GenU and Youth Innovation Consultant, Freetown, Sierra Leone, 11.5 months (On-site)

Contract

This is a Consultancy contract. More about Consultancy contracts.

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 champion

Please access UNICEF Sierra Leone information here and here

How can you make a difference?

Purpose and Objective of the Assignment:

Sierra Leone is a Generation Unlimited (GenU) frontrunner country having been involved in the advancement of results for young people (aged 10-24) across Education/Skills, Entrepreneurship, Employment and Youth Engagement. Additionally, UNICEF Sierra Leone has been working towards implementing solutions at scale with focus on scaling up digital connectivity, online/remote learning, work, and livelihoods platforms, including as a response to COVID-19. The Country Office, as per Global Guidance, now looks to support convergence between GenU, GIGA and Learning Unlimited, to help ensure synergy between the workstreams and enable the availability of digital connectivity and platforms to help build foundational, transferable, digital, entrepreneurial, and job-specific skills.

Along with UPSHIFT, “GIGA” has also been launched with ITU. This is a new initiative to connect every school to the internet, and every young person to information, opportunity and choice.

The GenU & Youth Innovation Consultant reports to the Innovation Specialist, for general guidance and direction. The Consultant supports the Innovation Unit and Education Section in planning, managing and monitoring the GenU programme including but not limited to Learning Unlimited, GIGA Initiative and UPSHIFT activities supported by UNICEF Sierra Leone.

Scope of Work

Under the general guidance and supervision of the Innovation Specialist, the Consultant will be responsible for the following key functions/accountabilities:

• Support and facilitate the rollout of the GenU convergence programme with Learning Unlimited and GIGA.
• Underpin UNICEF’s role as a convener to enable the scale-up of the GenU partnership at country level.
• Develop a scaling-up strategy of the Generation Unlimited in Sierra Leone reflecting priorities and solutions by young people of Sierra Leone, enabling every young person aged 10-24 to be in some form of school, learning, training or employment.
• Maintain collaboration with Government of Sierra Leone and identify new opportunities for engaging other stakeholders to contribute to GenU Sierra Leone.
• Engage in partnership building with private sector and opportunities for empowerment and meaningful engagement of adolescents and young people and identify innovative solutions by and for young people.
• Driving a systems-building approach to the scaled rollout of UPSHIFT.
• Providing management and monitoring on programmatic delivery of results.
• Support the identification of resourcing opportunities and the development of proposals to enable scale up of GenU and UPSHIFT in Sierra Leone.
• Perform other related duties as assigned by the supervisor to ensure the success of the team.

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

• An advanced university degree (Masters or higher) in Business, Economics, Social Sciences, Social Work, Youth Engagement, International Relations, or another relevant field.
• A first university degree (Bachelor's) in a relevant field combined with 2 years of professional experience, may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree.
• A minimum of 5 years of professional work experience in a relevant field, such as youth engagement, innovation, social innovation, or entrepreneurship.
• Experience in working on social innovation and social entrepreneurship projects/programmes, including the design, incubation and mentoring processes, including communication, multi-stakeholder engagement including private sector, and managing relations with those stakeholders who support, ecosystem engagement.
• Experience in deploying digital platforms, tools and approaches.
• Fluency in English is required, strong written and verbal competency is necessary.
• Experience working in a developing country required, working in the West African region is considered as an asset
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Please access the full JD here VA TOR - GenU and Youth Innovation Consultant.pdf

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.