Evidence of Impact & Startup Growth Strategy Mentor Consultancy, Office of Innovation, Stockholm, Sweden, 12 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.

The Office of Innovation 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 start-up thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

UNICEF's Office of Innovation 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 to deliver fast, and lasting results for children.

The Office of Innovation specifically looks to form partnerships around frontier technologies (like drones and UAVs, blockchain, 21st century skills, urban technologies, new banking tools, wearables and sensors, or 3D-Printing) that exist at the intersection of $100 billion business markets and 1 billion person needs – and to identify how they can grow and scale profitably and inclusively.

Our team

We're an interdisciplinary team around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling new technologies and practices. With our partners, we focus on convening and collaborating on new and different solutions, low- and high-tech, by:

• Looking at the 2-5 year horizon to evaluate emerging and trending technologies and to see how UNICEF can work with the private sector on doing better business while improving essential services for children;
• Investing in early-stage solutions that show great potential to positively impact children in the 02 year future including the Venture Fund that invests in open source technology solutions from start-ups based in UNICEF’s programme countries;
• Identifying proven solutions that can be implemented at national scale in multiple countries – taking the ideas that help thousands in one country, bringing them to dozens of countries across multiple sectors, and impacting the lives of millions of children.”

How can you make a difference?

UNICEF’s Office of Innovation is hiring a part-time consultant, reporting to the Venture Fund team. We are looking for an experienced professional in impact evidence generation, 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 relevant Venture Fund staff to articulate an impact framework and develop a plan and system for gathering and measuring evidence of impact. You will also work with emerging technology startups onboarded to Venture Fund investment to integrate lean impact evidence generation into their workplans from the beginning of the investments. 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 consultant will also work with the Venture Fund team to support on portfolio strategy of our growth-stage investments, including evaluating the results of previous investment periods (i.e. bridge 1, bridge 2, and Acceleration); advising on the next growth funding round; and supporting with transition of the newly selected growth portfolio to the start of the technical assistance programme as part of their active investment period.

Your main responsibilities will be:

1. Provide specialized technical guidance on evidence generation and data management to Venture Fund startups and country office pilots. This includes helping each company in defining evidence of social value and/or developing an insights/metrics- gathering plan and support the development of internal and external evidence generation and knowledge products for the Venture Fund and/or startups.
2. 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.
3. Maintain and update Evidence Generation toolkit for Venture Fund portfolio companies.
4. Provide strategic guidance and support to Venture Fund team on best practices for impact management as well as technical impact reviews pre-investment on an ad-hoc basis.
5. Support additional portfolio management needs required by the Venture Fund team when needed.

Please access the full ToR and related information here TOR Evidence Generation + Growth Portfolio - Public Posting (003).docx

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

• An advanced university degree in one of the following fields with 8 years of professional experience or 10 years of professional experience instead of an Advanced Degree.
• Area of study: social science, technology, international development, business administration, or other relevant fields.
• 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.

Travel:

• The consultant is expected to travel to Stockholm, for a stay of 4 nights, 5 days.
• The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa and travel insurance.

Payment details and further considerations

• Monthly payment based on # mentorship sessions conducted related to the agreed deliverables. Approved upon monthly review with supervisor. The maximum number of sessions that can be invoiced is 111.
• Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance
• Consultant is eligible for standard DSA for all work-related travel

How to apply:

• Interest applicant is required to submit a financial proposal with all-inclusive fee. Please see the financial proposal template.
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance, if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs: visa, travel/health insurance.
• Applications without a financial proposal will not be considered.

Please find attached the financial proposal template Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx

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.

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.