Consultancy: Coordinator for Mission Recovering Education Programme 2022 Consultant - Education Section, Programme Group –HQ New York (Home based, remote position) - Req

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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.

Vacancy Announcement: Consultant

Consultancy Title: Coordinator for Mission Recovering Education Programme 2022

Section/Division/Duty Station: Education Section, Programme Group – HQ New York (Home based, remote position)

Duration: 11.5 months (250 days Full Time)

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the worst shock to education systems in a century, with the longest school closures combined with the worst recessions in decades. More than 1.6 billion children have lost instructional time for many months at a time, if not for much of the last year, and over 6oo million children are still affected. School closures and the resulting disruptions to school participation and learning have had profound consequences on children’s overall health and wellbeing. The effects on children in fragile and conflict-affected settings with increasing inequities have been the most severe. Without rapid and scaled action, this generation of children and youth will never recover.

This is why UNESCO-World Bank-UNICEF, launched a Mission: Recovering Education in 2021 to ensure all children and youth are back in school and receive the tailored services needed to meet their comprehensive needs including learning, health and psychosocial well-being. The Mission was designed to support countries to take all actions possible to meet three priorities: bringing all children back to school, recovering learning losses, and preparing and supporting teachers.

Under this approach and in order to ensure we are reaching the most marginalized children in humanitarian situations. UNICEF is supporting countries to take an all-inclusive approach focus on those most left behind. To identify those who have not returned to school; provide at scale interventions to catch up on lost learning; and to provide tailored and integrated services focused health and nutrition, protection and well-being. UNICEF has received funding to implement this programmatic approach in a number of countries with complex emergencies and Humanitarian Action Appeals.

At a global and regional level, the programme will focus on knowledge management, provision of technical support and sharing lessons across regions on each of these priorities. Additional technical assistance will be provided through UNICEF global technical teams on early childhood education; primary and secondary/skills level (including cross-cutting nature of gender and inclusion). These will be harnessed to share the breadth of international experience on successful school reopening and learning recovery and support to scale proven programmatic interventions.

Ambitious targets have been set for the programme but there must be fast-paced action to support countries to respond to the overwhelming needs and UNICEF requires an overall coordinator to support and lead the process.

Scope of Work:

Under the supervision of the Education in Emergencies Specialist, the purpose of this consultancy is to coordinate the implementation of the programme with implementing countries and ensure the interventions are on track. This will include coordination across the technical teams at HQ level and Regional level. The consultancy will focus on monitoring, reporting and global knowledge management to further the programmatic goals. More specifically, the consultant will:

1. Country Level Monitoring - work with selected countries to ensure plans are clear and results are measurable. This will include supporting selected countries remotely to coordinate implementation and ensure reporting requirements are met and that country level advocacy and knowledge management activities are globally disseminated and reviewed for quality assurance. Support the reporting of country level milestones including bottlenecks and highlight areas where corrective actions might have to be taken and/ identify possible technical support.
2. Governance and Management System– work with the EiE Specialist to develop the management system of the programme to ensure streamlined coordination and financial management of the programme – this includes providing secretariat functions with UNICEF global (EIE) Education Priority technical teams and preparing materials for donor engagements (briefs, presentations, etc.).
3. Global Data Management and Reporting – develop a quarterly reporting format and mechanism with COs in line with UNICEF and donors rules and regulations. Provide technical and quality assurance on data and reporting to ensure verified high-quality reports.
4. Global Communications/Advocacy– support with dissemination of standard key messages for countries at key identified global and regional advocacy events. Track successful interventions and lessons and disseminate for country-level contextualization and support. This includes social media and key advocacy messages.
5. Global Knowledge Management – develop a knowledge management system to support the with dissemination of global evidence products; document lessons and support key knowledge sharing events including technical webinars and newsletters. This should align with the overall UNICEF Education approach.

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

In close collaboration and working with Education in Emergencies Specialist the incumbent is responsible for programme coordination and monitoring as follows:

1. Country Level Coordination and Monitoring Support

• Support Priority countries contextualization and planning
• Coordinate development and finalization of work plans and to lead implementation
• Lead tracking and reporting on work plan implementation for priority countries
• support Identification of relevant technical assistance required to reach priorities in country and coordinate its provision
• Support country level advocacy and financing activities
• Consolidate Work plans and any revisions and updated quarterly if corrective actions required.

2. Governance, and Management System

• Development overall management system for the programme
• Monthly reporting to the Global Technical Teams
• Track monthly financial expenditures and key programmatic indicators
• Prepared key products for donor relations with Senior Advisor

3. Global Data Management and Reporting

• Develop data management system
• Conduct quality assurance of data
• Quality quarterly reporting to donor

4. Global Communications/Advocacy

• Support the implementation of the communication and social media inputs for the Mission
• Support the monitoring of advocacy milestones with key programmatic staff from RO and CO

5. Knowledge and information management systems developed and kept current

• Knowledge and information management systems developed and regularly updated
• Technical data brief/evidence/webinars disseminated and supported to implementing countries and beyond
• Track successful interventions and lessons and disseminate for country-level contextualization and support

• Design, write and edit newsletter/yammer content. Coordinate submissions and disseminate

  Qualifications

(1) Education

• An university degree (Master’s or higher) in the area of education, statistics, international development, human development or social sciences, economics
• Excellent written English language skills
• Ability to survey literature in other UN languages (ex. French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and/or Russian) will be regarded as an asset.

2) Work experience

• 5-8 years professional experience in the field of education; this should include direct programme coordination and management (including donor relations)
• Knowledge and experience in education sector monitoring and reporting
• Knowledge of global developments and strategies in the area of education in emergencies.
• Knowledge and experience in supporting countries with identifying technical issues.

3) Competencies

• Excellent writing skills and ability to synthesize complex information and issues.
• Strong analytical and conceptual thinking.
• Ability to organize and plan complex work following the established timeframes.
• Ability to coordinate remotely and work effectively with others and facilitate partner engagement

Requirements****:

• Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and provide Personal History Form (P11) Upload copy of academic credentials
• Financial proposal that will include:
• your daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference (can be downloaded here: https://www.unicef.org/about/employ/index_consultancy_assignments.html
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability
• Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.
• At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory 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.

U.S. Visa information:

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.