Consultancy: Technology for Development Consultant (Information Systems), ICTD, Digital Center of Excellence (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 innovative technology-enabled solutions.

Over the last few years, there has been increasing recognition of the critical role of digital innovation and technology for development to UNICEF programming and accelerating support to the Sustainable Development Goals. With the global emergence of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, digital development has become an integral component of UNICEF’s work on national programmes, especially towards the acceleration of achieving the SDG goals. As part of ICTD’s Transition and Transformation, the Digital Center of Excellence (DCOE) in Nairobi, Kenya will work with beneficiaries, partners, and stakeholders at global, regional and country levels to tailor, implement, track and provide insights on the success of scale up innovation and programmatic initiatives.

The DCOE provides the interface between the field and the Digital Core and headquarters teams in Valencia and New York, which drives the broader digital transformation/innovation agenda and coordination with headquarters divisions.

INVENT is a digital platform that serves as an inventory of innovation and technology for development initiatives across UNICEF, with the following main goals:

• Creating connections and collaboration among those tackling similar challenges • Reducing duplication of effort • Providing insights into innovation at UNICEF to inform decision-making.

INVENT is a globally supported platform used by dozens of UNICEF country offices. The Digital Centre of Excellence seeks to provide a wealth of content for anyone to learn, explore, share, and contribute to expanded usage and evolution of INVENT within UNICEF programmatic areas and operational contexts. In support of the Innovation strategy, governance and its implementation, the DCOE requires a consultant with innovation, ICT, programmatic and managerial experience, to provide guidance and hands-on support to Country Offices in the region, and globally, on how best to prepare, organize and manage digital content for this initiative. With the quality assurance and technical support of Business Analysts, the consultant will help ensure alignment between INVENT content, programme goals and other ICT initiatives.

The consultant may be required to represent UNICEF and ICTD at meetings, conferences, and other events, as well as attend meetings with colleagues based in the field.

How can you make a difference?

We are looking for a technically individual with a passion for working with innovative and open-source projects. The successful candidate will be able to coordinate capture of data into the INVENT platform, as well as capacitating technical focal points at the country office level. Experience in delivering guidance, technical support and mentorship to individuals, teams and groups is an asset.

Scope of Work: The exact tasks for the consultant will be jointly determined in an agile way and are outlined in summary below. The consultant will directly interface with the ICT Specialist and ICT Manager (Programme Effectiveness).

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

The consultant will undertake the following tasks:

Support INVENT scale-up and organizational mainstreaming activities • Work with regional Technology for Development (T4D) Business Analysts (BAs), the Office of Innovation (OOI) and other stakeholders to collect, review, reorganize, and update INVENT data to be used by T4D BAs, senior ICT management and country office (CO) colleagues • Develop/adapt INVENT support materials for use by CO-based ICT staff and materials for Regional and Country office T4D staff trainings.

Build, manage and grow the INVENT community

• Build relationships and increase engagement with members of the INVENT community • Liaise with internal counterparts at UNICEF as necessary, to building relationships with users to support the increase in adoption of INVENT and other T4D tools. • Share outputs and outcomes from INVENT working group discussions • Organise knowledge sharing events and showcases for the work of the INVENT community • Create materials for advocacy and sharing outcomes with a wider audience

Management of INVENT Working Group: • Chair regular meetings of the INVENT Working Group. • Actively identify and make contact with new and existing actors to add to the working group. • Drive adoption and improvement of INVENT and other T4D tools by providing feedback to the Office of Innovation (OoI) and the Information and Communications Technology Division (ICTD) Digital Core unit. • Update and maintain global content library to streamline INVENT knowledge management and capacity building with the UNICEF INVENT ecosystem.

Prepare advocacy and communication materials including: • Content to introduce and promote exploration and analysis of data generated by INVENT and other T4D tools. • Use of data dashboards and other data driven results to evangelise the use of INVENT and other T4D tools. • Preparation of case studies, implementation overviews, and deployment experiences with products by UNICEF and others • Content to drive better usage and learning, such as feature overviews, tutorials, and tips/tricks • Product overview documents for INVENT and related technologies. • Web content, key messages, op-eds, fact sheets, blogs, etc. • Work with ICTD comms team, country and regional offices to develop human interest stories and/or supporting UNICEF programme staff in writing human interest stories, including through assisting with shaping story angles, providing writing tips, and supporting with the finalization of stories. • Develops donor and fundraising content packages such as fact sheets, beneficiary testimonies, interviews, blogs, etc. • Works with the team to develop and deliver UNICEF INVENT newsletter in timely manner. • Developing messages for social media platforms as needed

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Information Technology Business process management or relevant field.
• At least five years of professional experience in coordination of data capture into a digital platform
• Proven ability to coordinate work across different regions and across different functional areas.
• Documenting user and technical documentation
• Outstanding writing skills in the English language with demonstrated ability for logical and analytical writing as well as ‘de-jargoning’ technical language for a wider audience
• Experience producing detailed technical product documentation
• Attention to detail, research skills and the ability to work under strict deadlines is a must.
• Effective interactive communication
• Client service and people-oriented
• Relationship/community building
• Ability to work across time zones
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

In addition, the following will be considered a strong asset: • Education/work experience in engineering/technical fields • Humanitarian or development programme background • Experience using and deploying INVENT and other T4D tools. • Familiarity with UNICEF organizational structure. • Comfortable coordinating between multiple remote teams and stakeholders. • Superior technical writing skills. • Superior command of the English language.

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.

Financial Proposal:

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable). Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

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.