Readvertisement-Innovation Specialist, P-3, Nairobi

 Policy and Strategic Development for Digital-enabled Programming

• Digital Transformation and Innovation Strategies
• Provide leadership to development of DX and innovation strategies at RO and CO level; including governance and management, Innovation Portfolio approaches, partnerships and resource mobilization, assessment of gaps, opportunities and scale-up strategy in support of CO priorities.
• Participation in programme and management processes
• Integrate innovation into the programme planning lifecycle. Align with programme priorities (e.g. AWP) and attend planning meetings (PCM) to exercise functional accountabilities.
• Leadership and Quality Assurance
• Oversee development and quality assurance during planning and deployment of innovation initiatives; participate in establishing and maintaining standards, documentation and support mechanisms.

 Manage the Innovation function, and provide technical and programmatic support:

• Business Relationship Management
• Manage Business and Programme Relationship services to define high-level requirements; document and match requirements and guide the design, development and deployment of appropriate Innovative solutions.
• Portfolio Coordination
• Lead deployment of the Innovation portfolio approach to solutions prioritised for UNICEF programming
• Support and assist design of Innovation interventions
• Provide support and technical assistance to the Country Office in the identification, selection, concept design, deployment and sustainability of Innovation interventions to address bottlenecks towards the achievement of programme results.
• Identify and assess new Innovations
• Assist programme sections to identify and assess new initiatives, or new phases of on-going initiatives, with immediate potential to improve UNICEF programming.
• Solution procurement and evaluation
• Assist the review of technical solutions to ensure UNICEF standards are followed; contribute to project management processes, generation and review of terms of reference and vendor selection.
• Deployment advice and support
• Advisory and assistance with implementation strategy, including technical oversight, troubleshooting and the documentation of challenges and resolutions.
• Design thinking
• Support human/user-centred design methods to enable user-acceptance testing, evaluation, documentation and analysis.

Engage and maintain partnerships and networks

• Engage and maintain partnerships and networks
• Develop partnerships and networks with local solution providers, innovators, NGOs, cultural and religious organisations, the private sector, local media and academia to build and provide a space to nurture and test innovative initiatives and build local capacity.
• Advocacy and communications
• Represent the country office in external, inter-agency or partner forums on Innovation.
• Proposal and partnership development
• Identify opportunities for resource mobilisation and new partnerships and lead proposal and partnership development efforts in close collaboration with other Regional Offices, where applicable.
•  Provide advice and support to programme partners
• Provide technical and operational support to a wide range of stakeholders and partners on UNICEF policies, practices, standards and norms.
• Standards and procedures for ownership
• Work with stakeholders to help develop standards, procedures and partnerships for Innovation interventions and their transition to relevant Government and Civil Society Institutions.
• Transfer and skill-sharing for programme partners
• Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing and transfer of knowledge, skills and tools to foster and facilitate innovation-enabled programming.
• Document localized partners and profiles
• Develop a catalogue of potential country specific Innovation partners and their profiles/areas of engagement to promote and enhance UNICEF goals for outcomes for children

Knowledge Management

• Share lessons learned
• Identify, capture, synthesize and share lessons learned from Innovation for integration into broader knowledge development planning, advocacy and communication efforts.
• Landscape mapping
• Maintain an inventory of Innovation interventions, assets, resources and networks.
• Monitoring, evaluation and learning
• Work with PME to ensure documentation and clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for innovation including baseline data collection, on-going monitoring, as well as first phase data collection and analysis.
•  Contribute to Peer Support Networks
• Contribute, share and collaborate with Office of Innovation, with regional and global innovation networks and activities.

 ​​​​​​​Capacity Building

•  Data analysis for evidence generation
• Build capacity of programme staff in analysing the large amounts of data generated through innovation initiatives including the use of data visualization techniques and analytics tools.
• Co-create appropriate solutions
• Work directly with section chiefs to co-create strategies on how innovation can support the country programme.
• Provide training to stakeholders and end-users
• Participate as resource person in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies, capacity and knowledge within the programmes; train UNICEF staff, partners, government counterparts and other end users in innovation approaches and methodologies.

Build awareness around Innovation & Frontier Technology

• Develop capabilities within Country Office on appropriate use of frontier technology and innovations such as UAVs, wearables, IoTs, mobile money, blockchain etc.
• To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum requirements:

• Education : Advanced university degree in International Affairs, International Relations, International Development, Business Management, Computer Science, Data Science, Information Management, or related practical experience
• Work Experience: A minimum of five years of professional experience in ICT management, business analysis or similar, in a large international organization and/or corporation.