Technology for Development (T4D) Officer - UNICEF

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 fulfil 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.

UNICEF has been the leading child-rights organization, and a respected partner, for saving and improving children’s lives.

In Ghana, UNICEF cooperates with the Government and other partners to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, ensure equitable access to quality social services, and expand children’s opportunities to reach their full potential. With offices in Accra and Tamale, the UNICEF team seeks to achieve results in strategic programme areas.

The overall goal is for every child to survive and thrive, to live in a safe and clean environment, to learn, to be protected from violence and exploitation, and to have an equitable chance in life. The current Country Programme of cooperation is aligned with the Government priorities, the UN Sustainable Development Partnership (UNSDP) and Key Results for Children (KRCs) in the West and Central African Region (immunization, nutrition, learning outcomes, ending violence and open defecation). UNICEF main strategies include evidence-based advocacy, system strengthening, integrated programming across sectors, emergency preparedness and response, and innovation.

How can you make a difference?

The T4D Officer position is directly supervised by the C4D Specialist but works closely with Programme staff members and in close liaison with the External Communication Team including Digital Communication Officer and ICT Officer where applicable.

The purpose of this role is to assist programme teams in the identification, assessment and integration of ICTs and digital innovation into UNICEF Ghana programming and strengthening internal capacity on T4D related initiatives.

Key functions, accountabilities and related duties

Provide technical assistance in T4D and programmatic support

• Provide support and technical assistance to the Country Office in the identification, selection, concept design, deployment and sustainability of T4D interventions to address bottlenecks towards the achievement of programme results.
• Assist programme sections to identify and assess new T4D initiatives, or new phases of ongoing initiatives, with immediate potential to improve UNICEF programming.
• Assist the review of technical solutions to ensure UNICEF standards are followed; contribute to project management processes, generation and review of terms of reference and vendor selection.
• Facilitate the implementation strategy of digital technology initiatives. Including technical oversight, troubleshooting and the documentation of challenges and resolutions.
• Support human/user-centred design methods to enable user-acceptance testing, evaluation, documentation and analysis.

Support Policy and Strategic Development for Technology-enabled Programming

• Support implementation of the technology and digital innovation strategy for the country office; bring visibility to T4D gaps, opportunities and scale-up strategy in support of CO priorities.
• Participate in programme and management processes by working closely with PME to integrate digital development and technology innovation into the programme planning lifecycle. Align with programme priorities (AWP etc.) and attend planning meetings (PCM).
• Help monitor development and quality assurance during planning and deployment of T4D initiatives; participate in establishing and maintaining standards, documentation and support mechanisms for T4D.
• Support compliance of T4D initiatives with the Principles for Digital Development (http://digitalprinciples.org/) and UNICEF T4D best practices.

Contribute to engagement and maintaining partnerships and networks

• Support the development of partnerships and networks with local solution providers, innovators, NGOs, cultural and religious organisations, the private sector, local media and academia to build and provide a space to nurture and test new and innovative technologies and build local capacity.
• Provide inputs to technical and operational support to programme partners/ stakeholders to guide on UNICEF policies, practices, standards and norms on technology for development.
• Work with stakeholders to help develop standards, procedures and partnerships for T4D interventions and their transition to relevant Government and Civil Society Institutions.
• Help maintain partnerships with government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing and transfer of knowledge, skills, and tools to foster and facilitate technology-enabled programming.
• Document localized partners and profiles. Contribute updates to a catalogue of country-specific T4D partners and their profiles/areas of engagement to promote and enhance UNICEF goals for outcomes for children through the use of Technology for Development.

Knowledge Management

• Assist to identify, capture, synthesize and share lessons learned from T4D for integration into broader knowledge development planning, advocacy and communication efforts.
• Maintain an inventory of Technology and Innovation interventions, assets, resources, and networks.
• Collaborate with PME to ensure documentation and clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for innovation and T4D projects including baseline data collection, ongoing monitoring, as well as first phase data collection and analysis.
• Contribute to Peer Support Networks by sharing with regional and global digital development and technology innovation networks and activities.

Capacity Building

• Build capacity of programme staff and partners in analysing the large amounts of data generated through T4D initiatives including the use of data visualization techniques and analytics tools.
• Work directly with programme teams and partners to adopt technology and innovative solutions appropriate to the country programme.
• Participate in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies, capacity and knowledge within the programmes on digital development, train UNICEF staff, partners, government counterparts and other end users in digital development and technology innovation.
• Assist in developing staff capabilities inappropriate use of frontier technology and innovations such as UAVs, wearables, IoT, mobile money, blockchain etc.

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

• University degree in one of the following fields is required: social and behavioural science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, communication, public relations, or another relevant technical field
• A minimum of two years of professional experience in technology for development, social and behaviour change communication-related areas in support of programming.
• Experience with ICT, mobile and web-based technologies, particularly designing or deploying tools for social and behaviour change interventions.
• Exposure to UNICEF, UN or other INGO or CSOs programmatic areas, including (but not limited to) health, nutrition, child protection WASH, education, P&E, M&E and experience in applying Social and Behavioural Change Communication(SBCC) and/or technical solutions to address programmatic issues, an asset
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or local language of the duty station is considered an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1)
• Works Collaboratively with others (1)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (1)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (1)
• Drives to achieve impactful results (1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)