Consultant (Codification, Results Based Financing), Education Outcomes Fund (EOF), Hosted Fund, 6 Months, REMOTE, Req:570068

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, EDUCATION 

There are few greater challenges faced by the global community than the twin crises of learning poverty and youth unemployment. In response, the Education Commission (chaired by Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister and UN Special Envoy for Global Education) and the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (chaired by Sir Ronald Cohen) came together with our founding CEO (Her Excellency Dr.) Amel Karboul to create EOF. We aim to improve the education and employment outcomes of 10 million children and youth, by supporting governments to utilize a range of innovative finance instruments at scale, including outcomes funds and other results-based financing (RBF) instruments.

EOF is backed by a range of world leaders who support us to shape our approach and achieve our ambitious aims, as well as leaders in education and impact investing:

EOF supports improvements in the quality of education and skills programs, with a special focus on girls and underserved populations, including those in the hardest to reach rural areas. It measures (and pays for) what matters – both core skills like literacy and numeracy, but also critical 21st Century skills such as socio-emotional skills, ICT skills, and other broader fundamentals of a quality education. It helps close the persistent gap between the skills needed by employers and those attained by today’s youth.

For all the above, EOF pays primarily on the basis of the results achieved, ensuring that taxpayer-funded domestic resources, aid, and philanthropic funds are only used to pay for what works. This is a game-changing way to finance results in education, focusing attention and realigning systems on the most challenging but most important measure of a program’s performance: whether it is improving lives.

Together with our supporters, we believe this is the early stages of a much larger movement, with huge potential to increase learning outcomes for children and youth around the world, though improved aid effectiveness and government spending.

Since our inception in 2018, EOF has:

• Partnered with governments in Ghana and Sierra Leone to establish the two largest outcomes funds to date in developing countries, mobilising ~$50M for these programs.
• Established itself as a leading global player in RBF, and the only dedicated center of expertise for RBF in education and skills.
• Become the first outcomes fund hosted by the United Nations within UNICEF, as a scalable platform to partner with governments around the world.
• Established a major partnership with the LEGO Foundation, to develop a scale portfolio of RBF programs in early childhood across a diverse range of countries, as well as to amplify the movement and ecosystem of partners around this approach.
• Had our innovative approach featured in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, FT, Economist, Brookings, and more.
• Built our institutional capacity to contract and implement large-scale outcomes funds more efficiently and effectively than historic impact bonds.
• Established a strong culture of performance and an active focus on ongoing professional development for all our team.

How can you make a difference?

PURPOSE OF THE ASSIGNMENT

Component 1: RBF Onboarding:
Support EOF to develop a comprehensive, technical Results-Based Financing (RBF) onboarding program. This on-boarding program will include three levels, to meet the needs of different target audiences within EOF:

• Level 1: Introduction to Results-Based Financing and the innovative financing sector (targeted at all EOF personnel).
• Level 2: More in-depth overview of Results-Based Financing, explaining the different mechanisms and the logic on why EOF has chosen to use Outcomes Funds in particular (targeted at Partnerships and Programs personnel).
• Level 3: How to design and implement outcomes funds (targeted at Programs personnel).

Level 3 of this on-boarding program will be targeted towards technical, programs team personnel to ensure that they are well equipped to start working on the design and implementation of outcomes fund programs. We are looking to put in place an effective onboarding program that covers not only an introduction to RBF, but also provides a practical and hands-on guide to enable new starters to get up to speed quickly. We are looking for a mixed approach for onboarding, that includes informative sessions and resources, while also offering hands-on activities and case studies for new starters to put their new knowledge to the test and learn through doing.

Component 2: RBF Codification:
As EOF designs and launches multiple outcome funds, it is important to ensure standardisation to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness. In order to do that, our approach to RBF and outcomes funds needs to be documented and codified, in a way for current and future teams to understand.

The aim is to have a clear EOF identify in the programs we launch, and also ensure teams are leveraging existing internal knowledge and experience to avoid duplicating efforts. We require the consultant to support in the creation of technical frameworks as well as documenting our approach to RBF.

DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENT

Deliverable	Description	Estimated number of working days	Deadline/ timeline
Component 1: RBF onboarding
Deliverable 1: Develop an Onboarding Plan to outline a strategy for a revised onboarding program (an estimated 2-page Word document).	Review existing EOF onboarding material, conduct a skills-gap analysis within the team, and outline a strategy for a revised onboarding program, including a suggested schedule of modules and materials to produce. Incorporate feedback from EOF’s leadership team.	3 days	End of March
Deliverable 2: Detailed onboarding schedule (an estimated 10-page Word document).	Produce a detailed plan including a sequencing of modules, length of modules, suggested high level content for each module, types of activities and case studies for each module, and overall shape of the onboarding program. Incorporate feedback from EOF’s leadership team.	6 days	End of March
Deliverable 3: Discrete module content (up to 10 modules total).	Produce individual module content, including additional resources, case studies and activities, based on the agreed detailed onboarding schedule (deliverable 2).	20 days (2 days per module)	End of May
Component 2: RBF Codification
Deliverable 4: Facilitate the creation of up to 3 technical frameworks (estimated 5-page Word Document per framework).	Facilitate technical design discussions with the EOF programs team, and document agreed technical frameworks and step-by-step guidance for EOF’s team on all key stages of the program design process to ensure consistency and efficiency. Incorporate feedback from EOF’s leadership team.	6 days        (2 days per framework)	End of June
Deliverable 5: Create up to 5 pieces of codification work (estimated 10-page Word Document per codification)	Provide technical input into specific codification documents, technical frameworks and step-by-step guidance for EOF’s team on all key stages of the program design process to ensure consistency and efficiency. Incorporate feedback from EOF’s leadership team.	15 days (3 days per codification piece)	End of August
Total estimated working days – 50

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

• An advanced degree (Master’s) in the relevant fields of study includes Economics, Politics, International Development, Education, Public Policy, and related fields.
• A Ph.D. in a relevant subject is desirable.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in international development and/or the global education sector.
• Experience in Results Based Finance is essential.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).

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.