Summary

Your responsibilities will be…

In LACRO  (80% of time)

• Liaising with Giga’s HQ Country Engagement team and support coordination with Country Offices in LACRO for Giga activities
• Support the implementation of activities related to all 3 areas of Giga’s work in LACRO – advocacy, technical assistance on mapping and monitoring and procurement.
• Participate in and represent Giga in regional and national conferences and present Giga success stories as well as showcase Giga tech products.
• Act as a primary focal point for coordination with regional stakeholders including government entities, private sector players, civil society and ITU for Giga activities, to:
  – Align Giga with their plans, roll-out strategy for connectivity, and financing flows.
  – Identify opportunities for Giga to add value in the existing plans/targets.
  – Create advocacy materials to ensure partners’ plans can contribute to equity focus.
  – Connect with and cultivate potential partnerships opportunities.
• Act as primary focal point for coordination of Giga with other UNICEF digital education initiatives in LACRO. Connect COs working with/interested in Giga to other initiatives for support on devices, skills, content, etc. by participating in LACRO team meetings, in focus groups, liaise with other UNICEF working groups and digital education initiatives to ensure that COs can be directed to the right teams for support on digital education work. 
• Support and provide critical input to the design for major Giga events in 2024-2025 in close collaboration with the Giga Country Engagement team.
• Review existing UNICEF programming documents to assess school connectivity indicators and propose enhancements.

In UNICEF Panama Country Office (20% of time)

• Act as a primary Giga focal point for coordination of all non-contracts related Giga work of relevant government counterparts, UNICEF Country Office, and International Telecommunication Union. 
• Work closely with the Giga Connectivity specialist and Country Engagement team to identify non-procurement related Giga work in Panama.
• Support UNICEF Panama CO’s implementation of Giga non-procurement activities, including the deployment of Giga software tools for real-time monitoring of internet connectivity in schools in Panama.
• Work with the Giga team to adapt the developed tech tools to the needs of Panama and coordinate and mediate between all key stakeholders to achieve the results.
• Identify and compile lessons and results from previous connectivity initiatives in Panama, especially those related to school connectivity, and integrate these insights into Giga programming and planning.

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:  Regional Coordinator for Latin America and Caribbean Region and Panama, (GIGA) – Remote (Panama based).pdf.

To qualify for this position, you will have…

• A master’s degree in technology, business administration or management, public relations, international development, or other relevant fields, a first level university degree in combination with two years additional qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience in project management, management consulting, tech startups, international development, or a relevant field.
• Experience in facilitating engagements with an array of partners at the national/regional level, i.e., government entities, telecommunication regulator and companies, international development organizations, or civil society, etc.
• Ability to understand new tech concepts and their relevant use cases.
• Experience with successfully pitching new ideas to a variety of investors/government entities with varying interests.
• Strong familiarity with the cultural and political context of Panama and LACRO
• Proven capacity to work with collaborative teams across different locations and with different technical skills.
• Strong writing and communication skills and the aptitude to handle competing messages and priorities with multiple audiences.
• Ability to translate complex ideas from various fields into unified, clear guidance.
• Familiarity working with quantitative and qualitative statistics and government data is desired: census, EMIS, location data, etc.
• Experience working in complex, resource poor contexts is a plus.
• Fluency in English and Spanish is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian) is an asset.

Travel

• The consultant is expected to travel to Geneva one time (1 trip), for a stay of 4-5 nights.
• The consultant is expected to travel to Latin American countries three times (3 trips) for a stay of 4-5 nights.
• 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.
• The consultant is responsible for his/her own health and travel insurance.
• The consultant is responsible for arranging his/her own travel, including visa. For non-Panamanian nationals applying, UNICEF will facilitate the process for obtaining local permits (for the consultant only).
• The consultant is expected to be physically present at the Panama Regional office at least twice a week for meetings and collaborative activities.

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.