UNICEF has a 70-year history of innovating for children. We believe that new approaches, partnerships and technologies that support realizing children’s rights are critical to improving their lives.

The Office of Innovation is a creative, interactive, and agile team in UNICEF. We sit at a unique intersection, where an organization that works on huge global issues meets the start-up thinking, the technology, and the partners that turn this energy into scalable solutions.

UNICEF's Office of Innovation creates opportunities for the world's children by focusing on where new markets can meet their vital needs. We do this by:

• Connecting youth communities (or more broadly -- anyone disconnected or under-served) to decision-makers, and to each other, to deliver informed, relevant and sustained programmes that build better, stronger futures for children.
• Provoking change for children through an entrepreneurial approach -- in a traditionally risk averse field -- to harness rapidly moving innovations and apply them to serve the needs of all children.

Creating new models of partnership that leverage core business values across the public, private and academic sectors in order to deliver fast, and lasting results for children.

For every child...innovate

How can you make a difference?

Through a problem-driven approach guided by the respective UNICEF Programme Groups (PG), each innovation portfolio is committed to supporting the identification, development and scale-up of country-level innovative solutions, to meet the demands and priorities in line with UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025, and ultimately the attainment of related SDGs. 

 
UNICEF’s Health Innovation portfolio strives to accelerate the UNICEF health programme results for children through game-changing innovations, focusing on priority areas where innovation can make a huge difference including immunization, community health, community health worker support, and strategic partnerships. This position is focused specifically on the use of AI in immunization.

UNICEF’s role in innovation for health is to leverage industry, the private sector, funders and donors to ensure when developing solutions they build with the most marginalized children in mind, this is who UNICEF must reach by working hand in hand with government partners. UNICEF does not develop AI solutions beyond prototypes, but having the expertise required within our organization to identify, adapt, co-create, validate and safely scale solutions for health outcomes is crucial.

Objectives

The consultant will be responsible for supporting the health innovation team in leading our AI for Public Health and Immunization initiative. This will include supporting the engagement with external stakeholders: private sector, start-ups, donors and the internal: UNICEF Health Programme Group, regional offices (ROs) and country offices (COs), facilitating consultations to identify needs and opportunities, supporting horizon scanning for needs and emerging health innovations, and supporting partnership efforts to ensure impactful and scalable health solutions.

The primary use cases under consideration include, but are not limited to:

• Identifying platforms for monitoring and predicting vaccine stock outs.
• Predicting immunization coverage.
• Predicting outbreaks to inform preventative campaigns and actions.
• Identifying models and solutions for training of community health workers in low-income countries.
• Reducing administrative burden for health workers through task shifting.
• Supporting and complementing ongoing GIS modeling efforts.
• Other additional opportunities for AI for community health.

Your main responsibilities will be:

1. Field Consultations and Engagement to understand the need:
   • Conduct field consultations with country offices, regional offices, and relevant partners to gather insights on needs, gaps, and opportunities for AI in health, community health worker support, and innovative approaches to scale impact.
   • Organize and facilitate virtual and in-person consultation workshops to align CO efforts with global health innovation strategies.
   • Document and analyze field feedback to identify priority areas and refine the innovation focus within the roadmap.
   • Support in research and learnings related to AI for Health and related innovations.
2. Horizon Scanning and AI sector engagement:
   • Identify and map emerging AI innovations across focus areas.
   • Build collaborations with relevant companies, entrepreneur and academic institutions.
   • Develop a database of promising innovations and solutions, including both internal and external sources, and assess their potential scalability and alignment with UNICEF’s priorities.
   • Leverage the use of innovative entrepreneurship models to facilitate design and development of AI for community health and immunization.
   • Support the development of guiding criteria for sourcing "game-changing" solutions, using frameworks such as UNICEF’s 5D innovation model.
3. Operationalization Support and Country Deployment:

• Provide support to help operationalize the roadmap in focus countries.
• Develop validation frameworks for AI models against the main use cases in line with UNICEF data policies.
• Support the technical assistance to drive successful identification, sourcing and implementation and scale of innovative solutions.
• Support training and capacity development for piloting AI solutions for immunization in country programmes.
• Facilitate communications with partners and internal stakeholders to ensure alignment and support partnership and resource mobilization efforts.

Please see detailed (TOR) Terms of Reference  ToR Health innovation consultant.pdf 

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

• Advanced university degree in Public Health, Data Science or Machine Learning. *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• At least 5 years of experience in health innovation, health programming and project management.
• Strong understanding of the health programming and health innovation landscape, including AI, digital health, and community health interventions.
• Demonstrated experience with partnership building, resource mobilization, and capacity-building initiatives.
• Experience working in developing countries is a plus.
• Candidates with experience developing or scaling AI software in the private sector are welcome.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to synthesize complex information and translate it into actionable recommendations for health programming and innovation.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and analytical skills.
• Fluency in English (spoken and written).

Travel:

• The consultant may be expected to travel to Stockholm, Sweden and selected countries of deployment during the period, the length of each trip is expected to be four (4) days. Additional trips may occur based on 2025 workplan.
• The consultant is also expected to travel on mission.
• Consultant is eligible for standard DSA for all work-related travel.
• The contract will include reimbursement budget for travel and subsistence costs based on:
  • Reimbursement of economy class flight cost upon submission of receipts based on actual travel.
  • Payment of DSA/per diem based on actual travel days applicable during the month of travel, not exceeding the official rate.
  • The travel payment will be included in the lumpsum and may be revised towards the end of the contract based on the travel amounts claimed.
• Consultant will be responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa.
• Payment of professional fees will be based on the submission of agreed 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.   Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.

How to apply:

• Interest applicant is required to submit a financial proposal with all-inclusive fee.  Please see the financial proposal template.  Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx
• No need to estimate and include mission travel related cost in the all-inclusive fee.
• Applications without a financial proposal will not be considered.

General Terms and Conditions:  

Please review UNICEF's General Terms and Conditions for Consultants here for important information regarding contract obligations, including medical insurance, SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) vaccination, and income tax requirements.

 For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

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.

Contact: For any queries, please contact: swe-ooi-recruitments@unicef.org