Consultant (Partnerships), Education Outcomes Fund (EOF), Hosted Fund, 12 Months, REMOTE, Req:569825

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

As Consultant (Partnerships), you will support EOF’s Chief Operating Officer to grow EOF’s partnerships and fundraising efforts, advising EOF’s leadership team about growing EOF’s partnerships around the world, unlocking the funding and building the relationships needed to realize EOF’s vision. The Consultant will also play a crucial role in leading EOF’s identification, design and development of future education and skills programs and strengthening relationships at senior levels of organizations and governments around the world. This consultant will report directly to EOF’s Chief Operating Officer.

DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENT

Deliverable	Description	Estimated number of working days	Deadline/ timeline
Deliverable 1: Written donor reports, both narrative and financial updates, to EOF’s donors (estimated 14 donor reports over the 12-month contract, each report of 5 pages)	Prepare narrative and financial updates to existing donors as required, with inputs from EOF’s leadership team. Track and monitor regular updates and reporting obligations.	28 days    2 days per report	Monthly – estimated 1-2 reports per month
Deliverable 2: Verbal updates to EOF donors on calls (20 high-quality presentations estimated over the 12-month contract, each call lasting 60 minutes)	Presentations to EOF donors (monthly updates for the highest priority stakeholders, quarterly updates for the second highest priority stakeholders, bi-annually for the third highest priority stakeholders). This includes the development of pre-reading, verbal presentations, and follow-up activity over email.	15 days 0.75 days per presentation (agenda setting, presentation prep, and post meeting follow up)	Monthly – estimated 2-3 presentations per month
Deliverable 3: Verbal cultivation and solicitation calls to potential EOF donors (40 potential donors over the 12-month contract, each call lasting 60 minutes)	Present to potential EOF donors through identifying alignments with EOF’s work and donor priorities, and leading development work to identify areas for potential collaboration.	30 days 0.75 days per call (agenda setting, presentation prep, and post meeting follow up)	Monthly – estimated 3-4 calls per month
Deliverable 4: Proposals and materials for potential partners, prospects and external champions (8 proposals or materials over the 12-month contract, 10-pages estimated per proposal)	Create material and proposals (such as presentations, concept notes, white papers, etc.) for partners, prospects and external champions that are grounded in our mission. Incorporate feedback from EOF’s leadership team.	80 days (10 days per proposal)	Quarterly – by end of June 2024, September 2024, December 2024 and March 2025.
Deliverable 5: Research and written content to contribute to EOF’s concept development of potential new programs (estimated three potential programs; 10-page Word Document per program).	Lead early-stage program concept development, in close collaboration with the programs team, by conducting online research and meeting with in-country stakeholders for potential new EOF programs.	30 (10 days per program)	By the end of 2024
Total estimated working days – 183

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

• An advanced university degree is required in one of the following fields: international relations, political science, communications, international development, education, public policy, economics, or another relevant technical field.
  *A Bachelor’s degree will be considered with an additional 2 years of experience.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in business development, program design or fundraising/partnerships, in particular in the education and skills sector.
• Strong track record of partnerships created, and deals secured, with a variety of actors such as governments, foundations, corporate, philanthropy, multilateral non-profit organizations.
• Strong relationship-building skills and the ability to cultivate long-term partners, prospects and champions of our work.
• Experience in working at a senior level with board members, foundations, and philanthropists.
• Experience in tracking a large number of workstreams and projects, without losing sight of essential information, timely actions and long-term planning.
• Experience in the development of high-quality material for external audiences such as presentation decks, proposals and budgets.
• Experience in the design, management and implementation of education and/or skills for employment programs.
• Experience in the creation of multi-stakeholder partnerships and public-private partnerships.
• Experience with the use of CRM software
• 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.