Consultancy: Knowledge Management Consultant for a Global Community of Practice, HATIS Section, PD - NYHQ, Requisition #515325

The purpose of this consultancy is to provide specific and specialized support to the enhancement of the UNICEF Community of Practice for risk, resilience, fragility and peacebuilding. In particular, the consultancy shall facilitate a revision of the Community Site on SharePoint. This is an individual consultancy with a scope of 56 working days between 10 September and 30 November 2018. This consultant will not travel.

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 fulfill 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.

Background & Rationale

More than 500 million children – nearly a quarter of the world’s children – are estimated to live in countries affected by fragility, conflict and disaster. To help realize the rights of every child, UNICEF needs to be able to effectively with these challenges. The Humanitarian Action and Transition Section (HATIS) in the UNICEF Programme Division is tasked to increase knowledge and capacity on all issues related to resilient development, risk-informed programming, fragility, conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding across the organization. This includes technical support to UNICEF Regional Offices and Country Offices, the development of technical guidance, evidence generation and the exchange of programming experience and good practice. For this purpose, a set of key knowledge management (KM) priorities has been identified, including the expansion of staff access to knowledge both within and outside of the organization, facilitated by the adoption of an efficient content management system and tools for all staff globally who work on risk, resilience, fragility and peacebuilding.

Since its initial launch in 2016, The Community Site for Risk, Resilience, Fragility and Peacebuilding– a Microsoft SharePoint-based tool for information management – is a central tool for knowledge management, facilitating systematic storage and sharing of key documents and resources. It serves a growing Community of Practice comprising of UNICEF programme, planning and emergency staff across diverse countries and regions. While utilization continues to grow, there is a need to revise the Community Site to keep up with new demands for knowledge sharing and collaboration from the field, and to align with a number of corporate-wide knowledge management and ICT initiatives. In addition, support is needed to undertake the scanning, synthesis and packaging of existing knowledge products that are not yet available on the Community Site. This requires dedicated skill sets in administration of Microsoft SharePoint, digital information and community management, as well as strong familiarity with programming approaches for resilient development. These technical skillsets, particularly around ICT platforms administration, user interface design and community management, are not readily available in the current team, and therefore, a consultant is needed to provide the requisite support.

Purpose:

The purpose of this consultancy is to provide specific and specialized support to the enhancement of the UNICEF Community of Practice for risk, resilience, fragility and peacebuilding. In particular, the consultancy shall facilitate a revision of the Community Site on SharePoint.

This is an individual consultancy with a scope of 56 working days between 10 September and 30 November 2018. This consultant will not travel. 

Specific Activities:

Key activities of the consultant include:

1. Enhance the overall quality of and user experience of the Community Site on Sharepoint, including a migration from the current ‘classic’ Sharepoint to the ‘modern’ SharePoint system
2. Improve the organization and presentation of existing knowledge products, organized through thematic web pages, document libraries and databases/lists.
3. Add additional functionalities for collaboration and knowledge exchange, which allow field staff to share working documents, collaborate on joint projects and participate in discussions.
4. Collect, scan and synthesize existing programme documents relating risk, resilience, fragility, humanitarian and development nexus and peacebuilding; and make them available for dissemination through the Community Site.
5. Provide support to strengthen coherence and alignment with corporate ICT and content management initiatives. This includes particularly the UNICEF Enterprise Content Management (ECM) initiative, which will introduce a new digital workplace, a new document management system and a new corporate information management system based on Office 365 and ‘modern’ SharePoint.
6. Develop additional tools for knowledge exchange (e.g. newsletter, discussion forum or mailing lists)

Expected results: (measurable results)

7. A new Community Site on ‘modern’ SharePoint is developed in alignment with the UNICEF ECM initiative. The Community Site presents existing technical guidance and other relevant knowledge products through thematic web pages, document libraries and databases/lists; it includes functionalities for collaboration and knowledge exchange (document sharing, collaboration on joint projects, discussion and peer support)
8. The new Community Site is beta-tested with selected user groups; the user interface is optimized based on user feedback and responds to identified information needs and bandwidth requirements
9. Relevant programme documents have been collected, systematically scanned, reviewed and included in the Community Site in a searchable and user-friendly manner.
10. Additional tools for knowledge exchange (e.g. newsletter) are developed and tested with members of the Community of Practice

Duty STATION: Home-based or NYHQ

Timeframe

Start date:        10 September 2018                    
End date:         30 November 2018

Key competences, technical background, and experience required Deadline

• Bachelor’s degree in Communications, social sciences or related area
• A minimum of two to four years of related experience in Communication
• Strong experience of Microsoft SharePoint and facility with Microsoft Office365 Suite.
• Excellent communications skills, especially written communications, facilitation skills, and ability to interact in a diverse user community.
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks.
• Experience in knowledge management projects (i.e., intranet, communities of practice, content management, etc.) highly desirable.
• Knowledge of international development in the context risk- and crisis prone contexts is desirable.
• Strong knowledge of web platforms, HTML, Java, as well as various social media and outreach tools.
• Fluency in English (verbal and written) is required. Knowledge of an additional UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish) is considered an asset.
• Prior experience working in the UN System or other international development organization is desirable.

Please indicate your ability, availability and daily/monthly rate (in US$) to undertake the terms of reference above (including travel and daily subsistence allowance, if applicable). Applications submitted without a daily/monthly rate will not be considered.

Remarks

With the exception of the US Citizens, G4 Visa and Green Card holders, should the selected candidate and his/her household members reside in the United States under a different visa, the consultant and his/her household members are required to change their visa status to G4, and the consultant’s household members (spouse) will require an Employment Authorization Card (EAD) to be able to work, even if he/she was authorized to work under the visa held prior to switching to G4.  

At the time the contract is awarded, the selected candidate must have in place current health insurance coverage.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.