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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, commitment.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment

Most countries in Europe and Central Asia (ECARO) have either graduated to upper-middle or high-income category or are on track to do so. While this process means growing national capacities and social nets, strong areas of exclusion remain. For example, the region has over 13 million children living in poverty, 1 million children in institutions, and important inequities in vaccination rates and quality education. This presents both an opportunity and a challenge for UNICEF. On one hand, evolving capacities present better avenues to test and scale up solutions for children. On the other hand, UNICEF typically faces funding issues when operating in upper-middle-income and high-income countries.

In response to the above, UNICEF ECARO will implement the Business Model Learning Labs (BMLLs) initiative during 2025 and 2026. The BMLLs are designed to identify appropriate business models for UNICEF to operate in countries transitioning to upper-middle-income and high-income status. Achieving this requires integrating various strategies—such as partnerships, technical assistance, evidence generation, and scalability assessments, among others. It is also crucial to ensure financial sustainability through national systems, establishing mechanisms that enable Member States to maintain service delivery independently of UNICEF’s financial support. Additionally, this approach aims to position UNICEF as a preferred partner for technical assistance and strategic, upstream initiatives.

The initiative is built around the principle of rapidly testing and adjusting engagement models. As such, it requires an agile and forward-looking monitoring and evaluation strategy. The strategy should aim to produce a common set of monitoring tools to assess the BMLLs success at leveraging results for children. The senior consultant will identify proximate indicators of leveraging success, but these could revolve around financial commitment from national partners, observed buy-in from key stakeholders, and national acceptance of the children’s rights agenda. In addition, the strategy should consider the potential to scale of each BMLL approach as well as its sustainability.

As such, UNICEF ECARO requires the assistance of a senior level consultant to advise during the kick-off phase of the BMLL initiative and to build a monitoring and evaluation framework to measure its success. Note that while the expert will provide punctual advise on each initiative, it will be through a common analytical framework focused on leveraging potential, not the operational aspects of each of them.

Scope of Work

The consultant will produce a monitoring and evaluation strategy to evaluate the effectiveness of ECARO’s BMLL initiative. The strategy will include monitoring tools, data collection plans, and an evaluation plan to be applied throughout the initiative’s lifecycle. All tools should consider both timely indicators (necessary to course correct) and more robust long term approaches (to properly assess effectiveness).

The senior consultant will work under the supervision of ECAROs’ evaluation specialist and in close coordination with the planning and monitoring team. They will also advise the initiative’s M&E implementation team at later stages of the project.

Objective

The BMLL will be evaluated with a light approach using core metrics/indicators and rapid data collection methods to reduce the reporting burden. The evaluation will be focusing on leveraging effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability. It has the following objectives:

1. Measure the effectiveness and efficiency of each business model in mobilizing financial resources, directly to UNICEF as well as contributions of UNICEF to increase public investments in children through advocacy, evidence generation, and/or other strategy.
2. Assess the potential of each BMLL for scaling results for children.
3. Evaluate adaptability and sustainability of each model through a foresight lens, focusing on future readiness with a light approach.

Evaluation questions

By prioritizing high-level metrics and a concise, foresight-informed approach, UNICEF can evaluate these business models efficiently within the proof of concept’s first year. The outcome will be a clear and actionable summary that supports quick, informed decisions about the scalability of the models. The exercise will be focusing on responding to the overall question "What sustainable business model(s) can UNICEF adopt to support transitioning countries, ensuring lasting national capacity and positioning itself as a top partner for high-impact assistance?"

1. Leveraging: How effectively did each model mobilize resources, and what was the leveraging result?
2. Impact Potential: What short-term results was achieved, and does the model show promise for broader scaling results through the identification of pathways for achieving impact at scale?
3. Adaptability and Sustainability: Is the model adaptable to future funding and regional shifts? What risks or barriers may affect sustainability?
4. Coherence: How does the initiative fit into the CO and RO level, in terms of human capacity and institutional structures?

While this consultancy won’t be able to answer this questions, it will produce all the tools necessary to monitor and evaluate the BMLL initiative. It will also generate a baseline geared towards assessing the potential to success of each BMLL model.

Methodology

The consultant will rely on desk review and expert interviews to scope out the project. The proposed M&E strategy will be light touch and rely, as much as possible, on existing or planned pieces of evidence. Where this is not possible, the consultant will produce monitoring tools (with instruction on when and how to apply them). In all, the M&E strategy should meet a few key criteria:

• Be light weight
• Produce timely evidence
• Rely on evidence from outside UNICEF – stakeholder insights, budget analysis, social media analysis, etc.

The M&E strategy will consider the appropriate evaluation methods to answer each of the evaluation questions. For example, it could propose a return on investment and budget analysis tool to look at leveraging; satisfaction surveys and quick impact methodologies to look at scalability; and foresight methods to look at sustainability. Coherence with the broader RO agenda will likely be measured through a mix of interviews and document review.

The consultant will also apply the baseline component of the strategy. This should take the form of short and digestible briefs with forward looking assessments on the likelihood of success of each learning lab under analysis.

Work Assignment Overview

Estimated Duration of the Contract

30 working days between December 2024 and August 2025.

Consultant's Work Place and Official Travel

The Consultant will be remote/home-based.

As part of this assignment, some international travels are foreseen. The consultant will arrange her/his travel as and when they take place, and related costs will be reimbursed per UNICEF travel policy.

Travel Clause

• All UNICEF rules and regulations related to travel of Consultants apply.
• All travels shall be undertaken only upon the prior written approval by UNICEF.
• The consultant must be fit to travel, be in a possession of the valid UN BSAFE certificate, obligatory inoculation(s) and have a valid own travel/medical insurance and an immunization/vaccination card.

Estimated Cost of the Consultancy & Payment Schedule

Payment will be made on submission of an invoice and satisfactory completion of the above-mentioned deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines. All materials developed will remain the copyright of UNICEF and UNICEF will be free to adapt and modify them in the future.

Please submit a professional fee (in USD) based on 30 working days to undertake this assignment, without travel fees as these will be reimbursed as and when they take place.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master's) in one of the following fields is required: Economics, statistics, computer science, data science, evaluation, political science, public policy, business, and other relevant areas
• A minimum of 8 years of relevant experience including a combination of evaluation of programs and policies, policy design and advice
• Experience in the evaluation of innovation or business model portfolios.
• Knowledge and experience in the application of mixed method evaluation designs to assess scalability and sustainability of policy solutions.
• Knowledge of ROI (or related) methods
• Knowledge in foresight methods would be an asset
• Proficiency in English

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS), and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most marginalized children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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:

Please submit a full CV and a Cover Letter in your application. Additionally, indicate your availability and professional fee (in USD) to undertake the terms of reference above. Applications submitted without a professional fee will not be considered. 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.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants 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.