Consultancy: Develop guidance note on user journey across adolescent & youth innovation platforms for country, Office of Innovation, Stockholm, Sweden, 7 months (Remote) (September 2024 to M

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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.

UNICEF's Office of Innovation creates opportunities for the world's children by focusing on where new markets can meet their vital needs. We do this by:

• Connecting youth communities (or more broadly -- anyone disconnected or under-served) to decision-makers, and to each other, to deliver informed, relevant and sustained programmes that build better, stronger futures for children.
• Provoking change for children through an entrepreneurial approach -- in a traditionally risk averse field -- to harness rapidly moving innovations and apply them to serve the needs of all children.
• Creating new models of partnership that leverage core business values across the public, private and academic sectors in order to deliver fast, and lasting results for children.

Our team

We're an interdisciplinary team around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling new technologies and practices. With our partners, we focus on convening and collaborating on new and different solutions, low- and high-tech, by:

• Looking at the 2-5 year horizon to evaluate emerging and trending technologies and to see how UNICEF can work with the private sector on doing better business while improving essential services for children.
• Investing in early-stage solutions that show great potential to positively impact children in the 2-year future including the Venture Fund that invests in open-source technology solutions from start-ups based in UNICEF’s programme countries.
• Identifying proven solutions that can be implemented at national scale in multiple countries – taking the ideas that help thousands in one country, bringing them to dozens of countries across multiple sectors, and impacting the lives of millions of children.”

How can you make a difference?

In response to the evolving landscape of adolescent and youth engagement, there is a compelling need for a thorough analysis of how individuals navigate information and services across a range of UNICEF and partner digital and non-digital youth platforms. For instance, various UNICEF country offices host skills development and learning information content, and opportunities and resources on platforms such as UPSHIFT, Passport to Earning (P2E) Internet of Good Things (IoGT), YOMA, Chatbots, Adolescent Kit and FunDoo among others. By integrating design thinking methodologies in country offices, this study aims to investigate how youth prefer to engage with learning to earning, climate, MHH, MHPSS, health topics and access services across various youth platforms. By analyzing the architectural site map of all adolescent and youth focused tools and investigating their interlinkages and synergies, this study aims to reduce duplication, enhance fund efficiency, and consolidate/streamline operations. Additionally, clarifying Monitoring and Evaluation processes among multiple platforms will be a key focus area, ensuring effective measurement and impact assessment across the diverse platforms. The findings from this study will provide valuable insights to optimize user experiences and outcomes across multiple youth platforms, enabling UNICEF and partners at the country level to effectively enhance their youth offering. The countries of focus will be Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.

Your main responsibilities will be:

Detailed responsibilities / deliverables.

Phase 1: Planning

1. Preparation Initial Collaboration and Planning
   1. Collaborate with internal UNICEF Country Offices, Regional Offices, HQ programme teams, and partners.
   2. Develop a comprehensive work plan, defining clear objectives, timelines, and deliverables.
   3. Review background documents, previous reports, and existing data on youth innovation platforms.
2. Secondary Research and Pre-interviews:
   1. Conduct pre-interviews with Country Offices (CO) and regional office youth leads on youth platforms.
   2. Gather preliminary insights and strategic inputs to shape the country-level analysis and mapping
   3. Mapping of youth innovation digital and non-digital platforms and initiatives for adolescents in three countries (Uganda, South Africa and Nigeria).

Phase 2: Country-Level Analysis and Mapping

1. Conducting Secondary Research:

2. Deep dive into existing data and resources to understand the current landscape of youth innovation platforms in each country.

3. Identify both digital and non-digital platforms catering to adolescents.

4. Summarize user journey information for each youth platform to facilitate the identification of overlapping trends and data points that can be consolidated and compared across all platforms for comprehensive analysis.

5. Country level User Journey Workshops:

6. Lead three user design workshops in Nigeria, South Africa, and Iraq.

7. Engage with adolescents, platform users, and stakeholders to map out the user journey.

Phase 3: Data Visualization and Insights Sharing

1. Creating Interactive Maps and Infographics:

2. Develop interactive maps and infographics to visually represent the interconnected network of youth innovation platforms.

3. Ensure the visual tools highlight key findings, platform interactions, and user journey pathways.

4. Global Webinar:

5. Organize a global webinar to disseminate insights, best practices, and innovative approaches identified during the guidance note development, including sharing back findings with young people, partners involved in secondary research.

6. Encourage knowledge sharing and collaborative discussions among stakeholders from different regions.

Phase 4: Final Reporting and Recommendations

1. Drafting Reports and Concept Notes:

2. Compile the data and insights gathered into short reports.

3. Capture lessons learned and prepare concept notes for future reference and action.
4. Submission of Final Guidance Note:
5. Summarize key findings, recommendations, and actionable insights in a final guidance note.
6. Provide strategic recommendations to shape future youth innovation strategies and initiatives.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Social Sciences, Humanities, Business, Design or other relevant fields. *A first University Degree in a relevant field including Social Sciences, Humanities, International Relations, Economics, Business or other relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• A minimum of five years of relevant professional experience in areas such as innovation, service design, human-centered design, or UX design.
• Experience in leading user research interviews and focus groups (virtual and in-person)
• Experience working on youth focused innovations at country level and background in youth development and participation.
• Experience in developing user manuals and toolkits.
• Experience in working with multiple countries and with multiple stakeholders.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency situations is considered an asset.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.
• Strong written and verbal competency in English is necessary.

Travel:

• The consultant is expected to travel to at least 3 countries (Uganda, South Africa and Nigeria), for a stay of 3-4 nights per trip.
• 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.

How to apply:

• Interested applicants are required to submit a financial proposal with all-inclusive fee. Please see the financial proposal template.
• 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.  Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx

For more details and information about the deliverables, please consult the ToR: TOR Consultant to develop guidance note on youth innovation platform.docx

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.

Should you have any questions, please contact us at swe-ooi-recruitments@unicef.org