Full-time Individual Contractor (11.5 months, home-based): Consultant for managing the project on Experimental Evaluation design for Digital Child-related Solutions in ECA Region, Geneva, Sw

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, protection

Background

In the last years, UNICEF has significantly incorporated the use of digital innovations to increase reach, democratize information and even interact and engage with different users. This tendency has accelerated with the COVID-19 context, as social distancing restrictions affected social services traditionally delivered face-to-face. A recent example of this work includes a chatbot called Healthbuddy + mobile application which was developed, tested and expanded reach to support COVID-19 Risk Communication and Community Engagement.

For example, according to the Real-time Assessment of COVID response for the ECA Region – Round 1 (analyzing six countries), the Evaluation Team found that COVID-19 has enabled UNICEF to assume a leadership role in digital technology services, which may not otherwise have been assumed. At the same time, it has exposed some of the challenges related to the capacity of COs to deliver in this area and reaching the most vulnerable groups.

Technology aspects raised by the COVID Real-time Assessment ECA region, Round 1

• “Another common means of reaching the excluded is the innovative use of technology, such as remote instruction or telemedicine, although IT solutions may not reach vulnerable populations, who often lack access to the infrastructure on which the delivery of these solutions depends.”
• “Across the six countries, apart from cooperation with the government and other stakeholders (including IPs), the other common means of reaching the excluded is the innovative use of technology, which mostly means digital solutions, such as remote instruction or telemedicine. Caution should be exercised in relying heavily on IT solutions to reach the vulnerable populations because they often lack access to the infrastructure on which the delivery of these solutions depends.”
• “The key operational constraints affecting programme design were a large-scale shift in programmatic priorities, the compressed timeline for rolling out new interventions and delivering results, and the need to provide services in a qualitatively different way, which required COs to develop or bring in new expertise (especially WASH, digital technology, and SP) and rapidly scale up service delivery in these new areas.”

Source: Oxford Policy Management 2021, Real-Time Assessment of the UNICEF Response to COVID 19

UNICEF has been able to adapt to the COVID19 context by designing these tools, with the aim of bringing them to scale, as demand for it increases. There is clearly a gap that is being fulfilled by some of these initiatives. There are number of evaluation and research question that be posed around them. However, the ones that prevail are “What was the additional/net change caused by these interventions?", and “What are the conditions needed for this intervention to make a difference in the long term?”. While “impact” remains the main focus of decision makers, it is important to get a sense of the intermediate achievements as outcomes, and a more process oriented approach while keeping in mind impact result maybe the most adequate approach to fine-tune the development of these initiatives and taking them to scale when the conditions allow.

Digital interventions have an important advantage in relation to other type of interventions, as they occur in a virtual environment that permanently collects information, it is easier to reduce cost of traditionally expensive evaluation methods, such as Quantitative Impact Evaluations, using RCTs (Randomized Control Trials). The digital world allows for reaching a large population, profiling them with big data sources, and does not need to constrain to geographic boundaries. It also allows for real-time data and analysis through small-scale experiments, to assess intermediate outcomes and use those insights into adaptive management approaches and improve targeting for specific groups. This assignment intends to capitalize on the digital ecosystem to conduct RCTs, prioritizing innovative techniques to randomize and conduct surveys online.

UNICEF ECARO is currently developing an actionable evaluative framework that can be used for Digitally based solutions. Having different experimental evaluation experiences for different intervention will help lever the evaluation function in support of shaping up digital innovations that work, and at a later stage analyze its impact.

Objective

UNICEF ECARO in coordination with Office of Innovation is looking for a project manager to manage the work on the use of Experimental evaluations to assess the results of Digital interventions in UNICEF.

The consultant will be managing the digital evaluation portfolio in ECA region for four digital innovations: HealthBuddy+, Here4U, UsupportMe, and Bebbo. As a manager, the consultant will guide the implementation and evaluation team of scoping and advice on the best possible design for RCTs in digital innovations, it will manage the process to timely deliver evaluative work, provide feedback on the RCTs of digital evaluative products. In addition, the consultant will prepare capacity building content and webinars for UNICEF offices in ECA Region.

The consultant will be supervised by the Regional Evaluation advisor for ECA region related activities, keeping a dotted line with the Office of Innovation to guide the overall approach of innovation concepts and approaches.

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks******Timeline / DeadlineProduce a 2-3 pages concept note for the evaluation for four digital innovations, which will include brief description of the digital intervention, evaluation questions, experimental design methodology, need for data collection, identification of existing at sources, and potential use of the evaluation findings.August 2022Support the implementation digital innovations with M&E capacity. This includes identification of data sources, proposing data gaps solutions, elaborating a broad theory of change for the intervention when required, and in general supporting a M&E frameworkJune 2022 - June 2023Provide technical feedback to evaluative framework and evaluative work using RCT methodologies to assess digital interventions.June 2022 - April 2023Ensure quality assurance of the RCT-based evaluation of the digital interventions. Ensure a quality report for each of the digital interventions.February 2023After the evaluation team has delivered all evaluations, prepare a max 5-page guide on how to operationalize in UNICEF Country Offices evaluation of digital interventions. This includes identification of conditions needed to apply this type of work.May 2023Prepare capacity building materials and webinars for UNICEF staff (and partners) dealing with digital innovations, including review of content and interactive facilitation, in demand and when needed.June 2023Produce monthly reportsJune 2022 - June 2023Estimated Duration of the Contract

11.5 months (June 2022 - June 2023)

Individual Contractor's Work Place and Official Travel

The assignment will be home-based.

Estimated Cost of the Consultancy & Payment Schedule

Payment will be made on submission of a monthly invoice and satisfactory completion of the above-mentioned deliverables. Please indicate an all inclusive fixed monthly fee in USD to undertake this assignment.

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

• Master’s degree in Economics or related field.
• Expert(s) in the data with at least 3 years of experience in using RCTs for evaluation purposes.
• Specific expertise in experimental design and regression analysis is required to assess impact results of using web applications, mobile applications, social media to change norms and behaviors at scale.
• Experience in data warehousing, and computing and data analysis using R and/or Python.
• Proven experience in facilitating and collecting information with vulnerable groups through internet- online data collection, web scraping.
• Familiarity of web-design tools with dashboard and user-friendly data visualization techniques, using open-source means.
• Knowledge of social policies and implementation using internet; Knowledge of the equity and gender approaches and their application.
• Familiarity with the use of RCTs in child and adolescents-related areas such as education, early childhood development, health, child protection, and social policy.
• Fluency in spoken and written English.
• Excellent on-line facilitation skills using interactive tools.
• Proof of good ability to present and write reports clearly and concisely.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

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.

Remarks:

Please include a full CV and Financial Proposal in your application. Additionally, indicate your availability and monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above. Applications submitted without a monthly rate will not be considered. 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.