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Consultancy Title: Climate, environment, energy and DRR (CEED) Data and Evidence consultant

Section/Division/Duty Station: Programme Group, Climate Environment Energy & Disaster, UNICEF NYHQ

Duration: December 23, 2024, to December 23, 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

Purpose of Activity/ Assignment: 

Provide technical support for UNICEFs climate and environmental foundational data and analysis initiatives.

Disasters, climate change, and environmental degradation present significant and escalating threats to the well-being of children globally. In order to protect the lives, health and well-being of children and the resilience of their communities to adapt essential social services to a changing climate, more frequent/extreme disasters and a degrading environment, comprehensive child-centered risk assessment along with data systems and policies that work across development and disaster management to identify and prioritize the most vulnerable children and services are needed. This data can be used to inform multiple purposes: climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and preparedness planning, and wider development agendas.

Foundational data and evidence provide UNICEF offices with the necessary support they need to integrate sustainability, low-carbon development and climate and disaster resilience into programming, operations, and advocacy. This crucial first step enables teams to optimize their approach and actions to effectively engage in sustainability and climate action. In addition, demonstrating increased capacity and readiness to fulfill this mandate is increasingly essential for securing additional finance, which is crucial for maximizing the impact of our initial investment in sustainability and climate action.

UNICEF is seeking a dedicated, proactive consultant to provide technical support for UNICEFs climate and environmental foundational data initiatives ensuring these are integrated into UNICEFs programming, operations, and advocacy to scale results for children.

This incorporates:

1. Providing monitoring and reporting for the Children’s Climate Risk Index -Disaster Risk Model (CCRI-DRM) that is time sensitive to deliver.
2. Providing technical support to Climate Landscape Analysis for Children (CLAC) reports and guidance materials; and support integration of Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) 2.0, CCRI-DRM and NDCs4EveryChild initiative to global CLAC developments; and,
3. Support the expansion of outreach and communication on climate and environment data for action through engagements with key stakeholders, including organizational partners, children and young people.  These activities emphasize both the expansion of access to data and the promotion of practical, action-oriented use of that data.

Scope of Work:

Under the guidance of the programme specialist, climate, energy, environment and disaster risk reduction, the consultant will perform the following duties:

CCRI-DRM Responsibilities

• Maintain the overall monitoring, reporting and evaluation framework, procedures, and tools for the next phase (12 month over 2024-2025) of the CCRI-DRM Initiative, ensuring full alignment with relevant existing UNICEF systems and processes and add minimum burden to the COs.
• Monitor the CCRI-DRM overall progress, activities and expenditures towards achieving the CCRI-DRM goals and outputs.
• Consolidate data/information/reports from the COs and prepare progress reports (half-yearly and annual) that will need to be submitted to the CCRI-DRM global coordination team, donors and partners.
• Support the organization of half-yearly and annual progress reviews and planning sessions.
• Provide technical assistance to the COs for country-level monitoring and reporting of CCRI-DRM
• Manage internal working space for UNICEF CCRI-DRM participants.
• Provide updates for internal promotion on CCRI-DRM initiative.
• Collaborate with knowledge management lead to convey progress, lessons learnt, visualization development, etc.

CLAC responsibilities

• Develop updated CLAC capacity building materials for staff.
• Providing technical support to Climate Landscape Analysis for Children (CLAC) reports
• Support the integration of key CCRI-DRM, CCRI 2.0 and NDCs4EveryChild interlinkages with CLAC resources.

Climate and Environment Data for Action Expansion and Outreach.

• Data-driven Advocacy:
  • Support UNICEF to use climate and environmental data to raise awareness, drive policy change, and support community-driven solutions.
• Capacity Building:
  • Conduct training sessions to empower country offices to effectively use climate and environmental data for decision-making and sustainable development planning.
  • Maintain current SharePoint sites for Climate and Environment Data initiatives that allow for the sharing and interpretation of climate data across sectors, fostering cross-sectoral collaboration and innovation.
  • Country office and Regional office engagement and feedback mechanisms
• Partnerships for Data Integration:
  • Map and explore partnerships with scientific institutions, technology firms, and environmental organizations to integrate diverse data sources for comprehensive climate action strategies.
  • Integration of CEED data sources to develop comprehensive climate action strategies across sectors, regions and country offices.
  • Compile listing of common support requests to inform future outputs.

Terms of Reference / Key Deliverables:

CCRI-DRM Monitoring and Reporting.

4 policy analysis readouts, including: Development of monitoring, Reporting and Evaluation framework for CCRI-DRM phase II (e.g., including impact indicator and indicator reporting template). M&E data/information system established (including inputs from coordination meeting). Detail regarding all technical inputs that have been provided to the COs as requested during time leading up to deliverable deadline. 4 Quarterly progress reports.

Deadline: Q1: 15 March 2025, Q2: 15 June 2025, Q3: 15 September 2025, Q4: 15 November 2025

CLAC technical support, capacity building, and alignment with other data initiatives.

Conduct 24 CLAC drop in calls with regional teams to improve relevance of CLAC reports. Revise the CLAC pack (CLAC capacity building toolkit for staff) integrating all key recommendations obtained. 10 Climate Landscape Analysis for Children (CLAC) reports prepared.

Deadline: 15 June 2025, 15 December 2025

Climate and Environment Data for Action Expansion and Outreach .

Data-driven Advocacy: Organize a webinar with regional teams to discuss strategies to utilize climate and environmental data for raising awareness. Document the outcomes of this webinar in a report.

Capacity Building: Organize two training sessions for country offices to effectively use climate and environmental data in decision-making and sustainable development planning. Update and revise the CLAC and CCRI-DRM SharePoint sites to include key details as obtained from COs and ROs as sought through a survey. Report detailing a list of support activities provided for interpretation of climate data across various sectors to foster cross-sectoral collaboration and innovation from Jan- Aug 2025.

Partnerships for data Integration: Provide a 1-page mapping of potential partnerships with scientific institutions, technology firms, and environmental organizations. Provide a summary of CEED data integration across various sectors, regions and country offices that has taken place from Jan-Oct 2025. Develop a report detailing supporting activities provided to country and regional offices on partnerships for data integration during the same period. Detail a list of common support requests to inform future outputs.

Deadline: 15 March 2025, 15 September 2025, 15 November 2025

Qualifications

Education: 

Advanced university degree (Masters or higher) in the area of environmental science, environmental policy, political science, communication, international relations, or related degree.

Work experience:

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *: 

• Expert knowledge in monitoring, reporting and evaluation frameworks, procedures, and tools.
• Minimum 3-5 years’ work experience in developing and implementing monitoring, reporting and evaluation frameworks, procedures and tools for multi-country climate change, disaster risk reduction and relevant development and humanitarian projects in international organizations.
• Excellent project management, coordination, communication skills
• Prior UN experience would be a considerable asset.
• Demonstrated advanced data capabilities, especially across climate, environment, energy, and disaster risk reduction contexts.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate and use of Microsoft Office 365.
• Excellent coordination, communication, and partnership development skills.
• Strong writing and communication skills, with the ability to effectively communicate technical climate concepts, both in writing and verbally is required. 
• Fluency in English is required. knowledge of another official UN language is considered as an asset.

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.