Technology for Development Specialist
  UNICEF, New Delhi


1. POSITION VACANT: Technology for Development Specialist, UNICEF, New Delhi
 

2. ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND:

UNICEF is a United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide. The organization works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfil their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

Purpose of the Job:

The Technology for Development (T4D) Specialist shall assist UNICEF with the identification, assessment, and integration of innovations into UNICEF India programming, strengthening internal capacity to lead and support ICT-led projects, identifying and engaging with key partners, identifying reusable and replicable technical building blocks and maximizing the potential for innovation scale-up and roll-out.

Job Organizational Context:
India faces many challenges for the attainment of sustainable development goals. These range from the need for provision of basic needs such as clean energy, clean water, adequate and appropriate nutrition, health services, and enhanced access to education, livelihoods, economic opportunities, and broad societal goals such as the removal of poverty, gender equality, peace and improved governance, and environmental sustainability. While these challenges are significant, fortunately, new and improved technologies, combined with innovative delivery models, offer opportunities to address many of them in a scalable manner, particularly in India, which is increasingly been seen as a global hub for innovation. Working with public, and private sectors and academia, UNICEF shall leverage suitable public policy and investments that help with the process in terms of generating solutions and deploying them at scale.

Mobile and social-networking technologies additionally offer the promise of new and agile ways to collaborate and make decisions including crisis response. There are many new tools available to collect, filter, integrate, fuse, analyze, map, and visualize data and information. These emerging technologies represent an extraordinary opportunity to close the information gap, ensure that technology reaches the bottom of the pyramid, and provide decision-makers the ability to achieve sustainable development goals and protect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

Responding to the emerging programming environment, the T4D Specialist shall lead the coordination and advancement of the overall innovation agenda of the office, particularly through:
(1) Non-traditional partnerships with Academia and the Private Sector to stimulate research and development around solutions to the core challenges facing India’s children and mothers;
(2) Access to the right information at the right time for decision-making;
(3) Real-Time Monitoring and Information Systems for improved programme and service delivery;
(4) Real-Time Monitoring and Programme Management, particularly in the last mile with focus on social accountability;
(5) Citizen Engagement, Participation, and Feedback, to ensure meaningful access by communities, particularly young people, to information, opportunity, and choice;
(6) The T4D Specialist will be based in New Delhi and will report to the Chief of ICT;
(7) The post-holder will also liaise with all stakeholders to build a preferred set of solutions to reduce the complexity of entry into projects and increase solution portability;
(8) While directly supervised by the Chief of ICT, the T4D Specialist shall work closely with programme staff and in close liaison with the ROSA T4D Specialist and Global Innovation Unit.

3. JOB DESCRIPTION/ RESPONSIBILITIES:
Reporting to the Chief ICT, the T4D Specialist shall be responsible for supporting the organization's efforts to use digital innovation to improve the well-being of children and adolescents in India. S/he shall also be responsible for providing technical expertise and strategic guidance on the development and deployment of innovative digital solutions across multiple programs, including Health, Education, Nutrition, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Child Protection, and Social Inclusion.

A key responsibility of the T4D Specialist shall be to identify and promote the adoption of digital technologies that can address the most pressing challenges faced by children and adolescents in India. This shall involve keeping up to date with emerging trends in UNICEF’s global and Indian technology landscapes and assessing the potential impact of these trends on UNICEF's work in India. The T4D Specialist will work closely with government agencies, civil society organizations, and private sector firms, to ensure that digital solutions are effectively implemented and scaled up.

The T4D Specialist shall also ensure that digital solutions are designed and developed with the input and involvement of diverse stakeholders, including children and youth by engaging with these groups to understand their needs and perspectives and incorporating their feedback into the design of digital solutions. S/he shall work closely with UNICEF programmes and their partners to ensure that digital solutions are effectively integrated into existing programs and services.

The T4D Specialist will possess strong project management skills to ensure that digital solutions are effectively implemented and monitored for impact. This shall involve developing and managing project plans, tracking progress against milestones, and evaluating the impact of digital solutions on the well-being of children and adolescents.

The T4D Specialist shall play a critical role in advancing UNICEF India's mission to promote child well-being and advance the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals through digital innovation. 

Key Responsibilities:

(A) Policy and Strategy Development
Contribute to the development of an Innovation and Technology for Development (T4D) strategy for the Country Office, including the assessment of Innovations and T4D gaps, opportunities, and standards, and develop a scale-up strategy for the India Country Office. Lead the development and oversee quality assurance during the roll-out of office-wide innovation components and participate in setting-up standards, documentation and mechanisms for the Innovation/ T4D agenda of the office. Within the Young People’s Agenda and also UNICEF’s commitment to Affected Populations in emergencies, the T4D Specialist shall be responsible for convening key stakeholders within and outside of the office to formulate national strategies while liaising with the Regional Office and Office of Innovation.  

