Consultant to Document Successful programming approaching addressing harmful practices

Purpose of consultancy:

The consultant will analyze, synthesize, and document regional evidence on shifting social norms around child marriage and FGM. The expert will generate seven high-impact, strategic knowledge products and advocacy briefs to showcase UNFPA investments on addressing social norms.

The consultant will analyze, synthesize, and document regional evidence on shifting social norms around child marriage and FGM. The expert will generate seven high-impact, strategic knowledge products and advocacy briefs to showcase UNFPA investments on addressing social norms.

UNFPA’s Strategic Plan (2026–2029) aims to accelerate the implementation of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action through four transformative outcomes:

• Accelerated progress on meeting the unmet need for family planning.
• Accelerated progress on ending preventable maternal deaths.
• Accelerated progress on ending gender-based violence and harmful practices, including child marriage.
• Strengthening societal resilience by adapting to demographic change through evidence-based policies.

Outcome 3 of the Strategic Plan directly responds to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 5.3 to eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM) and female genital mutilation (FGM). Despite recorded global progress, East Asia and the Pacific remain home to 95 million women and girls married before the age of 18. The 2026–2029 Strategic Plan strongly emphasizes integrated programming that bridges humanitarian and development actions.

This integration ensures that support structurally reaches the most vulnerable populations navigating an era of global polycrisis.

To realize these outcomes, UNFPA has leveraged critical funding and programmatic streams, including the DFAT
- Funded Towards Universal SRHR in the Indo-Pacific programme (TUSIP) and the long-term UNFPA-UNICEF Global Joint Programme to End Child Marriage. As UNFPA transitions into this new strategic cycle, there is a vital need to systematically document evidence, strengthen programmatic approaches, and position UNFPA’s work on addressing social norm change in the Asia-Pacific region.

UNFPA Asia-Pacific Regional Office (APRO) therefore seeks an experienced expert to analyze, synthesize, and document successful approaches, strategic impacts, and lessons learned from UNFPA-supported interventions addressing CEFM and FGM.

The assignment will generate strategic knowledge products that support advocacy, resource mobilization, programming decisions, and future investments in ending harmful practices.

In line with this vision, UNFPA APRO seeks an International Consultant to analyze, synthesize, and document regional evidence on shifting social norms around child marriage and FGM. The consultant will generate seven high-impact, strategic knowledge products and advocacy briefs:

• Brief 1 (TUSIP Catalytic Impact):
  Map out funding pathways and identify where seed or catalytic funding unlocked larger state resources, institutional shifts, or policy changes addressing both CEFM and FGM.
• Brief 2 (Adaptive Management):
  Utilize case studies to show how programs modified operations during unexpected crises (e.g., climate disasters, economic shifts, political instability) without compromising core social norm transformation objectives.
• Brief 3 (Long-Term Investment Brief):
  Balance qualitative narrative shifts in community behavior with quantitative data showing long‑term drops in child marriage rates across targeted hot‑spots.
• Brief 4 ( Evidence-based approaches to end FGM in Indonesia):
  Document evidence based holistic approaches used by UNFPA and partners in Indonesia to…