National Consultant for technical assistance in using digital tools in the benefit of children’s welfare (Part-time, 100 working days), Bucharest, Romania

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.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more governments and partners have been using digital technology to respond to child protection issues. UNICEF in Romania was testing in partnership with public authorities the moving from paper-based case management to online systems even before 2020, demonstrating increased effectiveness and efficiency of outreach work and integrated community services. Proven by independent evaluation, the digital technologies contribute to increase communication, training, exchanges, and coordination among social work and social service providers.

While the push toward digitalization has yielded benefits, challenges remain, including a pressing need for user-centred design, robust safeguards, and approaches that use technology to complement – rather than supplant – social work capacities. In this context, UNICEF’s support to the Government of Romania includes both, support for scale-up of innovations that overcome challenges related to the particularities of the social services for most vulnerable children and their families (with special focus on geographical disparities and inequities) and assistance with efforts to improve the capacity, skills and equipping of the social services as well.

UNICEF Romania provides technical assistance to central authorities to identify trends and opportunities for efficiency gains using technology, while prioritizing relationship-based practice and person-centred care and personal data protection. At the same time, UNICEF’s support in this area is corroborated with initiatives related to strengthening and professionalizing the social services workforce, as new technologies should augment the work of social workers rather than trying to replace it. Moreover, assistance is required also for service users as they must have a choice about how they interact with services, and their right to self-determination should be enhanced – rather than limited – by technology.

In this sense, UNICEF is looking for specific information technology consultancy to complement work of UNICEF Specialists in various programmatic areas and ensure smooth implementation at scale of exiting digital tools used in the benefit of children’s welfare and social inclusion of most vulnerable categories of population.

Scope of work:

The scope of the consultancy is to provide technical assistance to the National Authority for Child Rights and Adoption (NAPCRA) for i) accompanying the roll-out of the Children’s Observatory at the national level (including continuous training and help-desk type of assistance) for the end-users; ii) ensuring interoperability with other modules of the new digital tool or other systems to be used in child rights and child protection. Moreover, technical support may include support for documentation of lessons learned, knowledge management, and horizontal cooperation, implying possible use of the new management information systems’ components in other countries.

Work Assignments OverviewDeliverables/OutputsTimelinesmooth implementation and monitoring of the roll-out of the Children’s Observatory (CO).CO implementation monitoring report (20 days)December 23adequate implementation of data protection and security measures, observing the European and national legislation,Data protection and security measures implementation report (10 days)December 23continuous training and help-desk type of assistance (user voice facility) for the end-users of the CO, Help-desk assistance report (20 days)March 24regularly monitoring activity registered in CO and prepare various reports based on needs,CO report on key indicators (10 days)June 24inter-operability of the CO with other modules of the new digital tool or other management information systems, Inter-operability assessment report (20 days)September 24knowledge management and horizontal cooperation with regards to online tools and systems developed, tested and scale-up in the benefit of children.KM documentation of transition and scale-up – progress and final report (20 days)December 24To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• Bachelor's degree in software engineering, information technologies, computer sciences, etc. Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

  - A minimum of three years of professional experience in projects with an information communication technology for development component,

  - Proven and extensive experience in the development and maintenance of complex systems including mobile applications,

  - Proven experience with large database development and maintenance,

  - Experience in providing technical assistance and leadership surrounding the design and implementation of digital solutions for interoperability and system strengthening,

  - Proven experience in implementation of software solutions for putting in practice legal provisions in the field of social protection, health and/or education,

  - Excellent communicator of technical concepts, both verbally and in writing, to government counterparts and non-technical audiences,

  - Previous experience in working with local, county and central authorities, including collecting ideas and insights from end-users at all levels,

  - Previous experience in assisting Governments in implementation of software products,

  - Previous experience in working with UN agencies is considered a plus,

  - Analytical and conceptual ability; communication skills; verifiable field experience,

  - Good speaking and writing skills in Romanian and English,

  - Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team and establish harmonious and effective working relationships both within and outside the organization,

  - Availability for work within the proposed time frame,

  - Availability to travel in the country, to the beneficiary districts, if necessary.

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.

Application procedure:

The application will be made in the dedicated UNICEF platform and it must include

1. An updated CV focused on the skills and experience matching those requested by the current consultancy
2. A letter of intent describing specific knowledge and skills
3. Financial Offer should indicate the GROSS amount in RON as per the attached template Financial Offer National Consultant for technical assistance.xlsx

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.