Local Consultants: T4D Consultant - 8 Months

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, a fair chance

UNICEF has been an active partner of the Government of the Philippines and civil society in realizing the rights of every Filipino child, in line with priorities to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. UNICEF efforts have been focused on the most vulnerable regions identified by the Government of the Philippines Development Plan, particularly in the regions of Visayas and Mindanao. To ensure that interventions are sustainable and scaled up, UNICEF will support primarily local government units (LGUs) as the main instruments of delivering services and building systems. The level of engagement with government institutions will take into account capacities, economies of scale and sector issues.

It has a field office in Cotabato City, the second largest city in Mindanao, southern Philippines, with some 300,000 population. The city is the regional administrative centre of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao and over 80 percent of the population is Muslim. Mindanao is both conflict-affected and prone to frequent earthquakes and typhoon storms.

Visit this link for more information on Philippine Country Office: https://www.unicef.org/philippines/

How can you make a difference

The T4D role will assist programme teams in the identification, assessment and integration of ICTs and digital innovation into UNICEF programming; strengthening internal capacity to lead and support T4D related initiatives; identifying and engaging with key partners; building business relationships; applying reusable and replicable technical buildings blocks; and maximizing potential for the scale-up and sustainability of technology and digital innovation for UNICEF programming.

The T4D Consultant will be heavily involved in supporting coordination and project management activities related to Digital Public Goods (DPG) Pathfinding project. The T4D Consultant is directly supervised by the Knowledge Management Officer and ICT Officer and works closely with Programme staff and in close liaison with the East Asia Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) ICT and Digital Innovation Unit, the central ICT Division and UNICEF Office of Innovation where applicable.

Work Assignments/Tasks

Provide technical and programmatic support on T4D:

• Portfolio Coordination: Work closely with the regional office in deploying a portfolio approach, adapting common solutions prioritized for UNICEF programming (e.g. Digital Public Goods).
• Support and assist in the design of T4D interventions: Provide support and technical assistance to the Country Office in the identification, selection, concept design, deployment and sustainability of T4D interventions to address bottlenecks towards the achievement of programme results.
• Identify and assess Technology and Digital Innovations: Assist programme sections to identify and assess T4D initiatives with potential to improve UNICEF programming.
• Solution procurement and evaluation: Assist the review of technical solutions to ensure UNICEF standards are followed; contribute to project management processes, generation, and review of terms of reference and vendor selection.
• Deployment advice and support: Assist with implementation strategy of digital technology initiatives. Including technical oversight, troubleshooting and the documentation of challenges and resolutions.

• Design thinking: Support human/user-centered design methods to enable user-acceptance testing, evaluation, documentation, and analysis.

  Advisory and Quality Assurance to Technology-enabled Programming:

• Digital Development and Technology Innovation Strategy: Support implementation of the technology and digital innovation strategy for the country office; bring visibility to T4D gaps, opportunities, and scale-up strategy in support of CO priorities.

• Quality Assurance: Assist with development and quality assurance during planning and deployment of T4D initiatives; participate in establishing and maintaining standards, documentation, and support mechanisms for T4D.
• Guide compliance with T4D best practices: Participate in CO T4D Governance Committee and support compliance of T4D initiatives with the Principles for Digital Development (http://digitalprinciples.org/) and UNICEF T4D best practices.

Engage and Maintain Partnerships and Networks:

• Engage and maintain partnerships and networks: Support the development of partnerships and networks with local solution providers, innovators, NGOs, cultural and religious organizations, the private sector, local media, and academia to build and provide a space to nurture and test new and innovative technologies and build local capacity.
• Advocacy and communications: Participate and support Country Office representation in external, inter-agency or partner forums on Digital Development and Technology Innovation where requested.
• Provide advice and support to programme partners: Provide inputs to technical and operational support to a wide range of stakeholders and partners on UNICEF policies, practices, standards, and norms on technology for development.
• Standards and procedures for ownership: Work with stakeholders to help develop standards, procedures, and partnerships for T4D interventions and their transition to relevant Government and Civil Society Institutions.
• Transfer and skill-sharing for programme partners: Help maintain partnerships with government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing and transfer of knowledge, skills, and tools to foster and facilitate technology-enabled programming.
• Document localized partners and profiles: Contribute updates to a catalogue of country specific T4D partners and their profiles/areas of engagement to promote and enhance UNICEF goals for outcomes for children through the use of technology.

