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, [an advocate]

UNICEF is mandated to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, and the Strategic Plan recognizes the importance of advocacy to deliver against UNICEF’s mission and secure programmatic results for children. Advocacy plays an essential role in supporting and pressing governments and other influential actors to ensure measurable, sustainable change for children, whether through private influencing, mobilizing public support, policy advice, or a holistic blended approach. As highlighted in the Global Communication and Advocacy Strategy, truly global or ‘glocal’ advocacy requires identifying strategic advocacy opportunities at the national, regional, and global levels, and working together to capitalize on these opportunities to advance advocacy goals. We accelerate our impact for children by building, strengthening and leveraging the full advocacy strength of the organization.

The Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative (ACBI) within the Advocacy Section, Division of Global Communications and Advocacy, requires consultancy services to support the strengthening of UNICEF advocacy skills, capacity and knowledge at a global, regional, and country level.

How can you make a difference?

The purpose of the consultancy is to support the Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative (ACBI) to continue to strengthen global advocacy skills, including supporting Country Offices, Regional Offices and National Committees through bespoke advocacy capacity, strategy development and monitoring. The consultant will also be responsible for supporting the design and development of workshops, tools, and templates to strengthen strategic advocacy capacity and advocacy monitoring across various operating contexts.

Expected results: (measurable results)

The ACBI is supported in effectively building advocacy skills, knowledge, and confidence of UNICEF staff across HQ, COs, ROs, and NatComs, through:

1. Development of advocacy training modules, resources, templates, and tools tailored to specific operating environments
2. Conceptualizing and delivering advocacy workshops tailored to specific global, national and/or regional priorities
3. Strengthening institutional advocacy practice by effective documenting and dissemination of lessons learnt and good practices

Description of the assignment

The purpose of the consultancy is to support the Advocacy Section in:

1. Development of Advocacy Training Modules, guidance, resources, tools, templates etc.

• Develop workshop content and designing sessions to create a cadre of trainers as well as build colleagues’ advocacy capacity and skills on advocacy strategy, implementation, tactics (including use of communication tools for advocacy) and monitoring – specific to varied contexts.
• Support the development of advocacy tools and templates, to complement colleagues’ advocacy skills. This includes creating of workshop modules that can be adapted and implemented by UNICEF staff across Regional and Country Offices.
• Support stronger integration of advocacy into UNICEF Programme Planning, working with Division of Analytics, Planning and Monitoring, Regional Offices and other key internal stakeholders, including documenting best practice examples from offices, as relevant.
• Support the development of easily adaptable tools, templates, resources to strengthen understanding and implementation of the standard advocacy indicators to monitor advocacy standards, practice, tactics etc.

2. Delivering Global, Regional and National Advocacy Capacity Building Workshops

• Support the strengthening of strategic advocacy knowledge, skills, and confidence at the global, regional and country level.
• Facilitate virtual and/or in-person advocacy capacity building workshops in headquarters and selected regions and countries to build advocacy knowledge, skills, and confidence of colleagues across UNICEF.
• Provide virtual/in-person bespoke advocacy capacity building and advocacy strategy development support to Country Offices, aligned with broader Advocacy Section priorities.
• Support the building of strategic links between global and national advocacy on UNICEF Global Advocacy Priorities/focus areas.
• Additional tasks as agreed with supervisor.

3.  Ensure cross-organizational learning through Advocacy Portal Update and Maintenance, Knowledge Management and planning for key advocacy meeting, webinars etc.

• Contribute to the maintenance of the Advocacy Portal, based on recommendations of the user testing carried out with Regional and Country office staff, so that it is a go to hub for advocacy resources, templates, and examples staff across the organization. This includes restructuring the website including with a dedicated area to act as a guide for advocacy strategy development.
• Develop advocacy practice case studies to enable cross-organizational learning and maintaining the Advocacy Portal with useful advocacy tools, templates, and resources to support advocacy planning and implementation across UNICEF.
• Support strengthening of institutional advocacy practice, including through documenting and disseminating advocacy lessons, good practices and organizing speaker series’, spotlight webinars and advocacy awards, among others.

