identifying, recruiting, and deploying qualified child protection experts to UNICEF field offices to increase global child protection capacity.