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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, care.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment

UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO) is seeking a senior innovative financing and partnerships consultant to advise and support the Childcare Accelerator Fund (CAF), particularly to shape and refine the partnership framework and its operational aspects. The senior consultant will bring expertise in multi-lateral donor partnerships, financial structuring, and the establishment of similar social funds or facilities. Preference will be given to candidates with knowledge of or passion for early childhood programs and partnership models in analogous contexts.

Scope of Work

Care plays an essential role in enabling children to thrive, allowing individuals and families to lead fulfilling lives, and fostering societal and economic growth. It includes a broad spectrum of both paid and unpaid activities that underpin human development and well-being. However, care work, especially unpaid care, remains undervalued, disproportionately falls on women and girls, and is particularly burdensome for economically disadvantaged households.

Several reasons explain women’s low participation in the labor market in Europe and Central Asia, among which their disproportionate role in providing unpaid care, including childcare for early childhood education, disability, and long-term care, as well as eldercare, is a key reason. Childcare, in particular, has been left on the backburner in many countries, putting women under increasing pressure. In the absence of affordable, quality public early childhood education and care systems, households—particularly women—bear the brunt of caregiving, a key driver of gender and socioeconomic inequalities. On average in Europe and Central Asia, just 1 in 2 young children have access to preschool education, pointing to massive gaps in provision, missed opportunities for human capital development, and opportunity for women to re-enter the labor market. Numbers are much lower for childcare for 0–3-year-olds. Further, paid care work is also highly informal, characterized by poor working conditions and weak labor protections.

Even some of the region’s richest countries fail to offer comprehensive solutions to all families. For most countries in Europe and Central Asia, this poses a self-perpetuating setback: already existing high unemployment among women, and nations missing on a valuable human capital resource due to low provisions for children and low female labor force participation. Affordable, accessible, and quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) opportunities, provides significant and longstanding positive impacts and benefits not only for children and working mothers, but also for the business environment and the economy. Investments in critical social services in the early years of a child’s life are known to be a key catalyst in boosting human capital.

To support governments to close the early childhood education and care gap, particularly through expanding ECEC provision, UNICEF is seeking to launch a Childcare Accelerator Fund/Facility (CAF). For governments, the CAF will be a source of technical support to identify existing bottlenecks to scaling ECEC using evidence and analytic tools, receive implementation support to drive comprehensive reforms in ECEC to address bottlenecks and to support system-level coherence and alignment while ensuring legislation, governance mechanisms and policies speak to one another, and finally to innovate, pilot and scale successful models of ECEC for under 3 year olds. For partners, the CAF offers a timely opportunity to pool and leverage resources and knowhow to support governments in innovating and scaling with an eye to quality and equity. As the host of the CAF and the convenor, UNICEF seeks to bring together different partners (public, private and philanthropy) to support governments benefiting from the CAF in identifying and unlocking opportunities and resources to finance and sustain key reforms in ECEC.

UNICEF ECARO is looking for a technically sound, savvy consultant with experience in conceptualizing or managing multi-lateral donor partnerships, financial structuring, and the establishment of similar social funds or facilities. The consultant must be able to deliver within tight timelines, work independently and collaboratively across teams, and will be instrumental in establishing the CAF design, and ensuring the operational aspects and partnership frameworks are technically sound, attractive and viable. Specifically, the consultant will:

• Support the design and development of the CAF for ECEC and structuring the fund to attract and engage partners and mobilize resources
• Contribute to supporting successful leveraging of resources that positively impact young children and their families with ECEC
• Contribute to successfully securing different partners to contribute to the CAF

The consultant will work with the regional ECEC lead, the ECEC technical consultant, and will be an extended part of the regional ECD and Partnerships teams.

Key tasks and areas of work include:

1. Define and develop the concept and operational modalities of the CAF

• Scan the external environment for similar examples and emerging learning from social funds targeting the early years or similar development themes , in different contexts and their alignment with UNICEF’s mandate and operational modalities
• Through a series of bilateral conversations, engage key internal and external stakeholders to refine and finalize the concept of the CAF, including a clear and well-articulated theory of change, fund structure and conceptualization, and accompanying results framework, ensuring that the CAF complies with internal rules, regulations and governance mechanisms
• Finalize procedures for UNICEF’s engagement with national governments benefitting from the CAF
• Create a short- and medium-term work plan for the CAF that covers key components around resource mobilization and potential innovative financing modalities, partnerships, and CAF replenishment

