Summary

​​The Market Development Specialist will support UNICEF Supply Division and Giga to implement a market acceleration strategy to create a more efficient school connectivity market. This role will help develop the demand for Giga’s procurement & market shaping tools that aim to help governments massively scale their ability to connect schools and health centers to the internet. To achieve this, the consultant will develop partnerships with governments, cultivate collaboration opportunities with multilateral organizations, and advocate for improved access to connectivity for schools and health centers. Market intelligence and research will be developed to help design and implement a market development strategy that creates a healthy pipeline of countries working alongside UNICEF’s procurement teams to close the digital divide affecting schools and health centers in low-income countries.

Your responsibilities will be…

1. Building demand for Giga’s procurement tools:

• Engage with governments to promote Giga’s procurement work and understand any obstacles they face to adopt Giga’s tools.
• Work with Giga’s Procurement Section team to adapt its approach and products considering governments evolving needs, new market trends, and changing ecosystem landscape.
• Collaborate with global and regional multilateral organizations to generate synergies drive a common agenda in promoting more investment in and scaling procurement of school connectivity solutions.

2. Stakeholder engagement and collaboration:

• Work with internal and external stakeholders to advance UNICEF’s procurement and scale up strategies.
• Support the team’s efforts to establish partnerships that support the development and implementation of a market acceleration plan to scale the provision of connectivity solutions for schools.
• Participate in discussions with key partners and attend events to advance UNICEF’s procurement work and agenda.

3. Market intelligence, analysis and influencing strategies:

• Collect, collate, and analyse market intelligence on global and local markets for connectivity solutions and assess the suitability for deploying UNICEF’s procurement tools.
• Generate insights on the drivers and barriers for scaling the connectivity of schools and health centres, including the political landscape, regulations, industry ecosystem, or access to finanance.
• Work with Giga’s Data Science team to ensure that all market research and analysis efforts are data-driven and methodologies to provide accurate and actionable insights.
• Contribute to the development of and provide advice on tailored and targeted market acceleration interventions on both the supply and demand sides of the connectivity solutions market.

4. Advocacy content and research:

• Generate content that help position Giga and UNICEF as key stakeholders in the school connectivity ecosystem.
• Conduct research that helps position Giga and UNICEF as subject matter experts in the procurement of school connectivity solutions.
• Help disseminate this content in key forums, events, workshops and country missions.
• Promote the commoditization of the Gigabyte for school connectivity to achieve cost efficiencies.
• Exploring and analyzing opportunities to deploy Giga’s connectivity procurement tools beyond schools, for instance in health facilities or community centers.

5. Technology and industry engagement:

• Staying abreast with technology developments in the school connectivity space.
• Keep an open dialogue with the industry to unearth supply-side challenges and opportunities for the implementation of Giga’s procurement tools, and work with the Procurement Section team to make the necessary adaptations in their approach.
• Explore and evaluate innovative approaches for Giga’s procurement offer that have a strong potential for impact and scale.

6. Reporting:

• Help prepare detailed reports and presentations for senior management, highlighting achievements in creating a more enabling environment for the implementation of Giga’s procurement value proposition.
• Prepare reports, briefing notes, or other supporting documents to track progress of activities and results. 

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 – Market Development Specialist.

To qualify for this position, you will have…

• An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in Economics, Engineering, International Development, Public Policy or other relevant field.
• A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree
• A minimum of 5 years of progressive work experience in ICTD or International Development and relevant/similar fields of work.
• Previous experience working in Digital inclusion and Internet Connectivity in developing (or LMIC/MIC) countries, preferably in Africa, will be considered a strong asset.
• Demonstrated experience in the public or private sector, with a strong understanding of market dynamics and stakeholder mapping of the connectivity sector.
• Proven experience fostering effective relationships with government stakeholders. The ideal candidate will have a history of building partnerships and securing commitments with government bodies such as Ministries of Education or ICTs.
• Demonstrable experience generating advocacy content and designing advocacy campaigns to help promote a charitable agenda in the development sector.
• Prior experience working with governments, technology providers, and non-profit organizations in the connectivity sector is a plus.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to present complex technical concepts to a non-technical audience.
• 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 is expected to undertake up to five (5) duty mission travels to countries supported by Giga across Eastern, Western, and Southern Africa during the contract period, with each trip lasting approximately 5–6 nights and covering around nine (9) countries.
• 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. No travel cost estimate is required for duty mission travel.
• The consultant must only include all travel-related expenses, including airfare and accommodation costs, for travel to and from the duty station in Geneva, Switzerland.
• 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.
• This consultancy is based in Geneva.
• UNICEF will facilitate the process for obtaining local permits exclusively for the consultant, excluding any dependents.
• For more information on Non-staff members IO based in Geneva, you can visit this link.   

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.

About our team

We are a fast-paced, multi-disciplinary team of software engineers, finance specialists, data scientists, policy experts, and much more. Our team is a distributed workforce and plans to remain distributed into the foreseeable future. We are growing fast. Our team has grown by over 400% in the last 6 months as we rapidly scale to meet our stated mission.