Consultancy - Review of FunDoo Home-based with potential field travel, Office of Innovation, 4 months

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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.

Yet the current pace of progress for children will not get us to children-related SDGs targets. This, if left unaddressed, will leave tens of million children behind. Unprotected. Uneducated. Unfed. Unable to reach their full potential.

For every child, innovation...

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 (OOI) 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 startup thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

UNICEF's OOI 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.

Matching Today’s Challenges with Tomorrow’s Solutions ensures that all investments we make in innovation fit with our global aim of ensuring that every child can survive, thrive and live and learn in a safe, inclusive space, and that innovation is applied to the most pressing problems faced by some of the most vulnerable children and young people. In line with the Global Innovation Strategy, UNICEF’s innovation portfolio management approach aligns technical and financial resources to promising projects from across the organization that can accelerate results for children.

Each portfolio will contain innovative solutions (sourced from across UNICEF) that have potential to scale and significantly accelerate results for children. Through the development of UNICEF’s Global Innovation Strategy, four initial portfolio focus areas were identified: learning, water and sanitation, maternal and newborn health and emergencies. Following the Mid-Term Review, four new portfolio areas have been added: climate change, gender equality, youth and mental health and psychosocial support.

How can you make a difference?

Fundoo project in India

FunDoo is an initiative by YuWaah, UNICEF and Udhyam Learning Foundation; it leverages UNICEF’s U-Report chat-based platform to deliver 21st century skills at scale, through real world tasks. The program is available on WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook messenger. FunDoo has been created to provide 300 million young people from 14 to 24 years access to holistic, quality education and learning opportunities. So far, more than 650,000 users have registered on FunDoo and FunDoo mini.

The content developed by Udhyam Learning Foundation for FunDoo is byte sized and gamified; the tasks can be completed at home and follow the learning by doing principle. At present, there are 108 tasks with short and simple actionable prompts for users, which are tangible and reportable.

FunDoo tasks are available on-demand and do not have a time limit, allowing learners to complete tasks at their own pace. The platform leverages three significant advantages – 1) Generation Unlimited partnerships to reach young people at scale; U-Report (UNICEF’s RapidPro platform) which enables linkages to WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, the most downloaded and used apps in India with more than 500 million users; 2) the chat based medium (as opposed to a video-based curriculum that requires higher data bandwidth) ensures bridging of the digital divide and availability to the last mile user who might not be able to access high speed internet, and 3) FunDoo benefits from network effects of users coming to popular platforms multiple times a day. FunDoo uses UNICEF’s RapidPro platform to code the chatbot interaction which is then broadcasted to learners on WhatsApp and FB Messenger.

FunDoo brings the following innovation to EdTech:

1. While most initiatives building 21st Century skills focus on a subset of specialized skills (such as communication skills, SEL, or financial skills alone etc.); with Fundoo, there is a wide focus on a cross section of 21st century skills. The pedagogy and implementation approach is also novel in that Fundoo is an experiential learning platform. Our pedagogy derives from the principles of Experiential learning which we implement through the concept of ‘tasks.’ FunDoo is organized as a modular library of tasks that learners can choose from and is not sequential. Each task is designed to focus on one primary skill (as outlined in the framework), besides positively impacting a host of secondary skills.
2. Leveraging technology for education without deepening the digital divide: The platform's design and delivery mechanism is such that a learner can use Fundoo even if they do not own their own device. All they need is access to a mobile device with WhatsApp (a device owned by someone in the family or extended circle). A majority of the learning that happens on Fundoo is off-device. Because Fundoo is a chat based learning solution, the platform is accessible even on low bandwidth.

Objectives of the review:

This review is to document learning from the Fundoo project in India and assess their feasibility of global acceleration/scale-up. The India Country Office is documenting the project progress with the support from the Office of Research in the form of case studies. However, there has not been a systematic review of emerging evidence to support further acceleration and scale-up of the project as an expanded multi-country and multi-region approach.

The findings of the review will be used to:

• enhance the Country Office’s understanding of project progress and room for improvement in view of current knowledge and best practices
• guide the OOI to determine whether future investments are needed to support acceleration and scale-up of the Fun-doo project
• encourage stock-taking and programme reflection process informed by success factors, best practices and areas for development
• feed into corporate knowledge and evidence around youth learning platforms
• provide inputs on how a chat-based learning tool can be utilized to inform young people about critical 21st century skills and career exploration

Scope of Work

This review will be carried out with the following phases:

1. Inception phase
2. Secondary/primary data collection
3. Analysis and report preparation
4. Dissemination of the results.

For detail information about the above phase and full ToRs, please access this file: ToR_Review_Fundoo.pdf.

Deliverables

To summarize, the review will produce the following deliverables:

1. An inception report (~20 pages)
2. A draft and final report (<60 pages)
3. Regional/global webinars to present and discuss key findings and recommendations and a slide deck
4. 2-page executive summary

Timeline and payment schedule

The assignment is expected to be carried out remotely with a proposed timeline below. The total number of working days estimated is 100 days combined for both consultants.

Specific tasks Deliverables****Estimated combined working days****Timeline and DeadlineFinalize the review questions, develop methodologies to be used, criteria for country selection and proposal for country selection, and develop a review matrixA. Inception report20 days4 weeksCollate primary and secondary data following the review questions and methodology defined/agreed in the inception phase. Prepare a draft reportB. Draft report60 days16 weeksBased on the draft report, share and present report during validation exercises in regional and global webinarsC. Regional/global webinars & slide deck10 days4 weeksIncorporate comments and feedback based— and deliver final report; 2-page summary briefD. Final report & E. 2-page executive summary10 days3 weeksTo qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

The assignment is expected to be carried out with a proposed timeline below with a total of 100 working days between two people over four months with potential field travel.

One (1) lead reviewer:

• Post graduate qualifications in Education, International Development, Social Policy, Youth empowerment, Social Innovation, or related fields.
• At least 12 years of relevant working experience in the subject matter, including youth/learning innovations
• Strong analytical background including planning for and conducting analytical exercises
• Experience in conducting reviews or evaluations of innovation programmes, ideally experience in deploying innovative, participatory, youth-led and other non-traditional monitoring and evaluation methods in development contexts
• Experience conducting qualitative research (including key informant interviews) analyzing large quantities of data/documents and synthesizing them
• Experience with theory-based approaches such as contribution analysis, outcome harvesting and process tracing
• Experience working with the UN system, NGOs, governments in the development/humanitarian context
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

One (1) reviewer

• Post graduate qualifications and working experience in related fields, including Education, International Development, Social Policy, Youth empowerment, Social Innovation
• At least six years of professional experience in monitoring and evaluation of development/humanitarian projects
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

Application procedure

Interested candidates are requested to apply via the UNICEF recruitment system. We are looking for two individuals to work together on this project; each person should complete the application and indicate who their pairing with for the execution of the consultancy in the cover letter, if any partner is identified.

Applicants are also requested to include in their cover letter which role you are applying for – lead reviewer or reviewer.

Each applicant should indicate their overall financial proposal for completing the components indicated in the deliverables section of the TOR.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Payment details and further considerations

• This contract is home-based with potential field travel.
• Payment shall be effected upon satisfaction of each of the key deliverables.
• Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.
• Consultant is eligible for standard DSA for all work-related travel.
• Two separate consultancy contracts will be made; and each consultant is to submit invoices separately after the deliverable is accepted

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.