Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Consultant, Office of innovation, Stockholm, Sweden, 11.5 months (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, innovate...

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. Innovation at UNICEF is about doing new things to solve problems and improve the lives of children around the world. Innovation boosts the impact and reach of our work. It is about matching today’s challenges with tomorrow’s solutions.

The UNICEF Office of Innovation, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, supports UNICEF’s Strategic Plan by creating ways for UNICEF’s mission to intersect with, and drive new digital technologies, data solutions, programming approaches, innovative financing and frugal ideas that bring positive change for children, and by scaling innovative solutions to millions.

The UNICEF Venture Fund, within the UNICEF Office of Innovation, has been specifically designed to finance early stage, open-source technology that can benefit children. The core motivation of the Venture 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.

Founded in 2014, the pooled fund has raised USD 35M, 2,527 Ether, and 8 Bitcoin to date, and is the first venture capital vehicle in the UN for investing in digital public goods and creating internal UNICEF capacity as well as entrepreneurial capacity in UNICEF programme countries.​

The Venture Fund team works in synergy with the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA), whose secretariat is co-hosted by the UNICEF Office of Innovation; an interdisciplinary group of technical mentors and experts; other key teams within the Office of Innovation such as the Emerging Tech Team, Innovation Thematic Hubs (Learning, Innovative Finance, and Climate), Portfolio, Culture, and Scale Team, and Partnerships and Communications Team; and other divisions within the UNICEF global network as part of the end-to-end support structure provided to startup investees.

How can you make a difference?

The UNICEF Venture Fund was set up to invest in startups building early-stage frontier technology solutions in emerging and developing economies. Since its incubation, the Fund has aimed to build a diverse portfolio and to address existing inequities through its investments. We’ve honoured this commitment by investing in diverse geographies, industry sectors, and technologies. But in supporting a diverse group of founders, while we have made notable headway; still, more work needs to be done around inclusive investing.

Since 2019, our ‘Smart Investing’ initiative has focused on increasing access to funding for female-led/co-led ventures. Our goal is to champion equitable access and representation within the start-ups we fund and grow our share of female-led companies in our overall portfolio to 50%. We recognize that a commitment to gender-lens investing has positive benefits for investment, business, and society; moreover, research shows generally that companies with diverse leadership outperform their peers. 'Diverse leadership’ in this context may include, but is not limited to, factors like gender, race, age, socioeconomic status, disability status, national status, etc.

As a result, we are seeking a DEI consultant to help us scope out a new path for our ‘smart investing’ initiative. How can we bring in founders who are often underrepresented, underserved, and underestimated? How can we recognize and create enabling environments for intersectional identities? How can we create more equitable pathways for founders and problem solvers at a global level who are building solutions that aim to better the livelihoods, environment, and prosperity for individuals, businesses, and communities?

The part-time DEI consultant will play two main roles:

1.) Work with Venture Fund team: Assessing internal practices from our Fund process (including sourcing, selection, investment, and post-investment) to provide recommendations for how we can best strengthen DEI practices.

This role will also support the Venture Fund in defining how DEI considerations can be integrated into the existing support structure and process for startups. The solutions that this role will be advising employ emerging technologies (data science, AI, machine learning, blockchain, etc. to provide solutions either directly to children and families (B2C) through UNICEF, or to UNICEF’s partner governments (B2G).

2.) Work with our Portfolio Companies: Provide advice and mentorship to frontier technology startups in the UNICEF Venture Fund portfolio as they are developing their solutions, help them assess gaps and develop a roadmap to overcome these challenges during the investment period, to ensure locally informed and contextually relevant adoption of various best practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The mentor will support the companies in their team D&I, but also with designing inclusive solutions for a diverse pool of users.

Your main responsibilities will be:

• Provide technical assistance on gender equity and social inclusion practices to Venture Fund investments including:
  • Assessment of gaps in compliance with DEI best practices for each investee
  • Develop a roadmap for each investee to overcome gaps during the investment period.
  • Provide companies (in both seed- and growth-stage funding) one-on-on mentorship and coaching on with technical advice on DEI through monthly calls.
• Support the Venture Fund in reviewing DEI documentation of graduating companies and validating they are in line with best practices.
• Building on the learnings from working with Venture Fund investees and working in close collaboration with Venture Fund portfolio managers, develop guidance documents and recommendations on how DEI considerations can be integrated into existing Venture Fund processes and the existing support structure for investees.
  • Review diversity metrics for sourcing as well as disaggregated company results to identify and address gaps.
  • Mapping best practices in DEI at a global or regional level, with development of a toolkit sharing learnings
  • Speaking with key representatives influencing the DEI investment space.

Please click here to access the full ToR TOR - 2023 - Consultant - Diversity Equity Inclusion for ad.pdf

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

• Education: An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in one of the following fields is required: Social Science or Humanities, Innovation-related field, International Relations, Business Administration, or another relevant technical field. A first degree plus an additional 2 years' experience, may be accepted in lieu of a master’s degree.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience is required at national and international levels working with startups or corporates in the areas of digital tech innovation, gender equality and/or social and economic development, and cooperation to build capacity and train around DEI.
• Demonstrated experience in integrating DEI in development programming and, preferably, innovation practice (from start-ups to scaling innovations in relevant sector/s).
• Demonstrated experience in providing expert advice and mentorship on implementation of DEI standards, principles, and practices
• Experience in designing and managing innovation portfolios is desirable.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge and fluency of another UN language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Driving for Results.

The competencies required for this post are….

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

View our competency framework at

http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf

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 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.

Payment details and further considerations

• Monthly payment, based on monthly tasks and progress reports, approved upon monthly review with supervisor.
• The consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance
• No travel is expected as part of this consultancy