The WASH Hub is part of the UNICEF Centre of Excellence for WASH, Global Program Division. The vision of the UNICEF Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub (WASH Hub) is to be a global home for building, accelerating, and scaling transformational climate resilient solutions for a WASH secure future of universal and equitable access to services. The Hub sources, pilots and scales transformational climate-resilient solutions that respond to key programmatic challenges that, if solved, will unlock faster progress for a water secure future for children and young people. This consultancy will strengthen the Hub’s role as a global catalyst, bringing together innovators, practitioners, researchers, and communities to solve the most pressing WASH challenges facing children. The Hub is seeking a consultant to conduct a comprehensive review of the global WASH innovation ecosystem, mapping how different actors support innovations from concept to scale across humanitarian and development contexts. The consultant will analyse innovation pipelines, assess support mechanisms across the innovation journey, evaluate the scale readiness of selected innovations using the Hub’s 5D Framework, and identify gaps, overlaps, and strategic opportunities to strengthen coordination and accelerate promising solutions to national and multi country scale. This role will generate actionable insights to help UNICEF and partners better align efforts, optimise resources, and advance transformative WASH innovations for children and young people.

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built. We offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture., coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, the right to innovate

For more than 70 years, UNICEF has championed innovation to advance the rights and wellbeing of every child. This commitment continues through the Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub, based in Copenhagen, where we bring new approaches, bold partnerships, and impactful technologies to the forefront of the global WASH agenda. Emerging from UNICEF’s Office of Innovation and now proudly part of the Global WASH Practice within the UNICEF Center of Excellence for WASH, the Hub is uniquely positioned to accelerate promising solutions across UNICEF’s extensive global network and that of our partners.

At the intersection of cutting‑edge thinking and large‑scale development challenges, the WASH Innovation Hub serves as a bridge—connecting UNICEF’s deep field experience with the agility of start‑ups, the creativity of researchers, the vision of entrepreneurs, and the lived expertise of communities. This convergence of perspectives drives our mission: to transform how WASH challenges are understood, tackled, and ultimately solved.

We are cultivating a vibrant global community that includes children and young people, academic institutions, private sector innovators, public policy leaders, social development practitioners, humanitarian actors, and WASH and innovation colleagues across more than 150 countries. Together, we are co‑creating, testing, scaling, and advocating for new ways to overcome long‑standing barriers to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene.

Through collaboration, convening power, and a relentless focus on impact, the Hub is enabling a future where sustainable, climate‑resilient WASH solutions become the norm—not the exception. By energizing and empowering the ecosystem, we aim to ensure that every child can grow up in a world where their right to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene is realized.

How can you make a difference? 

Due to the lack of progress on achieving universal access to safe, sustainable WASH services, there are a number of actors looking at innovation to help increase the impact of WASH programmes. This consultancy supports the mapping and identification of different innovation programmes that support WASH innovations from concept to scale for humanitarian and development programmes. UNICEFs Sustainable WASH Innovation Hub is looking to understand the roles different actors fill and how this supports WASH innovations to scale and create impact towards safe WASH services in the countries where UNICEF operates. The goal of this consultancy is to outline how actors can better unify, in increasingly resource constrained environments, to support shared goals, ultimately increasing the access to sustainable, safe household water and sanitation services.

Your main responsibilities will be:

1. Map innovation pipelines for different actors that support WASH in humanitarian and development contexts. Map and analyse innovation pipelines across key WASH actors in humanitarian and development contexts to understand how solutions move from concept to scale and where bottlenecks or duplication occur.
2. Outline the different processes for sourcing, selection and promotion from different innovation processes and where in the innovation spectrum they offer support to innovators. Assess the support provided to innovators by different actors along the innovation journey, identifying the types of technical, financial and organisational support available and where gaps or under served stages exist.
3. Outline how selected WASH innovations might move through the pipeline. Evaluate the requirements of different innovation programmes, reviewing available evidence and benchmarking against the WASH Hub’s 5D Framework and other relevant readiness approaches to understand how they could be adapted to support investments in innovations.
4. Identify gaps and overlaps in supporting innovations to scale. Identify gaps, overlaps and opportunities across the WASH innovation ecosystem. Develop actionable recommendations on how UNICEF can strengthen coordination, streamline support pathways and accelerate scaling of innovations with high potential, generate positive impacts at scale. Scale is the process through which a WASH innovation moves beyond pilot use into sustained, multi country or system level adoption, supported by viable delivery models, appropriate contracting pathways, and demonstrated impact across diverse contexts. As part of this deliverable, include an actionable plan defining the resource needs including, but not limited to, technical expertise, market insights, and advocacy needs to deliver the vision.

