Consultancy: Digital Accessibility Consultant, ICTD Digital Core (12 months, 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, a connected world

The overarching strategic goal of UNICEF’s Information and Communication Technology Division (ICTD) is to transform and build partnerships with our stakeholders to successfully implement UNICEF programmes globally through the use of innovative technology-enabled solutions.

UNICEF has been working for several years to commit to accessibility and ensure all UNICEF employees as well as children and communities we work for and with are included. Accessibility initiatives have been put forth to promote inclusive hiring, development of accessible IT systems, development of accessible content and documents, access to UNICEF and UN facilities as well as programme-related construction, and to the procurement of accessible and inclusive products and services. Yet, while much has been achieved, some gaps remain.

Several mechanisms are in place to improve physical accessibility, such as the Greening and Accessibility Fund (GRAF) and EFAAT, a tool for reporting on greening and accessibility initiatives, 2017 Executive Directive on Accessibility in Programme-Related Construction Activities (CF/EXD/2017-004).

UNICEF has also invested in improving digital accessibility, such as conducting accessibility assessment of key ICT systems (E-recruitment, Agora, Drupal, SharePoint, Vision, Achieve) as well as building capacity of UNICEF employees by providing several tools, including Agora Training on Web Accessibility and upcoming Accessibility guide on production of accessible contact in Office 360.

How can you make a difference?

To strengthen and institutionalize digital accessibility UNICEF is establishing a Global Accessibility Helpdesk (GAHD). The Digital Accessibility Consultant will support the digital accessibility branch of the helpdesk and will report directly to the head of the Quality Assurance team in the ICT division contributing to the ICT division’s workplan and goals to continue improving digital accessibility by providing support, building capacity, auditing, raising awareness and training and developing guidelines and standards on digital accessibility.

Key Tasks and Deliverables:

The exact tasks for the Digital Accessibility Consultant will be jointly determined in an agile way and are outlined in a summary below. The consultant will directly interface with the Quality Assurance Manager. The consultant will work on tasks/areas as prioritized and authorized by the QA Manager at the start of each sprint. Upon completion of tasks, the QA Manager will certify completeness and quality of work for payment. The Digital Accessibility Consultant will be expected to follow similar agile development and project management practices by UNICEF ICTD.

Work Assignment Overview

Deliverables/Outputs

Deliverable deadline

Estimated Budget

Generate audit reports and tracking tools for accessibility issues across multiple digital platforms, discuss with business owners and support to track the progress.

Progress report on remediation accessibility issues in six UNICEF platforms: Agora, E-recruitment, Drupal, SharePoint, Achieve and Vision.

Audit reports for at least 2 applications and/or documents per month.

31 May 2024

12.5%

Provide at least 1 training session.

A minimum of 1 global webinar per month.

31 May 2024

12.5%

Contribute to the institutionalization of digital accessibility practices by drafting articles for knowledge base and writing communication resources, including user experience, to promote the accessibility helpdesk.

A minimum of 4 articles per month.

31 May 2024

12.5%

Develop and maintain an up-to-date log of accessibility support requests and resolve all requests in a timely manner as per priority and criticality of issue. A minimum of 5 requests per week.

A minimum of 20 support requests per month.

31 May 2024

12.5%

Generate audit reports and tracking tools for accessibility issues across multiple digital platforms, discuss with business owners and support to track the progress.

Progress report on remediation accessibility issues in six UNICEF platforms: Agora, E-recruitment, Drupal, SharePoint, Achieve, Vision.

Audit reports for at least 2 applications and/or documents per month.

30 November 2024

12.5%

Provide at least 1 training session.

A minimum of 1 global webinar per month.

30 November 2024

12.5%

Contribute to the institutionalization of digital accessibility practices by drafting articles for knowledge base and writing communication resources, including user experience, to promote the accessibility helpdesk.

A minimum of 4 articles per month.

30 November 2024

12.5%

Develop and maintain an up-to-date log of accessibility support requests and resolve all requests in a timely fashion as per priority and criticality of issue. A minimum of 5 requests per week.

A minimum of 20 support requests per month.

30 November 2024

12.5%

Reporting structure:

The Digital Accessibility Consultant will report to the Quality Assurance Manager in the Solution Center and Support Section, Information and Communication Technology Division (ICTD), Digital Core, Valencia, Spain.

Duration of contract:

12 months with the possibility of an extension.

Travel: the contract is fully home-based, there is no travel required.

Financial Proposal:

Please indicate your ability, availability and your overall rate – or rate per deliverable (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above. Applications submitted without a rate will not be considered.

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

• Consultant must be an advanced user of screen reading software and a proficient user of at least the two most widely used computer screen readers (NVDA and Jaws).
• Consultant must be a proficient user of at least one major smartphone or tablet screen reader (Talkback).
• Consultant must be able to communicate effectively, including on technical concepts, to both technical and non-technical persons.
• Consultant must be proficient in widely used office applications such as Adobe Acrobat, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Mozilla Firefox, and must be familiar with their accessibility features.
• Experience with managing project, including tracking progress and liaising with multiple teams.
• Experience working with UN system is an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

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.