Consultancy: Passport to Earning Consultant, Generation Unlimited, NY/Remote - 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.

For every child, hope

Consultancy Title: Passport to Earning Consultant, Generation Unlimited

Section/Division/Duty Station: Generation Unlimited / NYHQ

Duration: 11.5 Months

Home/ office Based: Remote

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

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment:

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere. Over the decades, UNICEF has worked to protect the rights of children of all ages — from earliest childhood through adolescence – and will continue to deliver for all children and adolescents under the five goal areas of the Strategic Plan. In recent years, our work to support the unique needs of adolescents has gained momentum, as the challenges facing them have come more sharply into view. The second decade of life is a time of tremendous opportunity – but for far too many adolescents, great risk and increasing challenges.

Building on work across the UN with and for young people, and in line with the UN Youth Strategy, in 2018 UNICEF launched a new global partnership dedicated to expanding opportunity for young people, ages 10-24. Generation Unlimited (GenU) is centred on finding new ways to ensure that every young person is in school, learning, training or employment by 2030 — with a focus on those in the greatest danger of being left behind, including girls, the poorest, those with disabilities, young people on the move and those affected by conflict and natural disasters. This partnership brings together leaders from governments, UN agencies, the private sector, academia, international and civil society organizations, and young people, and identifies, co-creates, resources and scales-up innovative solutions to expand opportunity for young people. Young people participate meaningfully in the co-creation of solutions, informing, advising and helping implement at every step of the way.

For young people, the COVID-19 pandemic is not just a moment in time. It threatens to define their futures. Even before the pandemic, the world was reeling from a learning crisis—and COVID-19 has deepened it. Never before has the growing skills gap been more apparent, and never has it been more urgent to ensure that young people can access the opportunities for upskilling and employment that are available to them. As the world’s focus shifts to economic recovery and “building back better”, GenU’s focus on upskilling youth and connecting them to opportunities for employment, entrepreneurship and social impact is now more important than ever. It has become clear that the world is also in an educational crisis. GenU and its partners adapted to the growing needs of young people by scaling up digital connectivity, skilling and livelihoods. In doing so, GenU pivoted its strategy early on to put job-relevant skilling at the heart of its work to combat the adverse effects of the pandemic on young people. There is now a once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure all young people have the skills and opportunities to succeed.

Digital solutions now exist that have the potential to reach every young person and allow them to fulfil their dreams. GenU is uniquely positioned to champion this cause, by leveraging its close relations with Government, private sector, youth networks, and UNICEF’s extensive field presence at national and state/provincial levels in over 190 countries and territories. Building on a longstanding collaboration with partners, particularly Private Sector in this case, GenU and UNICEF is alongside these partners developing a new flagship skilling platform named Passport to Earning which will provide young people aged 15-24 with free, job-relevant skills, and position them for job opportunities for at least 10 million young people (at least 50% adolescent girls and young women) across several countries within the next three years. While the programme has recently been launched in India, it is still being further expanded upon and will launch in additional countries in 2022 and beyond.

The Passport to Earning Consultant is primarily responsible to support the coordination, development, planning, implementation and reporting of this new flagship skilling and opportunities platform. She/he is to work with internal and external partners and stakeholders at global and country levels to ensure that the platform is developed in a collaborative manner, including all planning elements for workstreams, ensuring that guidance is developed, that a roadmap is defined and tracked, and implementation commences with select countries and its progress is monitor/tracked in addition to being reported against to the Steering Committee and other key stakeholder structures.

Under the direct supervision of the Senior Advisor Country Support and under the overall guidance of the Global Head of Programmes and in collaboration with UNICEF and GenU partners the consultant will support the conceptualizing, planning, activation and reporting of GenU’s new flagship skilling and opportunities platform which aims to provide young people aged 15-24 with free, job-relevant skills, and position them for job opportunities for at least 10 million young people (at least 50% adolescent girls and young women) across several countries within the next three years.

Scope of Work:

The consultant will be responsible to:

• Provide day-to-day support, pro-active engagement and troubleshooting to country teams developing and/or implementing Passport to Earning. In doing so ensuring adequate planning and tools to enable effective development and coordination across the various work streams including content curation, blended and self-paced streams, demand creation, M&E, partnerships and advocacy.
• Drive the development of a global Passport to Earning instance which can be accessed by youth from around the world. In doing so gather and develop global databank of skilling content and best practice which can be leverage by countries adopting local Passport to Earning.
• Work closely with Generation Unlimited’s partnership team on existing partner coordination mechanisms with the platform’s founding partners to ensure effective and efficient meetings. This includes a quarterly high-level coordination meeting between the parties is being conducted to track progress, troubleshoot, course correct and more for both global and country level activities which the consultant would provide critical coordination, information gathering and other support to. Weekly meetings are also conducted which will be supported by the consultant.
• Contribute to the successful official launch of Passport to Earning in new countries/markets though coordination with partners, developing material/information and more.
• Document lessons learned and best practice for dissemination and scaling model to new countries/markets.
• Work closely with the partnerships team in GenU on updating or developing concept notes and proposals for resource mobilization purpose for both Public and Private Sector donors.
• Support the GenU partnerships team on the pursual and development of new partners to Passport to Earning. In doing so going beyond financial resources and looking for ways for the prospect to engage from a shared value lens.
• Support the GenU partnerships team on donor/partner report coordination and development.
• Support other GenU skilling and opportunity platforms upon request of the supervisor and senior management
• Other duties and regional/country support upon request of the supervisor and senior management

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

• Digital skilling platforms are rolled-out in coordination with country offices and partners
• Global Passport to Earning instance is developed and launched.
• Learning and best practices are documented and disseminated.
• Multi stakeholder engagement and coordination is effectively supported regular meetings are conducted.

Qualifications

Education:

• Master's in Business, Education, Technology, or other relevant field; or related practical experience

Work experience:

• At least 5 years of work experience in education technology, education or project management or relevant areas.
• Strong experience in skills development, education technology database and/or platform development in the social development sector;
• Strong understanding of Learning Management Systems such as Microsoft Community Training an asset
• Experience in working with organizations focused on engaging and empowering adolescents and youth, especially the most marginalized
• Fluency in English is required, strong written and verbal competency is necessary
• Working knowledge of another UN language an asset

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.
  • 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, race, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, appearance, socio-economic status, ability, age, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, 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.