Consultancy 10 months: Senior Advisor Country Support, Office of Innovation (Giga), Remote

Contract

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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...Innovate

UNICEF has a 70-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, partnerships and technologies that support realizing children’s rights are critical to improving their lives.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the start-up thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

About Giga

Launched in 2019 as a joint initiative between UNICEF and ITU, Giga has set the ambitious goal to connect every school in the world to the internet. Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the Internet. Millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it much more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. This has created a digital divide between those who are connected and those who are not, a divide that has become even wider during the Covid-19 pandemic. UNICEF and ITU have therefore joined forces to create Giga, an initiative to connect every school in the world to the Internet and address this new form of inequality.

Giga focuses on connecting schools so that children and young people have access to information, opportunity, and choice. It also uses schools as anchor points for their surrounding communities: if you connect the school, you can also connect local businesses and services. This creates opportunities for service providers to generate revenue from paying users, making connectivity more sustainable. A 2021 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that a 10% increase in school connectivity can increase effective years of schooling by 0.6% and increase GDP per capita by 1.1%.

You can read more about Giga’s work at https://giga.global/ and by following us on twitter @Gigaglobal

How can you make a difference?

UNICEF is seeking a highly experienced professional with ministerial or deputy ministerial level expertise in government operations, private sector engagements, and an in-depth understanding of connectivity initiatives. The Senior Advisor for Country Support will act as a key liaison with senior government officials, UNICEF Country Offices, and Giga's Country Engagement team to expedite the school connectivity mapping process.

The Senior Advisor will report directly to the Giga Lead, UNICEF and will work closely with Giga's Country Engagement team. Giga is currently active in 29 countries and aims to expand to over 50 countries in 2024.

The Senior Advisor for Country Support will provide specialized strategic and technical advice to the Giga team and liaise with key Ministers in countries that are implementing Giga, as well as new countries that will be onboarded to Giga.

Key Outputs:

• Comprehensive report identifying country-specific needs, concerns, and case studies of previous implementations.
• Internal UNICEF engagement strategy, identification of UNICEF Country office advocates, and schedule for targeted field visits.
• Strategic plan for ITU collaboration, peer-learning activities, hosting high-level meetings and maximizing visibility at key global events.
• Strategy and action plan for engaging with private sector partners.
• Tailored strategy documents for each target country, including identification of local champions and potential roadblocks for new countries, and recommendations for easing implementation roadblocks in existing countries.
• Technical assistance for the implementation of high-level meetings and actions arising from proposed strategies to scale Giga in new countries and ease implementation roadblocks in existing countries
• Trip reports and successful outcomes from missions, and recommendations for framing Giga at additional high-level fora with a stakeholder map and plans for further engagement.
• Participation and presentation at key high-level regional fora and events to further develop interest in Giga among francophone and East Asian countries.
• Final report summarizing the strategic approach, including successes, challenges, and recommendations for ongoing and future initiatives.

In particular you will:

• Advocate for school mapping at the highest levels of government and within UNICEF, focusing on francophone countries and East Asia.
• Facilitate inter-governmental collaborations and private sector engagements.
• Offer customized approaches for effective Giga implementation, focusing on francophone countries, taking into account cultural sensitivities and unique country-specific issues.
• Advocate for joining Giga’s improved market access consortium at the highest levels of government in African countries

Please access the full ToR and related information: ToR-Senior Advisor Country Support.pdf

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

• An advanced degree, or equivalent, in Business Administration, Economics, Finance, International relations, Political Science, Public Administration, Management or related fields. *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• Minimum 10 years of professional work experience at ministerial, deputy ministerial, or other Senior Government level is required.
• A proven track record in strategic planning, preferably in the fields of education, technology, and international development.
• Exceptional communication skills.
• Willingness to travel.
• Fluency in English and French is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Travel:

• The consultant is expected to travel to either francophone or East Asian countries, for a stay of 3 nights, 2 times per quarter.
• The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa and travel insurance.

Payment details and further considerations:

• Payment of professional fees will be based on the submission of agreed deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.
• Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.
• Consultant is responsible to arrange his/her own travel, including visa.

How to apply:

• Interested applicants are required to submit a financial proposal with an all-inclusive fee. Please see the financial proposal template here: Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance, if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs: visa, travel/health insurance
• Applications without a financial proposal will not be considered.

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 here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.

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. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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.

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 visa (applicable) and 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.