Consultancy 12 months: Innovative Finance (Giga), Office of Innovation - Remote

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, Connectivity

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.

About Giga

Launched in 2019 as a joint initiative between UNICEF and ITU, Giga has set the ambitious goal to connect every school in the world to the internet. Half of the world’s population has no regular access to the Internet. Millions of children leave school without any digital skills, making it much more difficult for them to thrive and contribute to local and global economies. This has created a digital divide between those who are connected and those who are not, a divide that has become even wider during the Covid-19 pandemic. UNICEF and ITU have therefore joined forces to create Giga, an initiative to connect every school in the world to the Internet and address this new form of inequality.

Giga focuses on connecting schools so that children and young people have access to information, opportunity, and choice. It also uses schools as anchor points for their surrounding communities: if you connect the school, you can also connect local businesses and services. This creates opportunities for service providers to generate revenue from paying users, making connectivity more sustainable. A 2021 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit found that a 10% increase in school connectivity can increase effective years of schooling by 0.6% and increase GDP per capita by 1.1%.

Based in Switzerland with an open-source technology centre in Barcelona, Giga not only aims to provide children and young people with access to information but also envisions schools as anchor points to uplift entire communities.

You can read more about Giga’s work at https://giga.global/ and by following us on twitter @Gigaglobal

How can you make a difference?

Giga, a joint initiative of ITU and UNICEF, is enabling innovative financial mechanisms that close the digital divide by connecting every school and community to the internet. This consultancy will play a central role exploring and analyzing the landscape of blended finance structures most suitable for financing last-mile connectivity in remote and underserved communities and exploring how Connectivity Credits (as verifiable units of impact) could be integrated into these initiatives to pull these resources towards school connectivity impact.

The consultant will work closely with the Giga team to align investors, fund managers, donors, and telecom sector partners to integrate Connectivity Credits into their initiatives, across multiple countries.

Additionally, the consultancy will develop an engagement strategy for the World Bank Group focused on positioning Giga as a TA provider with an extensive expertise in last-mile connectivity projects for schools and other public institutions in remote and underserved areas.

Key responsibilities include:

Partnership Development and Investor Engagement

• Identify and engage relevant fund managers, IFIs/DFIs, impact investors, philanthropic foundations, and corporate partners.
• Develop an engagement strategy for the World Bank Group with the objective of positioning Giga as an experienced TA provider for school and other public institutions connectivity projects.
• Leverage existing networks to attract anchor partners and secure commitments for participation in Giga projects, pilots, and financing solutions.
• Co-develop partnership materials, including decks, briefing notes, and draft MoUs, in close collaboration with the Giga Finance team
• Support coordination between stakeholders, specifically in Giga financing projects such as Connectivity Credits.

Structuring Support and Technical Input

• Provide strategic input into and recommendations about most suitable blended finance structures and their designs (SPV, governance, capital stack, investment committee).
• Advise on the integration of Connectivity Credits (CCs) into blended finance structures as impact verification tools, including the architecture and operational processes of such collaborations.
• Support the development of documentation for the Connectivity Credit and financing structures, such as governance frameworks, partnership templates, memoranda of understanding, and partnership structures.
• Participate in Giga Finance Team meetings as needed, retreats, and, where requested, presentations to Giga, UNICEF, and ITU leadership.

Market Positioning and Advocacy

• Develop a go-to-market and outreach strategy for the Connectivity Credit Marketplace and investment vehicle for investors, service providers, and other potential stakeholders.
• Represent Giga in discussions with key financial and digital inclusion stakeholders.
• Support Giga’s participation in major global events to showcase the initiative (e.g., UNGA, World Bank/IMF meetings, Mobile World Congress, COP, ITU Digital Infrastructure Investment Catalyser).

Pilot Preparation and Country Engagement

• Collaborate with partners, where needed, to support bringing financing pilot collaborations to life, which could include identifying and preparing potential pilot countries, and engaging and identifying ISPs and infrastructure partners for early implementation.
• Provide input on structuring first-mover deals and identifying key enablers (regulatory, fiscal, partnership) for financing pilots.
• Prepare lessons-learned analyses of Giga financing pilots and propose ways to incorporate recommendations into Giga’s global financing initiatives

Knowledge Products and Reporting

• Prepare concise reports, presentations, and briefings summarizing insights, progress, and recommendations.
• Contribute to the development of materials for investors, governments, and donors highlighting the finance and impact value proposition of integrating Connectivity Credits

Please access the full Term of Reference (ToRs) and read a more detailed description of the assignment in this file in order to prepare your financial proposal and know more about the role: ToR - Innovative Finance Consultant.pdf

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

• An advanced university degree in Finance, Economics, Law and Public Policy, Business Administration, or a related field.
• A first-level university degree combined with at least two additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an advanced degree.
• Minimum 5 years of professional experience in blended finance, impact investment, financing and expanding digital infrastructure in rural, disadvantaged, or challenging regions, or development finance structuring.
• Proven experience engaging DFIs, governments, philanthropic foundations, private sector operators, and private investors.
• Strong understanding of digital infrastructure and inclusion sectors, ideally with exposure to connectivity, telecoms, or social infrastructure investments.
• Demonstrated success in raising capital or structuring investment vehicles in emerging markets.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills; ability to translate technical financial concepts for diverse audiences.
• Fluency in English required.
• Knowledge of another UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, or Spanish) is an asset

Travel:

• The consultant is expected to travel to partner or pilot countries and participate in major global events. travel will be estimated by UNICEF and reflected in the contract for reimbursement.
• Duty mission travel expenses will be reimbursed upon completion of travel and submission of an invoice, accompanied by supporting documentation, including proof of payment, tickets, boarding passes, and any other reimbursable expenses as outlined in the contract. In accordance with UNICEF’s Travel Policy, a reasonable travel budget will be established and included as a separate line item in the contract.
• 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.
  • Consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.
  • Consultant is responsible to arrange his/her own travel, including visa.

How to apply:

• Interested applicants are required to submit a financial proposal with an all-inclusive fee.Please see the financial proposal template here: 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.

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. For more information on non-staff members IO based in Geneva, you can visit this link.

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.