Consultancy 6 months (REMOTE): Finance 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 Finance Specialist to join one of the most innovative and impactful initiatives at the United Nations whose aim it is to connect every school in the world to the Internet and every young person to information, opportunity and choice. This individual will have a range of interesting responsibilities, encompassing structuring the innovative financing instruments, connectivity projects planning and implementation, and knowledge sharing.

The individual would ideally be embedded in a nimble team of finance professionals and will engage with Giga’s multidisciplinary team, particularly Country Support, Procurement and Mapping and tech streams. The successful candidate should possess skills and expertise in infrastructure project finance in emerging and developing countries, including hands-on experience in structuring various financing instruments, including debt and equity products.

Under the supervision and guidance of the Programme Manager, the Finance Specialist will have a role in setting the direction for the finance work stream.

1. Key outputs

• Structuring the innovative financing instruments
• Connectivity projects planning and implementation
• Knowledge sharing
• Final Report

Your main responsibilities will be:

Structuring the innovative financing instruments:

• Connectivity financing instruments:

1. Support the preparation of the multi-party financing mechanism
2. Assist with the resource mobilization plan, e.g. identification of the donors’ pool and negotiation of the long-term financial commitments (pledges);
3. Support various workstreams related to the financing instrument structuring, such as negotiation with IFIs DFIs, internal alignment, details of the project pipelines and disbursement schedule.

• Assist with the design and implementation of other financing instruments.

Connectivity projects planning and implementation:

• Prepare the Giga projects pipeline, including:

1. identification of potential and eligible connectivity projects in emerging and developing countries;
2. develop structures and business plans enabling private sector participation in the connectivity projects;
3. assisting the Country Offices in the financing, resource mobilization or procurement process, selection and technical evaluation of the potential bidders for delivering technical services;
4. review of the deliverables supplied by the selected service providers;
5. preparation of the final project documentation and presenting to the key stakeholders for approval.

Knowledge sharing

• Provide oversight and advice in relation to innovative financing instruments and Giga projects implementation within the organization as well as to external stakeholders.

To access the full ToR please click here FINAL-Giga Finance Specialist-TOR 12.9.pdf

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

• An advanced degree, or equivalent, in Business Administration, Economics, Finance 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 5 years of professional work experience in infrastructure project finance in emerging and developing countries, including hands-on experience in structuring various financing instruments, including debt and equity products.
• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in financial modelling and carrying out feasibility studies
• Experience in consulting and advising on relevant financial areas
• Experience in financial analysis
• Experience in a global development finance institution is an asset
• Experience in telecommunication infrastructure sector is an asset
• Demonstrated strong writing and presentation skills in English and the ability to communicate effectively to management
• Ability to plan and implement projects in coordination with multiple stakeholders
• Ability to work with a diverse team in a rapidly changing work environment and adapt to unforeseen changes
• Knowledge of UN system is an advantage
• Knowledge of another UN language is an asset

Travel:

• The consultant is expected to travel to Geneva on two (2) trips, for a stay of 5-6 nights each.
• 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.
• The consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance
• The 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.