Consultancy 12 months: Media Writing & Editorial Specialist, Office of Innovation (Giga), Geneva, Switzerland

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?

Giga seeks a Writing and Editorial Specialist to join one of the most innovative and impactful initiatives at the United Nations, whose aim is to connect every school in the world to the Internet and every young person to information, opportunity, and choice. The Writing & Editorial Specialist will play a crucial role in shaping and refining Giga’s high-level communications, ensuring precision, coherence, and resonance in conveying organizational narratives and objectives to diverse stakeholders.

The Writing & Editorial Specialist is central to articulating and honing Giga's broad-spectrum communications, ensuring accuracy, coherence, and impact in transmitting organizational stories and goals to a diverse audience. This role focuses on premier writing assignments including editorials, speech writing, external communications, partner writing, and readying senior management for key speaking engagements, upholding the highest standards of clarity and persuasiveness.

This role specializes in high-end writing tasks including editorials, speech writing, external communications, partner writing, and preparing senior management for key speaking roles, maintaining superior standards of clarity and persuasiveness. This role reports directly to the Communications Lead and works closely with Senior Management, the Content Producer, and other stakeholders within Giga to ensure seamless integration of high-level communications into broader organizational narratives and initiatives.

In particular you will:

High-Level Writing & Editorial Support:

• Offer precise writing and editorial support for high-level communications encompassing speeches, external material, talking points, and partner communications.
• Craft and enhance superior content that mirrors and promotes Giga’s mission, vision, and strategic objectives.

Senior Management Preparation:

• Ready senior management for key speaking roles, ensuring clarity, coherence, and impact in verbal communications.
• Create succinct, compelling talking points and briefing notes to assist senior management in external engagements.

Strategic Communication Development:

• Partner with senior leaders to fashion strategic communication materials that resonate with high-level stakeholders, partners, and external audiences.
• Guide the ideation and realization of editorial content, ensuring alignment with Giga’s overarching narratives and objectives.

Monitoring & Refinement:

• Track pertinent trends and developments, providing insightful updates and briefings to augment organizational communications.
• Continually evaluate and refine communication materials based on feedback and evolving organizational needs and priorities.

End-of-Contract Report

Please access the full Term of Reference (ToRs) and read a more detailed description of the assignment in this file in order to prepare your financial proposal and know more about the role: Writing and Editorial Specialist TOR.pdf

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

• An advanced degree, or equivalent in Communication, Journalism, Public Relations, or a related field.
• *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 of 7 years of professional experience in high-level writing and editorial roles, preferably within technology or science communications.
• Exemplary verbal, writing, and editing skills; capability to articulate complex concepts compellingly and coherently.
• Established experience in devising strategic communications for senior management in public or private sectors.
• Proficiency in developing speaking notes and advising senior management ahead of media interviews and speaking engagements.
• Prior experience in media relations, including addressing press enquiries and coordinating news conferences and technical briefings.
• Familiarity with managing multiple social media channels and a solid understanding of trends.
• Experience within the UN system, and comprehension of Member State-Secretariat relations is viewed favorably.
• Fluency in English; competence in French is an asset.
• Experience in regions where Giga is active (Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, Latin America & Caribbean) is considered an asset.

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.