Young Climate Innovators Initiative Remote Opportunity At UNICEF

Young Climate Innovators Initiative Remote Opportunity At UNICEF

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, innovate…

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, 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?

Guided by UNICEF’s innovation portfolio management approach, this role will work under the general direction of the Innovation Manager (Climate Change Innovation Portfolio), to provide support to the sourcing of new innovation solutions, scaling of current portfolio solutions, as well as management of existing solutions in the Climate Innovation portfolios. This includes providing direct technical assistance and guidance (from global climate and/or innovation scaling for impact perspectives), supporting fund governance, facilitating regular engagement with project counterparts and stakeholder, and supporting project reporting.

This role will also support the development of strategic initiatives supported by the Climate Innovation portfolio (such as the Emergenging Under-30 Climate Innovators), conceptual design of climate innovation proposals and scaling-up plans, and other relevant development of tools, processes and events that will underpin innovation management of the climate portfolio.

Eample of climate thematic areas within the climate innovation portfolio which will require technical and coordination support by the selected candidate are as follow:

a. 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)

b. Air pollution data modelling to build upon existing work in more than 10 UNICEF Country Offices and incorporating air pollution prediction analytics as per

c. Last mile solutions for renewable energy (especially innovative financing mechanism to fund last mile solarization e.g., P-RECs)

d. Innovative policies which enables young people’s meaningful participation into climate policy debate at national level

About the Young Climate Innovators Initiative

Young people are key stakeholders in shaping climate adaptation and mitigation efforts. They bring fresh perspectives, creativity, and innovative ideas to address the climate challenges affecting their communities. In the last decade, there has been a growing global recognition of youth innovators, and a plethora of scalable innovative solutions abound.

While UNICEF and other UN agencies have already climate programs in place with member states, there remains a disconnect between climate innovations, including youth-led innovations, and government adoption in the trajectory of scale.

The UNICEF Emerging Climate Innovators Shaping the Future Initiative aims to develop a pipeline of proven youth-led interventions (developed by under 30) with the ambition to scale globally through UNICEF’s network of over 190 countries. These solutions will be made available to the public on the UNICEF website as well as to UNICEF colleagues on INVENT – the UNICEF global marketplace for innovation. This will enable UNICEF Country Offices and partner governments to identify proven climate innovation solutions that respond to their programme needs and priorities.

The first global cohort of young, certified climate innovators will be showcased at COP28 (read more here: https://www.cop28.com/en/).

Your main responsibilities will be…

This role will require engagement and experience of climate innovation implementation and scaling. You will:

• Support the Innovation Manager (Climate Change Portfolio) for the development of the Climate Innovation portfolio, including the support to sourcing, brokering and scaling of both new and existing innovation solutions; where relevant, providing direct technical assistance and coordination to the projects / solution within the Climate Innovation portfolio
• Support the existing projects / solutions in Climate Innovation portfolio, including providing advice and support on their implementation and scaling potential, providing support on fund and project governance, and overseeing regular project monitoring and reporting functions guided by the Office of Innovation Performance & Evidence approach.
• Assist in the coordination with relevant stakeholders in thematic teams in Programme Group, Regional offices, Countries offices, partners and other identified focal points for climate innovation
• Support the strategic design and implementation of the Emerging Under-30 Climate Innovators initiative which seeks to build the first OOI cohort of 20 climate innovators under 30 years of age and showcase them at COP28
• Strategic support and other tasks, as agreed by Office of Innovation

Please note that these responsibilities may vary by mutual agreement.

Please click  TOR – Climate Innovation Support.pdf to access the full TOR and related information. 

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher*) in Innovation, Business Administration, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 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 5 years of proven professional experience in managing projects and programme 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.
• Familiar with innovation language, including the terminology of frontier technologies (blockchain, AI, etc.) is an advantage
• Proven capacity to communicate effectively across different mediums to engage and influence complex stakeholders (including senior stakeholders) in order to deliver against challenging targets
• Proven capacity to work with collaborative teams across different locations and with different technical skills
• 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.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another UN language is an asset.

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.

Travel : There will be no travel involvement for this consultancy.

Duty Station: Remote

Duration: 7 months

Insurance:

UNICEF will not be responsible for costs arising from accidents and/or illness incurred during the consultant’s service. Therefore, the selected candidate must provide proof of enrollment in a health/accident plan prior to starting his/her work.

How to apply: 

• Interested applicant is required to submit a financial proposal with all-inclusive fee. Please complete your profile in UNICEF’s e-Recruitment system.
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class), daily subsistence allowance (limited to UN official rates), and other estimated costs such as visa and travel/health insurance. Please indicate your ability, availability and financial proposal (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above.
• Interested applicants should submit at least two examples of winning fundraising proposals they have developed
• Applications submitted without a financial proposal will not be considered.

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.