Innovation Analyst

UNICEF, also known as the United Nations Children’s Fund, is a United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide. The agency is among the most widespread and recognizable social welfare organizations in the world, with a presence in 192 countries and territories. UNICEF’s activities include providing immunizations and disease prevention, administering treatment for children and mothers with HIV, enhancing childhood and maternal nutrition, improving sanitation, promoting education, and providing emergency relief in response to disasters.

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. The Innovation Unit, where this position is based, is a catalytic unit supporting acceleration of results and helping test out new innovative ways to address bottleneck in reaching children and youth. The Unit supports all sectors of the UNICEF Kenya programme in achieving its planned results for the period 2022-2026 and also UNICEF’s contribution to the Kenya Generation Unlimited partnership.

Under the direct supervision of the Innovation Manager at UNICEF Kenya, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

Supporting UNICEF and partners in delivering the agenda for children and young people, including trialing, testing, and documenting innovations and technology for development initiatives. Ensure that new initiatives that are tested are linked to other youth platforms such as Yunitok/Ureport, YOMA, and Generation Unlimited.

Provide human-centered design and project management input to new and ongoing innovation and programmatic initiatives to improve efficiency, impact, and relevance.

Collaborate with UNICEF colleagues and stakeholders on the design of projects, initiatives, and pilots to quickly validate new ideas and test/assess the effectiveness of identified initiatives. This includes (but is not limited to) monitoring progress/impact, formulating hypotheses, and supporting the assessment of initiatives.

Assisting the identification of non-tech innovations and frontier methodologies or adapting existing methodologies to enhance services and information for children and young people.

Develop operational prototypes and document methodologies and lessons learned.

Support the presentation and analysis of various data on geospatial platforms. Develop visual information products (infographics, factsheets, thematic profiles, etc.) to support programme planning, monitoring, and decision-making.

Scanning and mapping the innovation and technology ecosystem, partners, and stakeholders in Kenya for initiatives and services for children, including e-learning, connectivity, social enterprises, etc.

Support the innovation manager in updating the innovation inventory (INVENT) and working with innovation program leads in sharing progress externally, including using social media.

Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to:

Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day);

Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country;

Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities;

Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;

Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly arrived UN Volunteers;

Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.

Results/Expected Outputs

Generation Unlimited supported through robust testing of young engagement platforms such as Youth Agency Market Place, U-Report and Generation Unlimited Youth Challenge

Reports on Products and initiatives developed and disseminated.

Frontier technologies and solutions to enhance services and protection of children identified and supported to scale.

Updated mapping of the innovation and T4D ecosystem to support programmes for children including GIGA project, elearning, connectivity and health systems.

Learnings from innovation and T4D initiatives captured, documented.

The development of capacity through coaching, mentoring and formal on-the-job training, when working with (including supervising) national staff or (non-) governmental counterparts, including Implementing Partners (IPs);

Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) perspective is systematically applied, integrated and documented in all activities throughout the assignment

A final statement of achievements towards volunteerism for peace and development during the assignment, such as reporting on the number of volunteers mobilized, activities participated in and capacities developed