(B) Partnerships
Raise awareness of potential partners and solutions to the UNICEF India Programme community. Develop a catalogue of potential country-specific Innovation and T4D partners and their profiles/ areas of engagement in India to promote and enhance UNICEF India’s goals for outcomes for children through the use of technology-led Innovations for Development. Develop clear and concise concept notes of each agreed Innovation/ T4D initiative and proposals for fundraising efforts. Manage partnerships with Mobile Network Operators. Support communications and C4D on scale-up initiatives for U-Report and provide strategic guidance on digital communication and its utilization across youth programming.

(C) Knowledge Management
Support the collection of data, undertake analysis and prepare reports on existing initiatives, and solutions, capture lessons learned from innovations, and share resources available. Map all innovation investments and resources. Ensure documentation and clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for Innovation/ T4D projects including baseline data collection, necessarily ongoing monitoring, as well as first phase data collection and analysis.

(D) Technical Assistance
Provide support and technical assistance to the Country Office in the identification, selection, concept design, and roll-out and sustainability of Innovation/ T4D interventions to address bottlenecks towards the achievement of programme results. Work with stakeholders to help develop standards, procedures, and partnerships for T4D interventions and their transition to relevant Government and Civil Society Institutions. Assist programme sections to identify and assess new Innovation/ T4D initiatives, or new phases of ongoing initiatives, with immediate potential to improve UNICEF programming in service delivery and/or monitoring and evaluation.

(E) Capacity Building
Build the capacity of programme staff in analyzing the large amounts of data generated through Innovation/ T4D initiatives, including the use of data visualization techniques and analytics tools. Provision local business and Technical Analysis services to country and state offices to help define requirements, guidelines, and sustainability for Innovation/ T4D projects. Capacity building and understanding of T4D projects, particularly U-Report, within the office, will be important to ensure programmes maximize potential use to improve UNICEF’s work. Manage and coordinate steering committees including NGOs, youth groups, and state actors for youth-related T4D initiatives such as U-Report India

4. QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE AND COMPETENCIES:

(A) Qualification and Experience
(1) A post-graduate university degree in Innovation, Information Technology, International Development, Business Administration, International Relations, Change Management, or other related fields, with a minimum of five years of experience in designing and implementing innovative solutions for large-scale technical projects including supervising engineers and software developers, managing budgets, contracts, and procurement; OR
(2) Graduate university degree in a relevant field with seven years of professional experience, as above, shall be accepted in place of a post-graduate university degree;
(3) Relevant experience with a UN organization, shall be considered to be an asset;
(4) Experience in supporting and coordinating project activities across large organizations and with other international partner organizations;
(5) Experience of working and communicating with young people and community leaders;
(6) Experience with ICT hardware, mobile phones, and web-based technologies in India, particularly designing or deploying technological solutions appropriate for difficult-to-reach areas;
(7) Familiarity with RapidPro, OpenSRP, DHIS2, ODK, and other SMS or smartphone applications in deploying, maintaining, and rolling out solutions based on mobile platforms is highly desirable.

(B) Skills and Competencies
(1) Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of the local language of the duty station or another official UN language shall be an asset;
(2) Applicants should have a hybrid background combining different technical skills, as well as a strong conceptual ability to integrate the capabilities of available technologies to produce dashboards and other decision-making tools for organizational support;
(3) Ability to interact diplomatically with high-level officials, as well as experience of working directly with community-level partners;
(4) Applicants must also have skills in business analysis and technical project management in ICT-led innovations.

(C) Values
UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything they do and how they do it. Key elements of UNICEF’s Values Charter are reproduced below.

Competencies:

UNICEF competencies required for this post are:

(1) Build and Maintain Partnerships [ I ]
(2) Demonstrate Self and Ethical Awareness [ I ]
(3) Drive to Achieve Impactful Results [ I ]
(4) Innovate and Embrace Changes [ I ]
(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity [ I ]
(6) Think and Acts Strategically [ I ]
(7) Works collaboratively with others [ I ]
 

5. COMPENSATION OFFERED:

Gross compensation budgeted for the position is attractive. Please note that the offer made to the selected candidate shall be commensurate with qualifications, experience, and salary history.

6. LOCATION: New Delhi

7. REFERENCE: T4D-UNICEF

8. CONTACT INFORMATION:

Team SAMS
Strategic Alliance Management Services P Ltd.
1/1B, Choudhary Hetram House, Bharat Nagar 
New Friends Colony, New Delhi 110 025
Phone Nos.: 011- 4081 9900; 4165 3612

9. APPLICATION PROCESS:

Eligible candidates interested in the position are requested to apply using the link https://recruitment.samshrm.com/Jobs/UNICEF by or before May 2, 2023.

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 is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children.