2. Partnership development and stakeholder management

• Shape and execute partnership approaches, in collaboration with the partnerships team to foster meaningful relationships with key external stakeholders. Work with the partnerships team to craft and execute partner engagement plans to cultivate and maintain meaningful relationships with key partners, identifying new opportunities for collaboration and engagement through the CAF.
• Identify and shortlist key partners (institutional investors, financial institutions, private companies, high net worth individuals, national governments) who could be invited as partners for the CAF
• Prepare and deliver compelling, high-quality presentations, briefs, proposals and other collaterals for key stakeholders, including potential investors and partners to demonstrate viability and potential impact and results to be achieved. Where relevant, also work with the communications team, contributing to the development of communication assets regarding the CAF
• Identify key external fora where helpful to showcase and position the CAF as a mechanism for leveraging resources for social impact targeting young children and their families, women with young children, and businesses
• Create a tiered and differentiated partnership engagement strategy to build and maintain strong relationships with above mentioned key partners, identifying key moments to engage, secure and sustain interest in the CAF
• Organize a series of bi- and multilateral partnership dialogues with key partners (including agenda creation, stakeholder management, documentation of outcomes and development of post-meeting materials) regarding the CAF, including support toward organizing the high-level official launch of the CAF
• Secure investments from key partners to maximize resources available for disbursement through the CAF

3. Risk management and governance of the CAF

• Create draft memorandums of understanding, standard operating procedures and other governance frameworks and documentation to ensure transparency and risk management
• Create a clear verifying and vetting process for selecting national government partners who would benefit from the CAF and for selecting partners to invite to engage with the CAF (e.g. screening, due diligence, risk assessment, alignment of goals etc.)
• Proactively identify and assess potential risks in the development and execution of the CAF and develop risk mitigation frameworks and strategies based on UNICEF’s internal guidelines to address risks and bottlenecks, and resolving challenges
• Establish a board who can lend strategic advice and insights at key moments and support with the governance of the CAF

4. Ongoing Technical Assistance (TA) support on the smooth design and implementation of the CAF and BMLL

• Develop evidence-driven strategies for measuring the impact of the CAF on intended outcomes and aligned with the results framework
• Work with the ECEC team to lend technical advice and insights around subregional analysis, feasibility analysis and scoping of innovative financing opportunities in select countries on ECD (ECEC/parenting)
• Maintain clear records of ongoing decision-making, shifts and pivots in modalities, and create organized folders with updated documentation to enable transparency and in support of the evaluation of the CAF
• Contribute to reporting efforts outlining key activities, changes in plan and results achieved
• Contribute to updates to senior management including briefing notes and talking points as needed

Work Assignment Overview

Estimated Duration of the Contract

60 working days between February and October 2025.

Consultant's Work Place and Official Travel

The Consultant will be remote/home-based with no travels foreseen.

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 60 working days to undertake this assignment.

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

• Advance degree (Master's) in Business development, finance for social impact/development finance, public or business administration or closely related field is required. A first university degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of relevant experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced university degree
• At least ten years minimum of relevant professional experience in partnership management, innovative financing in the social sector, or business development
• Demonstrated experience designing and establishing social impact funds or facilities similar to the proposed CAF
• Strong financial acumen in international finance/development finance/impact investing with the ability to conceptualize and advise on fund structuring and operational models.
• Demonstrated success in advisory roles related to fund development and implementation processes.
• Proven experience working with multilateral donor and engaging in partnership development with diverse stakeholder group including developing multistakeholder partnerships and resource mobilization with International Financial Institutions/Development Finance Institutions/private sector. Demonstrated ability to think and act strategically, identify partnership opportunities for co-funding and alignments to advance impact
• Strong relationship-building skills with demonstrated ability to influence others in strategic ways while building impactful opportunities for mutual engagement and collaboration
• Demonstrated ability to undertake initiative, ability to work under competing timelines in high-pressure situations, and work collaboratively and creatively with teams
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including presentation skills and crafting high-level strategic messaging to influence and engage key partners
• Knowledge of early childhood education programs, particularly in designing partnerships and funding mechanisms within this sector is desirable.
• Relevant experience in and knowledge of a UN system agency or organization is considered as an asset.
• Fluency in English is essential. Knowledge of a language relevant to the region (Serbo-Croatian, Russian) is an asset.

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 include a full CV, a Cover Letter, and samples of previous relevant work (max 2 pages) 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.