Innovation Monitoring and Evidence Consultant, Office of innovation, 12.5 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.

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 in order 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?

This role supports various evidence-related tasks under the guidance and direction of the Innovation Manager (Evidence, Performance, and Knowledge Management), and in close collaboration with relevant innovation Hub leads and Portfolio Managers.

Your main responsibilities will be:

1. Strengthening results-based management in portfolio management

• Provide technical expertise and guidance to develop theories of change for innovation portfolios.
• Define evidence requirements for innovation phases.

2. Generating evidence for acceleration and scale-up: strategic and technical guidance for

HQ and field innovation initiatives to ensure evidence elements are sufficiently integrated in innovation solutions.

• Support implementing Monitoring, evaluation and evidence strategy, plan and its implementation for the Office of Innovation
• Create or identify externally and adapt, pilot and scale innovative approaches to building evidence around innovations that support organizational learning and scaling of innovations.
• Develop learning, capacity building resources, and access to technical assistance to build awareness, competency in and diffusion of these approaches to support evidence generation implementation across the organization’s innovation work.
• Develop mechanisms to support offices to apply these evidence methodologies appropriately, such as decision support to identify the appropriate methodologies, developing/leveraging LTAs or rosters of practitioners, TORs, technical assistance to office to support implementation.
• Where required and in collaboration with portfolio managers, provide direct technical assistance to key innovation projects around evidence building strategies
• Provide technical support to portfolio managers in any evidence activities they manage – e.g., reviewing the methodology section of ToRs, advising on innovation‐appropriate approaches.
• Support monitoring, learning and evidence generation for donor, key partner and funding reporting.
• Provide thought leadership around measurement of innovation and support any ongoing project developing guidance on innovation measurement.

3****. Generating evidence for acceleration and scale-up: direct delivery by OOI

• Aggregate, track and accompany the various monitoring, evaluation, and evidence generation activities being undertaken across the Hubs, Portfolios and OOI Teams and the capture and communication of insights derived from individual activities and across the aggregate activities.
• Support finalizing all commissioned reviews, case studies, toolkits, analysis and assessments together with portfolio managers.
• Develop a work practice and plan that regularly shares internally and externally what we are trying, learning, insights, working out loud.
• Design and deliver events, thought leadership and learning opportunities, in collaboration with the capacity building lead and in coordination with OOI Communication Team

4. Building MEL capacity for innovation

• Develop capacity building materials on how to generate evidence for innovation solutions.
• Facilitate capacity building workshops and sessions to strengthen MEL capacity for innovation for UNICEF globally.

Please find attached the full ToR with related information TOR MEELR Consultant 2023-24.pdf

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

• An advanced university degree in Social Sciences or Humanities, Innovation-related field, International Relations, Business Administration, or another related technical field. *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.

• A minimum of eight (8) years of relevant professional experience is required at national and international levels in the areas of performance management, monitoring and evaluation, innovation and/or social and economic development and cooperation.

• Demonstrated experience with performance management, KPI development, results-based management, logic model, theories of change, review/evaluation management is critical.
• Professional work experience in monitoring and evaluation activities, especially with a focus on measurement of innovations/innovation programmes, expertise in approaches such as Social Impact Assessment, LEAN impact, Adaptive learning models, social blueprint/model canvas, is an asset.
• Demonstrated expertise in innovation practice, spanning start-up to scaling innovations, especially in the social and/or development sectors.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is 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 3 nights a month.
• The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa and travel insurance.

Payment details and further considerations

• Payment of professional fees will be based on the submission of agreed deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold payment in case the deliverables submitted are not up to the required standard or in case of delays in submitting the deliverables on the part of the consultant.

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

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.

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.