Long Term Agreement: Individual Consultant – Written translation and Simultaneous Interpretation Consultants (French & English), WCARO, Dakar, Senegal 36 moths

UNICEF would like to engage consultants to provide simultaneous interpretation services and writing translation for UNICEF WCARO, ensuring clear and accurate translation (French to English and English to French) enabling accurate translations of various documents, effective communication during meetings, conferences, and events as well as facilitating communication with stakeholders, partners, and donors across the region.

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, Hope

BACKGROUND / RATIONALE

UNICEF is committed to realizing the rights of every child as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This includes ensuring survival, protection, development, and participation.

The UNICEF West and Central Africa Regional Office (WCARO) frequently engages with diverse stakeholders, including government representatives, partners, and communities across different linguistic backgrounds. To support seamless communication, communication needs across diverse audiences and ensure accurate representation of content, the services of professional interpreters and translations are required for various events, meetings, documents, reports, and communications materials and high-level engagements in both French and English. As such, UNICEF is looking to engage skilled consultants to provide high-quality simultaneous interpretation services.

How can you make a difference? 

PURPOSE OF ASSIGNMENT
The objective of this assignment is to provide simultaneous interpretation services and writing translation for UNICEF WCARO, ensuring clear and accurate translation between French and English, enabling effective communication during meetings, conferences, and events as well as facilitating communication with stakeholders, partners, and donors across the region.

OBJECTIVE
The overarching goal is to establish a Long-Term Agreement (LTA) that allows UNICEF to swiftly and efficiently engage simultaneous interpretation consultants as needed. These consultants will be responsible for supporting UNICEF’s communication needs during key engagements with various stakeholders by providing timely and accurate interpretations/translations.

MAJOR TASKS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED
Consultants are expected to deliver high-quality interpretation services across a variety of UNICEF-led engagements. Tasks include, but are not limited to:

1. Simultaneous Interpretation:
   • Provide real-time interpretation between French and English during meetings, workshops, conferences, and other formal events.
2. Translation of Documents:
   • Translate reports, studies, guidelines, press releases, communication materials, and other documents from French to English and vice versa, ensuring the accuracy of both content and context.
3. Proofreading and Editing:
   • Review translated materials for any errors, ensuring translations are free of spelling, grammatical, or syntactical mistakes before final submission.
4. Liaison and Coordination:
   • Work closely with UNICEF’s event and program teams to ensure that all interpretation requirements are met before and during the events.
5. Accuracy and Cultural Sensitivity:
   • Ensure that all translations maintain the integrity of the content and are culturally appropriate for the audience.
6. Meeting Documentation:
   • Where required, assist in the documentation of key points or outcomes of meetings in the language being translated.
7. Preparation:
   • Review relevant documents, presentations, and materials in advance to ensure smooth and accurate interpretation during sessions.

Responsibilities of the Consultant:

• The consultant will use their own equipment; laptops, microphones, software and other accessories that may be required for this task.
• The consultant will not give the content/material or any part thereof, to any third party without the written permission of UNICEF. All components will be a property of UNICEF, and the consultant will not share the same with anyone else.
• The consultant commits to a faithful and transparent translation.

Responsibilities of UNICEF:

• UNICEF will provide all details pertaining to the activity and the requirements
• UNICEF will orient the consultant on UNICEF’s guidelines

Consultants may be required to work on Saturdays and Sundays, based on the requirements of the assignment.

DELIVERABLES AND DEADLINES

DUTY STATION:
Anywhere in Senegal or abroad.

OFFICIAL TRAVEL INVOLVED: (ITINERARY AND DURATION)
Consultant might be required to travel outside their duty station for specific events (e.g. if in-person training or documentation missions or meetings are required by UNICEF, government or partners) in which case payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging, etc. should be agreed upon, between the supervisor and the consultant prior to travel and will be reimbursed on actuals.

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

Category 1: Simultaneous Interpretation Consultants (French to English)

• A bachelor’s degree in translation, interpretation, languages, or a related field.
• A minimum of five (5) years of experience in professional simultaneous interpretation (French & English).
• Previous experience working with international organizations or governments is desirable.
• Proven proficiency in simultaneous interpretation.
• Ability to work under pressure in fast-paced environments.
• Cultural sensitivity and excellent communication skills.
• Experience in Simultaneous translation for the Government and/or UN Organizations is desirable.
• Experience and quality of work demonstrably meet the highest international standards.

Category 2: Simultaneous Interpretation Consultants (English to French)

• A bachelor’s degree in translation, interpretation, languages, or a related field.
• A minimum of five (5) years of experience in professional simultaneous interpretation (French & English).
• Previous experience working with international organizations or governments is desirable.
• Proven proficiency in simultaneous interpretation.
• Ability to work under pressure in fast-paced environments.
• Cultural sensitivity and excellent communication skills.
• Experience in Simultaneous translation for the Government and/or UN Organizations is desirable.
• Experience and quality of work demonstrably meet the highest international standards.

Category 3: Writing translation (French to English)

• A bachelor’s degree in translation, languages, linguistics, or a related field.
• A minimum of five (5) years of experience in professional Writing translation (French & English).
• Experience working with international organizations or government agencies is desirable.
• Proven ability to translate complex documents with accuracy and cultural sensitivity.
• Excellent Writing communication skills in both French and English.
• Strong attention to detail and the ability to meet tight deadlines.
• Experience in Writing translation for the Government and/or UN Organizations is desirable.
• Experience and quality of work demonstrably meet the highest international standards.

Category 4: Writing translation (English to French)

• A bachelor’s degree in translation, languages, linguistics, or a related field.
• A minimum of five (5) years of experience in professional Writing translation (French & English).
• Experience working with international organizations or government agencies is desirable.
• Proven ability to translate complex documents with accuracy and cultural sensitivity.
• Excellent Writing communication skills in both French and English.
• Strong attention to detail and the ability to meet tight deadlines.
• Experience in Writing translation for the Government and/or UN Organizations is desirable.
• Experience and quality of work demonstrably meet the highest international standards.

Note: Candidates are free to apply to any category of writers based on their qualifications and experience. They can also apply for multiple categories or all of them. UNICEF will award LTA to top ranked candidates under each category. A candidate may be awarded LTA for one or more than one category.

Language:

• Fluency in oral and written English or French is required
• Knowledge of any other language in the region or local language is an asset

HOW TO APPLY:

The application to be submitted through the online portal and should contain four separate attachments:

• A Cover letter explaining suitability for position (to be uploaded online under “Cover Letter” tab)
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) (to be uploaded online under “Resume” tab)
• Minimum of three work samples for each Category applied for e.g. human-interest stories/reports/advertising materials/content created/proposal as per the required assignment (to be uploaded online under “Other – Applicant” as a single document containing work samples for all categories applied)
•  A financial proposal (for the categories applied) as per the template attached. Please do not forget to specify your name in the file while saving (to be uploaded online under “Financial Proposal” tab).

Without all the above 4 documents, your application will be considered incomplete and invalid and will not be considered further.

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.