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Consultancy Title: Consultant to define the parameters to guide UNICEF’s approach to trust funds

Section/Division/Duty Station: Programme Strategy and Coordination Hub, Programme Group, UNICEF NYHQ

Duration: 15 February 2025 to 31 May 2025

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ / Remote

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

BACKGROUND 

Brokering and nurturing global partnerships for children with the potential for meaningful impact at scale is one of UNICEF's core strategies to achieve results for children. UNICEF supports global programme partnerships by engaging as a partner globally and in the country, participating in their governance, or, in selected instances, hosting them.   UNICEF trust funds are an important tool in the development finance space. At present, UNICEF manages three types of trust funds; (i) procurement services; (ii) hosted funds and (iii) non-hosted trust funds.   These trust funds serve as financial platforms that enable donors to pool resources for specific priority issues. In some cases, the strategic value lies in a partner's ability to convene stakeholders and influence global agenda-setting, political processes, and policy. UNICEF assumes different roles in trust funds; in all trust funds, UNICEF acts as Fund Custodian and Administrator, and as host of the secretariat and in some cases as implementing agency.

Following an internal audit in 2023, the UNICEF Programme Group led an internal stock-take of Hosted Partnerships to ensure UNICEF is maximizing the investment in its hosted partnerships. Learning and recommendations that were distilled from this exercise were presented to internal stakeholders in August 2023 for validation and to inform decision making. The internal stock take highlighted the need to:

• Clarify hosted funds value proposition and define the unique added value that each hosted partnership brings to UNICEF.  This includes funding, advancing programme priorities, ability to coordinate and convene and political and policy influence.
• Avoid over-expansion of mandates and potential duplication of efforts.
• Ensure robust governance structures and risk management practices.
• Support national plans and systems as opposed to fragmented and ineffective implementation arrangements.
• Implement strong results management frameworks to measure impact and accountability.
• Minimize the dependency of hosted partnerships on UNICEF's support and leadership.

In July 2024, a Procedure was issued outlining the framework and accountabilities for accepting, governing, and managing hosted funds and partnerships at UNICEF.  UNICEF currently hosts four global programme partnerships:  Global Partnership and Fund to End Violence Against Children (EVAC); Sanitation and Water for All (SWA); Education Cannot Wait (ECW); Education Outcome Fund (EOF). 

Purpose of Activity/Assignment:

Develop a paper for ‘High-Potential Opportunities for Trust Funds’, that provides concrete and actionable recommendations and parameters for a new generation of programme and partnership trust funds, including hosted funds.

Scope of Work:

1. Literature Review, internal assessment, and benchmarking.
2. Analyse the performance of hosted funds and trust funds, including multi-partner mechanisms.
3. Lessons Learned analysis.
4. Define clear parameters.
5. Develop a ‘high potential opportunities paper’ that distils key lessons from successful models or those showing strong potential.

These activities are broken down into specific outputs linked to key deliverables, in the work assignments table below.

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

Literature Review, Internal Assessment and Benchmarking

• Conduct one landscape analysis comprising of a comprehensive review of existing literature, case studies, and best practices related to programme and partnership trust funds in the development sector.
• Assess the current state of UNICEF's programme and partnership trust funds by conducting a desk review, in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, analyzing existing processes and the recently rolled out Procedure, governance structures, and administrative and financial management arrangements.
• Benchmark UNICEF's current approach against other organizations with similar initiatives.
• Identify key trends, emerging challenges, and opportunities in the field of trust funds (15 March 2025)

Lessons Learned Analysis

• Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) of UNICEF's current approach and analyze past experiences to identify key lessons learned and best practices for future initiatives.
• Develop a framework for capturing and sharing lessons learned across the organization (1 April 2025)

Defining Clear Parameters    

Strategic Vision Development:

• Develop a clear strategic vision for UNICEF's approach to trust funds including hosted partnerships, aligned with the organization's overall goals and objectives.
• Define the desired outcomes and impact of programme and partnership trust funds on children.

Value Proposition Development:

• Identify UNICEF's unique value proposition in the context of programme and partnership trust funds.

Partnership Criteria Establishment:

• Develop a set of criteria (parameters) for selecting and evaluating potential programme and partnership trust funds.
• Consider factors such as alignment with UNICEF's mandate and strategic priorities, potential impact, resource requirements, and the partner's ability to convene stakeholders and influence global policy and advocacy (30 April 2025)

Develop a high potential opportunity paper.

• Drawing from the landscape analysis produce one detailed summary of key high potential opportunities identified for further exploration (31 May 2025)

Qualifications

Education: 

Advanced university degree (Masters) in Social Sciences, International Relations, Economics, Policy Studies, or other related fields.

Work experience:

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *: 

• English both oral and written is a must. Ability to read, analyze and interpret complex documents is required.
• Minimum eight (8) years progressively responsible professional level experience in the areas of resource mobilization, strategic partnerships, policy analysis and or other relevant areas.  Demonstrable experience in leading similar scoping and criteria setting exercises highly desirable.

Requirements:

Completed profile in UNICEF's e-Recruitment system and

- Upload copy of academic credentials

- Financial proposal that will include/ reflect :

• • the costs per each deliverable and the total lump-sum for the whole assignment (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference.
  • travel costs and daily subsistence allowance, if internationally recruited or travel is required as per TOR.
  • Any other estimated costs: visa, health insurance, and living costs as applicable.
  • Indicate your availability

- Any emergent / unforeseen duty travel and related expenses will be covered by UNICEF.

- At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.

- Payment of professional fees will be based on submission of agreed satisfactory 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.

U.S. Visa information:

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.  

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results. View our competency framework at: Here

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:  

Individuals engaged under a consultancy 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. Consultants 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.