Job Summary:

The Office of Innovation (OoI) works to catalyse UNICEF’s and all its partners’ expertise and resources against key children-outcomes bottlenecks to continuously ideate and scale the most effective solutions with transformational potential at scale to achieve the child-related SDGs.

The office is doing this by continuously exploring new ways of accelerating results for children, investing across a range of early-stage solutions, harnessing internal and external expertise towards continuously iterating and finetuning the most promising solutions for children through a systematic portfolio management approach, and leveraging all stakeholders’ innovation energy, knowhow and resources from intergovernmental, multilateral, private sector and non-governmental fora (think tank, academia).

The Multiregional Innovat

Responsibilities: 

ion Manager is pivotal in proactively fostering and developing innovation ecosystems within UNICEF programming countries across the assigned regions. This position serves as a critical link between UNICEF country offices, Regional Offices, and the Office of Innovation (OOI) at headquarters, facilitating a dynamic exchange of ideas, strategies and resources. The manager collaborates with diverse stakeholders to align innovation initiatives with UNICEF’s Innovation Strategic Plan and regional priorities while building on country context. The role will provide support to RO and country offices on aspects of innovation, build capacity within country offices and provide technical support on key innovation portfolio initiatives in UNICEF’s priority programme areas, as agreed in the Global Innovation Board (May, 2024) and alignment with Regional Flagship initiatives and regional innovation portfolios. The role will help increase closer collaboration between UNICEF OOI, ROs, and the field.

The main purpose of the role is to enhance the capacity of ECAR and MENAR promote, nurture and scale-up innovation efforts in the regions.

Under the general direction of the Global Strategy and Capacity Building Innovation Manager (Portfolio, Culture and Scale) and the Deputy Regional Director(s) of ECARO and MENARO and working closely with T4D, the Multiregional Innovation Manager will support country offices with:

• Strategic innovation advisory and portfolio management
• Promoting innovation and provide technical assistance for the implementation of programmes
• Partnership & engagement
• Knowledge management & community development
• Planning & reporting

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here:  JD_MultiRegion Innovation Manager .pdf

Qualifications:

Minimum requirements:

• Education: An advanced university degree (Masters or higher) in Social Sciences, Humanities, International Relations, Economics, Business or another relevant field. Experience in innovation strategy or related disciplines preferred.
  *A first degree plus an additional 2 years of experience may be accepted in lieu of a Master’s degree.

• Work Experience:
  • A minimum of 8 years of professional work experience in a relevant field, such as international development, innovation, social innovation or entrepreneurship.
  • A minimum of 3 years of experience in leading innovation projects/programmes in the child rights context.
  • Experience developing innovation strategies or business plans.
  • Experience in building and maintaining a network of stakeholders.
  • Experience in working with multiple countries and with multiple stakeholders.
  • Evidenced experience in fundraising for entrepreneurship and skills-building programmes.
  • Familiarity with emerging technologies (e.g., AI, blockchain, IoT) and their potential applications in development contexts.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another UN language is highly desirable.

Desirables:

• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency.
• Experience in project management and coordination of global innovation projects within the UN desirable.
• Experience working in global NGO or multilateral organisations on innovation projects highly preferred, experience in a UN country office acceptable.

Level of Education: Postgraduate Degree

Work Hours: 8

Experience in Months: 96