Knowledge Management:

• Share lessons learned: Help identify, capture, synthesize and share lessons learned from T4D for integration into broader knowledge development planning, advocacy, and communication efforts.
• Landscape mapping: Assist in maintaining an inventory of Technology and Innovation interventions, assets, resources, and networks.
• Monitoring, evaluation and learning: Work with PME to ensure documentation and clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for innovation and T4D projects including baseline data collection, on-going monitoring, as well as first phase data collection and analysis.
• Contribute to Peer Support Networks: Contribute and share to regional and global digital development and technology innovation networks and activities.

Capacity Building:

• Co-create appropriate solutions: Work directly with programme teams and partners to adapt technology and innovative solutions appropriate to the country programme.
• Provide training to stakeholders and end-users: Participate as resource person in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies, capacity, and knowledge within the programmes on digital development; train UNICEF staff, partners, government counterparts and other end users in digital development and technology innovation.

Deliverables

• Meeting highlights and agreements on T4D initiatives. • Updates to DPG entries on INVENT and the public DPG registry. • Attendance in weekly KIDDS meetings to provide DPG updates. • Attendance in biweekly EAPRO T4D calls to provide DPG updates. • Monthly report on T4D technical and programmatic support. • Coordinate with programme colleagues to publish PCO content on the UNICEF Digital Intervention. • Inventory Management System (INVENT). • Attendance in the monthly sync on the DPG pathfinding project. • Monthly DPG landscape analysis report (Philippine context, what DPGs are in use or being developed, sector, stage, description, contact information, portfolio, SDG relevance, events), including mapping of cohort of DPG nominees from engagement with local tech ecosystem/private sector, CoPs, and DOST. • Coordinate communication with DPG nominees, OOI, EAPRO T4D, and CO focal points. • Participation in proposals and partnership development. • Updated INVENT PCO entries. • DPG Pathfinding report/documentation (activities within the pathfinding scope, general experience, lessons learned, good practices, stakeholders’ feedback, etc.). • Updated DPG documents on the relevant ECM folder and on INVENT. • Knowledge product (created or drafted) for the DPG pathfinding experience. • Webinars/Training sessions to programme colleagues and/or partners for capacity building in T4D.

Qualifications and Competencies of Successful Consultant

• A University Degree is required in Business Analysis, ICT Management, Computer Science, Innovation, Digital Development, International Development or another relevant technical field with minimum 4 years relevant work experience.
• Experience identifying, designing, and implementing solutions for large-scale projects with technical components – including supervising external vendors and software developers; responsibility for business analysis, budgets, contracts, project management and procurement, etc.
• Experience with ICT, mobile and web-based technologies, particularly designing or deploying tools appropriate to Asia and Pacific.
• Experience in Open Source, mobile and emerging technology applied to UNICEF programme areas.
• Exposure to UNICEF, UN or other INGO programmatic areas, including (but not limited to) health, nutrition, child protection and/or education, and experience in applying technical solutions to address programmatic issues.
• Experience with RapidPro, OpenSRP, DHIS2, ODK and other digital public good technologies, and deploying, maintaining, and scaling these technologies is highly desirable.
• Knowledge on the landscape for Philippine startup ecosystem in the technology sector is highly desirable.
• Experience in coordination with multiple stakeholders like government agencies, academic institutions, research organizations, private sector, etc. in implementing ICT projects and exploring space for collaboration and partnerships.
• Project management skills including task prioritization, workflow coordination, and results-driven strategies.
• Demonstrated strong writing and presentation skills.

HOW TO APPLY

Qualified candidates are requested to complete an online candidate profile in http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/ by 21 May 2021. Only applications sent through the e-recruitment portal under Job Number: 540308 will be considered.

All candidates are requested to submit a COVER LETTER, and the duly filled P 11 form which can be downloaded from our website at http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/P11.doc indicating three (3) previous supervisors. Please indicate your area of assignment, ability, availability and daily/monthly rate to undertake the terms of reference above. Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

Only shortlisted consultants will be contacted.

By applying through our Talent Management System (TMS) you agree to our privacy statement which is in line with the Philippines Data Privacy Act. You are strongly advised to read carefully through the privacy statement before submitting your application.

"UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations, 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."