Senior Consultant on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) Innovation, Office of Innovation, 12 months (remote)

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

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…innovate

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.

  The Office of Innovation specifically looks to form partnerships around frontier technologies (like drones and UAVs, blockchain, 21st century skills, urban technologies, new banking tools, wearables and sensors, or 3D-Printing) that exist at the intersection of $100 billion business markets, and 1 billion person needs – and to identify how they can grow and scale profitably and inclusively. 

Our team

We’re an interdisciplinary team around the world tasked with identifying, prototyping, and scaling new technologies and practices. With our partners, we focus on convening and collaborating on new and different solutions, low- and high-tech, by:

• Looking at the 2-5 year horizon to evaluate emerging and trending technologies and to see how UNICEF can work with the private sector on doing better business while improving essential services for children;
• Investing in early stage solutions that show great potential to positively impact children in the 02 year future including the Venture Fund that invests in open source technology solutions from start-ups based in UNICEF’s programme countries;
• Identifying proven solutions that can be implemented at national scale in multiple countries – taking the ideas that help thousands in one country, bringing them to dozens of countries across multiple sectors, and impacting the lives of millions of children.”

 How can you make a difference?

The consultant will play a central role in accelerating UNICEF’s efforts to scale effective Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) innovations that deliver tangible results for children. By working closely with the Climate Resilience Centre of Excellence and the Office of Innovation, the consultant will help build a coherent organisational approach to identifying, testing, documenting, and scaling innovations that strengthen the climate resilience of essential services and national systems. This includes innovations related to early warning systems and anticipatory approaches as part of broader DRR and CCA efforts. The assignment will directly contribute to UNICEF’s Strategic Plan (2026–2029) and the Sustainability and Climate Change Action Plan (SCAP).

Key Outputs

1. Comprehensive stock take of DRR and CCA innovations across UNICEF and outside
2. Organisational mapping of DRR/CCA expertise and resources across divisions, ROs, and COs.
3. Global guidance on globally tested DRR/CCA innovations with relevance for UNICEF’s sectors.
4. Practical tools, briefs, and case studies for scaling DRR/CCA innovations and initiatives.
5. Technical assistance to up to 15 priority countries supporting integration of DRR/CCA innovations into national / local systems and programming.
6. Capacity-building package and training sessions for UNICEF staff and partners on DRR/CCA innovation.
7. Support on development of project and funding proposals for innovative DRR/CCA solutions.

Your main responsibilities will be:

1. Identify, analyse, and document DRR and CCA innovations across UNICEF, including promising work on early warning and anticipatory approaches.
2. Map organisational resources, expertise, and initiatives to identify synergies and gaps.
3. Draft global guidance on DRR/CCA innovations, synthesizing evidence from UNICEF and external partners.
4. Develop practical implementation tools, case studies, and briefs.
5. Provide tailored technical support to priority countries to integrate DRR/CCA innovations into national systems, policies, and programmes.
6. Support Country Offices and the Climate Resilience CoE in developing strong proposals for DRR/CCA innovation.
7. Collaborate with the Office of Innovation to align DRR/CCA innovation efforts with wider UNICEF innovation priorities.
8. Prepare knowledge briefs and presentations for global dissemination.
9. Design and deliver virtual and in-person training for staff and partners.

To know more about this role, please access the full ToR here:  TOR – Senior Consultant – DRR and Climate Adaptation Innovation.pdf

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Climate Change Adaptation, Disaster Risk Reduction, Environmental Science/Engineering, Public Policy, International Development, or another relevant field.
• A minimum of 10 years of relevant professional experience in DRR and/or CCA, including demonstrated experience with innovation for climate resilience, systems strengthening, and the application of DRR/CCA approaches in social sectors.
• Proven expertise in at least one of the following: early warning systems, anticipatory approaches, climate-risk analytics, resilient infrastructure, or community-based climate resilience.
• Strong experience in developing guidance, tools, case studies, or capacity-building materials for DRR/CCA programming.
• Experience providing technical support to governments, UN agencies, or development/humanitarian organisations, preferably in climate-vulnerable or low-resource contexts.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency contexts is considered a strong asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Travel:

• The consultant may be required to undertake travel for this assignment, based on needs identified during implementation.
• A separate travel budget will be allocated by UNICEF, and all travel will be planned and approved in close coordination with the supervisor.
• The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa and travel insurance.

Payment details and further considerations

• 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.

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
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance, if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs: visa, travel/health insurance
• 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.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.