Overview
Social Protection Consultant, Brasilia, Brazil, 7 months (remote) — UNICEF
UNICEF and Brazil's Ministry of Social Development and Assistance, Family, and Fight against Hunger (MDS) collaborate to strengthen social protection for children and families. UNICEF has supported evidence generation on the financing of the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS) to inform public debate and improve resource allocation. The assignment aims to produce robust unit-cost benchmarks and spending profiles for SUAS using the new FNAS reporting, and to translate findings into practical budgeting and performance monitoring recommendations.
The work builds on a 2024 round study on the costs of Basic Social Protection, with more disaggregated, higher-quality data now available from FNAS for municipal, state, and federal levels. The primary purpose is to provide a consolidated, methodologically transparent, policy-relevant set of unit cost benchmarks and spending profiles for SUAS and to inform improvements in federal transfer criteria.
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Responsibilities and scope
* Estimate the costs of SUAS using the new FNAS financial reporting for fiscal year 2024, complemented by administrative sources, to produce unit-cost benchmarks, analyze spending patterns and financing arrangements, and inform improvements in federal transfer criteria.
* Construct indicators: unit-costs per funding block/service/equipment type by municipality/state and aggregated by region/size class.
* Analyze spending composition by cost item and financing source; produce execution-rate indicators for federal resources.
* Perform descriptive statistics and comparative profiling (region, municipal size, urban/rural); assess robustness and, if applicable, multivariate associations between cost levels and plausible drivers.
* Translate policy implications into criteria options for pactuation/federal transfers, showing pros/cons and distributional effects using 2024 data.
* Validate findings with counterparts (MDS/FNAS/UNICEF) and incorporate feedback to finalize.
Data and methodology
* Data sources: FNAS financial reporting (2024), Censo SUAS, Registro Mensal de Atendimento (RMA), CadSUAS; supplementary public datasets (e.g., IBGE population and municipal size classes) for stratification.
* Methodology: apply validation rules (completeness, subtotal-consistency, duplicates, negative values, implausible ratios); define and justify winsorization/outlier treatment; where applicable, design a stratified verification sample to cross-check entries and propose correction factors or exclusion criteria.
Deliverables
* Workplan and detailed timetable; data requirements; validation rules and feasibility analysis.
* Initial research report with exploratory results and data quality analysis; finalized dataset and proposal review.
* Intermediate research report on Federal Transfers, state and municipal spending, and proposed unit-cost parameters.
* Final research report and executive summary; presentation materials; annotated databases and codes; next steps.
Duration and qualifications
* Duration of contract: Seven (7) months.
* Minimum qualifications: Advanced degree in data science, economics, statistics, social sciences or related fields; at least five (5) years of experience in data analysis related to costing/budgeting social services and social protection in Brazil; fluency in statistical analysis languages (R, Python, Stata).
Language and proposals
* Language proficiency: Portuguese.
* Financial proposal: include all-inclusive fees (lump sums, administrative, travel, subsistence as applicable).
UNICEF's Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin all we do. This includes a commitment to diversity and equal opportunity. UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants with disabilities and supports safeguarding and background checks as part of the selection process. Consultants are responsible for their tax liabilities and for ensuring visa and health requirements as applicable.
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