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, Innovation

UNICEF has a 75-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, bold partnerships, and technologies are critical to improving the lives of all children, everywhere.

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 startup thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable innovative solutions. 

UNICEF’s Office of Innovation does this by: 

• Connecting with the youth generation as co-shapers, designers and doers for social change in their communities as well as for setting a pace of change for generations of children to come. 
• Provoking change for children through an entrepreneurial approach 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 diversity of public and private sectors to be a collective power to deliver fast, and lasting results for children. 

About the Climate Change Portfolio

Children are the least responsible for climate change, yet they will bear the greatest burden of its impact. The worsening effects of climate change mean that children face both the immediate impacts of climate-exacerbated humanitarian emergencies and the slower-onset impacts such as water scarcity and disease burden. For children who are already disadvantaged, the risks of climate change are even higher: as crises become more common, poorer families will face even greater difficulties recovering from these increasingly frequent shocks.

The climate crisis is a child rights crisis, and time is running out to make the transformations necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Innovation can and must play a central role in finding solutions to this crisis and accelerating the impact of our work in protecting children from the effects of climate change, placing their needs at the center of environmental strategies, and empowering them as agents of change.

The UNICEF Climate Innovation portfolio discovers, iterates, validates, and scales digital, social, data and frugal innovations to tackle the most pressing climate challenges facing children and young people. Innovative climate solutions in the portfolio are tackling waste management, air pollution, green upskilling of young people in solar solutions, real time data in climate disaster management. You can read more about UNICEF Innovation Portfolios here: https://www.unicef.org/innovation/innovation-portfolios.

How can you make a difference?

Embedded in the Portfolio, Culture and Scale Team, the consultant will help OOI and CEED (Climate, Environment, Energy, Disaster Risk Reduction) Team to develop clear and engaging partnership proposals that cut across a range of climate thematic focus areas and innovations that OOI and the CEED Team are jointly working on.

Your main responsibilities will be:

UNICEF is seeking to hire a consultant to assist in the development and copy editing of three innovative programmatic proposals for the Office of Innovation and the development of a landscape assessment of perspective donors. The consultants will be responsible for:

Development of Clear and Engaging Partnership Proposals

• Based on inputs from technical colleagues and based on your own technical knowledge and experience and against specific guidelines develop two draft proposals and provide feedback to the responsible team members for revision. Working closely with OOI (Climate Innovation Innovation Portfolio Manager and with Partnerships and Communications team lead or manager) and CEED Team (Innovation Focal Point) throughout the process
• Arrange meetings internally and externally to gather additional information as needed
• Finalize content of each proposal, including final editing and proofreading, for final review by OOI (Climate Innovation Portfolio Manager and by Partnerships and Communications team lead) and CEED Team (Innovation Focal Point)
• The focus of the fundraising proposals should be on innovative solutions to address climate change, environmental and disaster risks to children which engage the private sector and innovators in the creation of local climate innovation ecosystems. For example:
  1. Innovative digital solutions in waste (with a special focus on e-waste) management ecosystems (e.g., digital payments schemes to incentivize collection of e-waste, digital solutions to improve local collection and management) to build upon two innovation waste labs in North Macedonia and Zanzibar (read more here: https://www.unicef.org/innovation/stories/2021-green-shark-challenge-winners
  2. Air pollution data modelling to build upon existing work in more than 10 UNICEF Country Offices and incorporating air pollution prediction analytics as per
  3. Last mile solutions for renewable energy (especially innovative financing mechanism to fund last mile solarization e.g., P-RECs)

* Timeline of deliverable can be changed by mutual agreement between consultant and supervisor during the duration of the assignment.

Please click here to access the full ToR and related information  Climate Innovation Proposal Writer-CLEAN-FINAL24052023.pdf

About you

You are a master in writing successful funding applications in the climate adaptation space. You write with clarity, confidence and flair. Ideally, you’ll bring proven experience in writing and editing across complex, technical subjects and creating content strategies in at least one of the following sectors; innovation, technology, finance, human rights or international development. You understand the importance of building strong working relationships.

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

• An advanced university degree (master’s or higher*) in Communication, Journalism, Innovation, Climate Change, Sustainability and the Environment or other relevant fields in Innovation and Climate.  
• A first University Degree in a relevant field (as above) combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• A minimum of 7 years of proven professional in writing, copy editing and content development for international organizations or media in the field of climate innovation, climate change, environmental innovation, sustainability
• Knowledge and experience in the field of climate innovation for improved waste management and circular economy, last mile energy solutions (especially innovative financing mechanisms such as P-RECs) is desired but not essential.  
• Very familiar with innovation language, including the terminology of frontier technologies (blockchain, AI, etc.)
• Preference is given to candidates who can demonstrate that proposals they have authored have received funding from private sector donors or the public sector for at least 2 proposals they have authored
• Fluency in English is essential. Competence in another UN language is preferred.
• A strong track record of delivering quality written content for external engagement and visibility.
• Knowledge of UNICEF’s and UNICEF’s Office of Innovation’s key messaging and focus areas (including data science, connectivity, open-source technology, working with startups and a range of other partners, etc.) would be an advantage.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Travel

• There will be no travel for this consultancy.

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

• Interested applicant is required to submit a financial proposal with all-inclusive fee. Please indicate the estimated number of days per each deliverable in the financial proposal. Use template provided.
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance (limited to UN official rates), any other estimated costs such as visa and travel/health insurance.
• Applications without a financial proposal will not be considered.
• Interested applicants should submit at least two examples of winning fundraising proposals they have developed.

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. 

ANNEX 1

Template to be used for submission of financial proposal –

 Please replicate tasks and end-product deliverables exactly as shown in the Description of assignment