Overview

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.

Background:

Organizational Context and Purpose for the job

The innovation Officer, with a portfolio including adolescent participation, will work with the innovation unit in UNICEF Tanzania providing cross-sectoral support to implement the innovation strategy in line with the 2016-2021 country programme. The innovation officer will report to the knowledge management specialist, P3. S/He will support innovative digital platforms including U-report, Rapidpro, internet of good things and others  and also proactively seek out new ways for meaningful adolescent participation in Tanzania.

The purpose for the job:

The Innovation Officer reports to the Knowledge Management and Innovation Specialist for supervision.

The overall responsibility of this position is to provide technical level support to innovation and T4D initiatives in the country with a special focus on adolescent participation.

Reporting to the Knowledge Management Specialist, this position supports various activities related to the conceptualization and scale-up of T4D projects in addition to leveraging innovation and knowledge management to handle emerging youth and adolescent issues more effectively for UNICEF Tanzania including ensuring meaningful engagement and participation of adolescent boys and girls.

This function liaises with the stakeholders that include ICT, innovation, programme colleagues and various partners at the project and operations support level to facilitate the contextualization of learnings from innovative programming and pilots for country programme. 

Key end results:

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

Support to programme development, planning, and implementation

• Coordinate various activities for the implementation of the country office innovation strategy with a special focus on the online and offline meaningful participation of adolescents.
• Support work planning, bimonthly, annual reports and monitoring of results for the T4D initiatives and other innovative initiatives in the country.
• Prepare required programme documentations, reports, materials and data to facilitate programme review and approval processes.
• Support country office with the scale of innovative initiatives (RapidPro, U-report etc) including providing sectoral support to leverage innovation and T4D for meaningful participation of adolescent boys and girls.
• Collaboratively work with colleagues and partners to identify implementation issues, provide solutions, recommendations to alert officials and stakeholders of higher-level interventions or decisions.
• Provide support towards RFP, TA and contracting processes and coordinate with external suppliers for T4D and innovation projects.

Knowledge management

• Continuously scan, curate and share best and cutting-edge innovative approaches for identifying and responding to emerging youth and adolescent issues more effectively.
• Contribute to and ensure that innovations knowledge base is up to date including research, analysis documents, and reports.
• Provide support to sections to develop mechanisms to effectively moderate existing or new forums for adolescents to ensure their meaningful participation.
• Manage content and user activity on various forums for adolescents including recommending, planning and implementing an effective mechanism for outreach to users by various sections.
• Support the documentation of learnings from innovative programming and pilots for the country programme by identifying, capturing, synthesizing and sharing lessons learned.

Capacity building and training

• Prepare one-pagers and presentation materials for various tools including RapidPro, T4D platforms and innovative programmes for orientation of staff and partners including government.
• Facilitate workshops together with UNICEF programs and partners, introducing RapidPro and developing real-time monitoring solutions.

Networking and partnership building

• Support in building partnerships with government, national stakeholders, and private sector to facilitate scale and sustain results from innovation and T4D initiatives.
• Proactively research information on potential donors and contribute to the preparation of resource mobilization and fundraising efforts.
• Draft communication materials for country office programme advocacy to promote awareness and utilization of various innovative platforms for meaningful participation of adolescent boys and girls.

Impact of results:

The incumbent will have substantive contribution on the scale up of innovation and T4D initiatives particularly those targeting youth and adolescents in Tanzania including platforms such as RapidPro, U-report, Youth for children innovation hub and others ensuring that youth and adolescent participation is meaningful.  This will ensure that adolescent and youth programmes are better aligned to the actual need of beneficiaries.

Competencies and level of proficiency required

 Core Values

• Commitment
• Diversity and inclusion
• Integrity

Core competencies

• Communication (I)
• Drive for results (II)
• Working with people (I)

Functional Competencies:

• Analyzing (2);
• Applying Technical Expertise (2);
• Formulating Strategies and Concepts (1)
• Planning and Organizing (1)

VI. Recruitment Qualifications

Education:

• Advanced university degree in Information Systems Management, Computer Science, International Affairs, International Relations, International Development, Business Management, or related practical experience.

Experience:

• Minimum two years' experience managing, designing and implementing solutions for large-scale innovation/T4D projects, including supervising engineers and software developers/contractors, responsibility for budgets, contracts and procurement, etc.
• Experience with technology-related projects in a development context and/or the UN.
• Proven skills in training, management, and strategic thinking. Proven ability to conceptualize, plan, and execute ideas as well as transfer knowledge and skills
• Excellent communication skills; written and oral.

 Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of Kiswahili and another official UN language is considered as an asset.

 "UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organization."