Consultancy - Evidence of Impact (UNICEF Venture Fund), Remote, Office of Innovation (2 consultants)

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, innovation...

UNICEF has a 75-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. Worldwide, we innovate to tackle the most pressing problems faced by the most vulnerable children. We take a systematic approach to innovation, applying skills and energy across new tools and technologies, products, innovative financing, and new ways of working to boost our impact.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, unique, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the startup thinking, the technology, the tools, the know-how, and the partners that turn ideas and energy into scalable solutions for children.

The UNICEF Innovation Fund, coordinated by the Office of Innovation, has been specifically designed to finance early-stage, open-source technology that can benefit children. The core motivation of the Innovation Fund is to identify "clusters" or portfolios of initiatives around emerging technology - so that UNICEF can both shape markets and also learn about and guide these technologies to benefit children. We invest in solutions that can impact the lives of the most vulnerable children. We find these solutions clustered around $100 billion industries in frontier technology spaces, such as UAVs, virtual and augmented reality, artificial intelligence, nano-satellites, and human dynamics. With $34,9M raised to date, the Innovation Fund is scaling its investment portfolio to invest in 20 start-ups every year and provides funding to UNICEF’s Country Office-led projects. The current portfolio of companies consists of several cohorts developing and piloting solutions in virtual and augmented reality, data science and artificial intelligence, blockchain, UAVs, IoT, and in assistive technology.

How can you make a difference?

This is a part-time consultancy within the Office of Innovation, reporting to the Venture Fund team. You are an experienced professional in evidence generation for impact and value, particularly in the context of early-stage innovation. You can integrate the generation of evidence of impact (improved effectiveness, efficiency, or reach) and insights that bring value to the business. You will work with emerging technology startups onboarded to Venture Fund investment to integrate lean impact evidence generation into their work plans from the beginning of the investments.

You will also develop basic onboarding tools/checklists for startups to help them generate and track impact evidence. Building on the learnings from working with a cohort of investees, you will support the Venture Fund team in defining how impact results measurement and evidence generation can be integrated into the existing support structure and process for startups.

The Office of Innovation is looking to identify two consultants that together will:

• Finalize the Venture Fund’s results and impact framework and develop an implementation guide to operationalize the framework through an assessment of current data management practices, identification of metrics and data that need to be gathered and tracked, mapping of roles and accountabilities, and design of a data schema and data management system fit for purpose.
• Support the Venture Fund team with strategic communications, branding and alignment around the Impact Framework.
• Maintain & update onboarding tools and checklists for startups that receive investment from the UNICEF Venture Fund, to support them in setting up lean and agile ways to track and generate evidence of impact (improved effectiveness, efficiency or reach) of the solutions.
• In close coordination with the portfolio manager and the pool of technical and business mentors, provide mentorship to startups at the early, bridge, and acceleration stages (maximum total of 15 companies at one time) to support each company in defining evidence of social value and/or and an insights- or metrics-gathering plan; and support the development of internal and external evidence generation and knowledge products for the Venture Fund and/or start-ups.
• Building on the learnings from working with a cohort of investees, develop recommendations on how lean impact results measurement and evidence generation can be integrated into the existing support structure and process for startups.
• Provide support to the VF team and OOI/Hubs on strategy and MEL as required. This will address ad hoc needs that arise from the Venture Fund, OOI and Hubs as the VF/OOI move forward with mapping impact and monitoring solutions.

Description of assignment

#****Task****Deliverable****Deadline****1.

Finalize the Venture Fund’s results and impact framework and develop an implementation guide to operationalize the framework through an assessment of current data management practices, identification of metrics and data that need to be gathered and tracked, mapping of roles and accountabilities, and design of a data schema and data management system fit for purpose.Impact and social value framework that includes an assessment of the current data management practices around impact evidence generation (analysis of existing data and data sources as well as data that needs to be collected), the definition of and contribution to impact by the Venture Fund, the dimensions of impact, and metrics for measuring and tracking, implementation guide to operationalizing the framework

Month 2Ideation and design of an implementation guide to operationalize the framework which includes the mapping out of roles/accountabilities and data gathering stage gates/timelines, recommendations for future enhancements to the data or information management system

Month 3Terminal report – evidence of impact, metrics, results framework

Month 32.Maintain & update onboarding tools and checklists for startups that receive investment from the UNICEF Venture Fund, to support them in setting up lean and agile ways to track and generate evidence of impact (improved effectiveness, efficiency or reach) of the solutions

Periodically review and update the onboarding tools and checklists for startups that receive investment from the UNICEF Venture Fund

Ongoing3.

In close coordination with the portfolio manager and the pool of technical and business mentors, provide mentorship to startups at the early stage, bridge funding stage, and acceleration stage (maximum of 15 companies at one time in total) to support each company in defining evidence of social value and/or and an insights- or metrics-gathering planEvidence gathering plan in coordination with portfolio managers, including social value KPIs, for each of the companies, based on their workplanMonths 1-6Conduct mentoring sessions with each company on a monthly basis to track progress and provide guidance

Months 1-11Recommendations for social value monitoring of cohort graduates beyond the funding period

Months 10-11Evidence generation and knowledge products

Months 1-114.

Building on the learnings from working with a cohort of investees, develop recommendations on how lean impact results measurement and evidence generation can be integrated into the existing support structure and process for startupsTechnical notes and documentation as contribution to an evidence of impact mentorship toolkitMonths 6-11.5

Terminal report – mentorship (content outline to be agreed on)5.Provide additional support and expertise to improve the Venture Fund annual reporting processes if required.Deck which provides feedback and insights into how to streamline the annual reporting processMonth 6

6.Provide ad hoc support to the VF team and OOI/Hubs on strategy and MEL as required.Inputs on strategic planning, Theory of Change development and impact frameworks for the Fund/OOI/HubsMonths 1-6

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

• An advanced university degree in social science, technology, international development, business administration, or other relevant fields. \* Or A first degree plus an additional 2 years’ experience (total of 10 years), may be accepted in lieu of a master’s degree.
• A minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience in impact management and evidence generation, particularly in the context of early-stage innovation & technology.
• Experience in applying lean methods of data collection and quantitative and qualitative evidence generation methods to produce actionable insights and robust evidence.
• A track record of providing mentorship and assistance to start-ups.
• Experience in identifying and developing technical assistance tools for companies.
• Demonstrable understanding (and ideally experience) of how frontier technology can be applied to social impact solutions.
• Experience in working (and ideally innovating) with and for children in resource-poor environments.
• An understanding of UNICEF programmes, policies, and principles.
• Proven capacity to work with collaborative teams across different locations and with different technical skills.
• Experience in knowledge sharing, capacity building, or training for innovation is desirable.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Payment and further considerations:

• Payment on a monthly basis, based on monthly tasks and progress reports, approved upon monthly review with supervisor.
• A consultant is responsible for her/his own health and travel insurance
• The consultant is eligible for DSA for all work-related travel.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

The competencies required for this consultancy are….

• Drive to achieve results for impact (L2)
• Innovates and embraces change (L2)
• Thinks and acts strategically (L2)

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 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.