Consultancy: Digital Accessibility Expert, ICTD (Remote - Part time)

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.

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.

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

How can you make a difference?

Under the supervision of the ICTD Quality Assurance team and the Disability Team in the Programme Group, the consultant will perform the following activities:

a. Provide technical support to UNICEF colleagues experiencing accessibility challenges on UNICEF digital platforms (20%)

b. Provide technical support to technical colleagues (software developers, designers, project and product managers) engaged in fixing digital accessibility issues (20%).

c. Methodically audit and report on the status of accessibility and follow up on resolution of prioritized digital (20%).

d. Liaise with implementing teams to systematically track accessibility issues resolutions (20%).

e. Develop a body of knowledge and train UNICEF staff, software developers and managers on how to best implement digital accessibility, including webinars, presentations, short courses (10%).

f. Support HQ and Regional offices to map companies engaged in digital accessibility and streamline engagement. (10%)

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks/Milestone:

Deliverables/Outputs:

Timeline

Generate audit reports and tracking tools for accessibility issues across multiple digital platforms

All prioritized digital assets are audited according to workplan

Ongoing

Develop content for internal knowledge sites and training on accessibility

At least one brief video or “micro-lesson”, developed for 5 to 10 of the most frequent digital accessibility mistakes by end of performance period and available as video files on Sharepoint or as PPTX files or an Agora course, at least 4 global webinars

Training materials are fully developed and presentable for defined audience by end of performance period.

Ongoing

Assist in the review and update of UNICEF accessibility standards

All standards are identified and reviewed by end of performance period.

Ongoing

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.

All issues are logged in a case management system and maintained recent. All issues are addressed in a timely manner as per agreed service level agreement (TBD).

Ongoing

Support HQ and Regional offices to map companies engaged in digital accessibility

Matrix of HQ and Regional offices to map companies engaged in digital accessibility

Ongoing

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

• Completion of secondary education, preferably supplemented by technical courses related to the work of this consultancy. • Web accessibility/coding certification • A minimum of five years of relevant professional experience. • 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. • Consultant must be a proficient user of at least one major smartphone or tablet screen reader. • 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, and PowerPoint, Mozilla Firefox, and must be familiar with their accessibility features. • Experience with managing projects, including tracking progress and liaising with multiple teams • Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

Contract Duration and Location

This consultancy is part-time with 3 workdays per week of 9 hours each. Times are flexible but should have a minimum 3 hour overlap with New York and Valencia.

This consultancy will be remote-based with a duration through 30 June 2023.

Financial Proposal

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above.

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.