Duty Station

Remote

 Travel (If Applicable)

The Consultant will not be entitled to any separate travel entitlements under the Contract. All expenditure related to the travel plans set out in the Contract are deemed to be covered as per financial proposal. If UNICEF determines that the Consultant unexpectedly needs to travel in addition to the travel already included in the Contract in order to perform the Deliverables, such travel shall be further added through an amendment setting out the additional fee in consideration of the additional travel requirements on the following basis:
(a) UNICEF will pay for travel in economy class via the most direct and economical route; provided however that in exceptional circumstances, such as for medical reasons, travel in business class may be approved by UNICEF on a case-by-case basis.
(b) UNICEF will reimburse the Consultant for out-of-pocket expenses associated with such travel by paying an amount not exceeding the daily subsistence

Timeframe

Start date: 23 October 2024

End date: 22 October 2025

Working under the supervision of and close collaboration with the ACBI Manager or their designate, the consultant (advocacy specialist) will deliver the following;

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS).

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

• Bachelor’s degree in public policy, Political Science, International Relations, International Development, Public Administration, Business Administration, Economics, or related field.
• At least five years’ experience (the consultancy is at the mid-level) in advocacy and campaign strategy development and execution, preferably on both a global and national level.
• Experience in developing clear theories of change, with specific, measurable and timebound objectives and performance indicators.
• Experience in strategic public engagement activity, based on an understanding of the target audience.
• Strong track record in writing engaging campaign narratives and delivering creative campaign tactics.
• Demonstrated experience in design and management of projects, including budget management and monitoring of results.
• Experience in operating independently at a senior level and in providing expert advice and support on advocacy and campaigns.
• Knowledge of international development, humanitarian issues and children’s rights.
• Experience working for an advocacy or campaigning organization e.g., international, or national nongovernmental organizations, United Nations or other multilateral organization.
• Experience working in a developing and emergency environment is an asset.
• Fluency in English (both written and verbal) is required. Other UN languages is an asset.

Competencies of Successful Candidate

• Builds and maintains partnerships: Build a network of external stakeholders and alliances with government counterparts, civil society, and the private sector, in order to promote and advance the work of the organization (Level 1)
• Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness: Self-aware of own strengths, limitations, working style and deeply held convictions and biases. Displays ethical awareness through behaviours that are consistent and compliant with the standards of conduct for international civil servants, UNICEF’s values and relevant UNICEF policies and procedures (Level 1)
• Drive to achieve results for impact: Commits to action and assumes responsibility and ownership for own performance and the associated outcomes (Level 1)
• Innovates and embraces change: Is open to and proposes new approaches and ideas. Adapts and responds positively to change. (Level 1)
• Thinks and acts strategically: Demonstrate resilience and composure, get things done despite challenges and maintain performance levels in pressured, adverse, and uncertain environments. (Level 1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity: Understands the big picture and is able to identify potential opportunities for action and challenges that exist. Forms sound evidence-based judgements in the delivery of UNICEF’s results (Level 1)
• Works collaboratively with others: Establish and maintain mutually supportive working relationships, demonstrating sensitivity to people of diverse backgrounds, respecting differences, and ensuring that all can contribute and succeed. (Level 1)

To view our competency framework, please visit  here.

Child data role (YES or NO – please select accordingly)

More information is available in the Child Safeguarding SharePoint and Child Safeguarding FAQs and Updates

If yes, please indicate the number of hours/months of manipulating or transmitting personal-identifiable information of children (name, national ID, location data, photos):

Application Guidance
All applications must contain the following (incomplete applications will not be taken into consideration)

1. Fully completed  Technical Proposal Form – Updated 10 July 2023.xlsx

2. Fully completed  Financial Proposal Form – Updated 10 July 2023.xlsx

3. Fully completed applicant online applicant profile

4. Cover letter

5. Resume

EVALUATION AND SELECTION PROCESS

Technical Assessment Criteria (applications will be evaluated based on the following technical criteria):

FEE

Requests for services under an individual contract requires that the consultant indicates their all-inclusive fees (including lump sum travel and subsistence costs, as applicable) for the services to be provided.

 

When submitting their bid, the consultant is also advised to take into consideration as part of their bid for the assignment the cost of health insurance and/or photographic, video-graphic equipment if such equipment is needed to complete the deliverables of the assignment.

Health Insurance

The Consultant is fully responsible for arranging, at their own expense, such life, health, and other forms of insurance covering the term of the Contract as he or she considers appropriate. The Consultant is not eligible to participate in the life or health insurance schemes available to UNICEF and United Nations staff members.

VISA REQUIREMENTS

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.    

IMPORTANT – G4 Visa is only valid if the consultant will reside within the tri-state area during the duration of the assignment. It is illegal to apply and obtain a visa for consultants who do not intend to reside within the tri-state area during the duration of the consultancy assignment.

IMPORTANT NOTE

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.