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here:  ToR_Innovation Pipeline Review.pdf

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

Minimum requirements:

• Education: Advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Innovation Management, Public Health, Environmental Engineering, Business/Operations, Technology and Innovation, or related fields relevant to WASH and scaling.

*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.

• Work Experience: 
  • Minimum 8–10 years of demonstrable experience in innovation and scaling in low resource, humanitarian or development contexts, including designing, piloting, validating, and scaling technological and service delivery innovations.
  • Proven experience delivering innovation ecosystem mapping, readiness assessments, and scaling strategies for UN agencies, international NGOs, donors, or innovation accelerators.
  • Demonstrated experience working across the innovation lifecycle—from problem identification and prototyping through piloting, validation, and scale up—with a clear understanding of barriers and enablers in humanitarian and development contexts.
  • Readiness Assessment and Framework Application. Proven ability to apply and adapt innovation readiness frameworks (e.g., TRL, market/operational readiness) and assess solutions against the UNICEF WASH Innovation Hub 5D Readiness Framework.
  • Ecosystem Mapping and Market Analysis. Experience conducting innovation ecosystem mapping and analysing roles, support mechanisms, and market dynamics ideally across UN agencies, NGOs, private sector actors, donors, and research institutions.
• Skills : 
  • Evidence Review and Synthesis. Strong analytical skills to review and synthesise evidence from pilots, deployments, evaluations, and implementation studies, and translate findings into actionable insights on innovation maturity and scale readiness.
  • Scaling Strategy and Advisory Skills. Ability to identify viable routes to scale—including programme integration, policy pathways, financing approaches, and partnership opportunities—and provide clear, evidence based recommendations.
  • Stakeholder Engagement and Facilitation. Demonstrated capacity to engage effectively with innovators, government partners, UN teams, implementing organisations, and other stakeholders through interviews, consultations and validation workshops.
  • Communication, Reporting and Deliverable Management. Strong communication skills, with a proven ability to produce clear, concise and well structured analytical reports (including Inception and Final Reports), visualisations, and presentations for technical and non technical audiences.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. 

Desirables:

• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts. 
• Previous experience working with UNICEF, UN agencies, or global innovation programmes is desirable.
• Experience with WASH related product and service innovations, market shaping, or product assurance is desirable.
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Travel:
No travel is required for this post.

All travel (in case of any) will be by most economical fare and reimbursement will be as per UNICEF policy, “As per UNICEF DFAM policy, payment is made against approved deliverables. No advance payment is allowed unless in exceptional circumstances against bank guarantee, subject to a maximum of 30 per cent of the total contract value in cases where advance purchases, for example for supplies or travel, may be necessary”.

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.

How to apply:

• Interested applicants are required to submit a technical and financial proposal with all-inclusive fee. Please see the financial proposal template.  Consultancy Financial Offer template.docx
• Technical proposals should be no more than 10 pages (not including Annexes) and should outline how the consultant intends to approach the assignment.
• Financial proposals must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance, if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs e.g. visa, travel/health insurance.
• Applications without a technical and financial proposal will not be considered.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.

UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF provides reasonable accommodation throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage Accessibility | UNICEF. Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). 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 based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. 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, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:  

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF is committed to fostering an inclusive, representative, and welcoming workforce. 

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason. 

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

Humanitarian action is a cross-cutting priority within UNICEF’s Strategic Plan. UNICEF is committed to stay and deliver in humanitarian contexts. Therefore, all staff, at all levels across all functional areas, can be called upon to be deployed to support humanitarian response, contributing to both strengthening resilience of communities and capacity of national authorities.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.