Consultancy: T4D Technical Writer & Deployment Officer, ICTD, New York

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.

For every child, a connected world

UNICEF’s role in planning, measuring, tracking, and reporting results for children requires the ability to gather, integrate, and share information between multiple actors. The demands for real-time information and problem solving with partners is vital to this process, especially in humanitarian action, and technology solutions are becoming an essential tool to accelerate impact and reach the most vulnerable populations.

UNICEF’s Information and Communication Division (ICTD)’s newly established Field Solutions Unit is a team of experienced software developers and designers within ICTD’s Solutions Centre and Support. The Unit’s goals are to establish enterprise support to innovative open-source tools used by field-based programmatic experts, planning specialists, partnership managers, and implementing partners around the world.  As part of UNICEF’s Information and Communication Technology Division’s 2017 reorganization, the new unit will work with counterparts throughout the organization to tailor open-source software solutions to magnify UNICEF’s impact by driving better decision-making, promoting collaboration, and realizing organizational efficiencies with modern digital tools.

RapidPro is a globally supported mobile engagement platform used by dozens of UNICEF country offices to magnify and monitor programmatic impact for children. With the strong uptake of RapidPro and related apps, the Field Solutions Unit seeks to provide a wealth of content for anyone to learn, explore, share, and contribute to expanded usage and evolution of RapidPro within UNICEF programmatic areas and operational contexts. So, the Field Solutions Unit seeks a technical writer to create, edit, and maintain written and multimedia content around product specifications, user guides/manuals, and case studies to drive better practices, advanced usage, and more effective use of RapidPro and related T4D technologies to achieve results for children.

The T4D Technical Writer + Deployment Officer will liaise with counterparts at external organizations, as necessary, for building relationships and technical documentation for open-source projects and other initiatives related to ICTD field solutions products. The Consultant will also support UNICEF country office and regional office teams in leveraging the technical document to successfully implement programme objectives. The consultant may be required to represent UNICEF and ICTD at meetings, conferences, and other events, as well as attend meetings with colleagues based in the field. 

How can you make a difference?

• The exact tasks for the consultant will be jointly determined in an agile way and are outlined in summary below. The consultant will directly interface with the ICT Manager of Field Solutions and will work on tasks/areas as prioritized and authorized by the ICT Manager each month. Upon completion of tasks, the ICT Manager will certify completeness and quality of work for payment.

  • Support RapidPro scale-up and organizational mainstreaming activities

• Work with regional Technology for Development (T4D) Business Analysts (BAs), the Health Program Division, and other stakeholders to collect, review, reorganize, and update RapidPro guidance documents, SOPs, “playbooks,” templates/tools, etc to be used by T4D BAs and/or vendors providing “RapidPro expert services” to country office (CO) colleagues

  • Develop/adapt RapidPro support materials for use by a FSU RapidPro (or public goods) helpdesk staff, support materials for use by CO-based ICT staff, and materials Regional and Country office T4D staff trainings

• Author and maintain product resources

• Maintain and expand web-based and document-based product resources, including:

  • Product overview documents for RapidPro and related technologies (such as Superset dashboards, U-Report, Surveyor app, CasePro, and others)

  • Content to drive better usage and learning, such as feature overviews, tutorials, and tips/tricks

  • Content to introduce and promote exploration and analysis of data generated by RapidPro and other T4D tools

  • Technical manuals for setup and configuration of software tools

  • Case studies, implementation overviews, and deployment experiences with products by UNICEF and others

  • Copywriter’s manual and documentation guidelines for all technical documents

• Develop global content library to streamline RapidPro knowledge management and capacity building with the UNICEF RapidPro ecosystem.

To qualify as a champion for every child, you must have:

• Three to five years of professional experience as a technical writer.  

• Experience producing detailed technical product documentation.   

• Attention to detail, research skills and the ability to work under strict deadlines is a must.  

• Bachelor’s degree in English, Journalism, Communications, or a related field.  

In addition, the following will be considered a strong asset:

• Education/work experience in engineering/technical fields is a major plus. 

• Experience using and deploying RapidPro and other T4D tools. 

• Familiarity with UNICEF organizational structure. 

• Comfortable coordinating between multiple remote teams and stakeholders. 

• Superior technical writing skills. 

• Superior command of the English language. 

• Experience working in low-resource settings and writing for multicultural audiences. 

• Experience working with software product development teams. 

• Experience with processing large amount of information and synthesizing it. 

• Ability to work in a team and in a diverse work environment. 

Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Additional UN languages will be considered an asset.

This consultancy will be for a period of 11.5 months with the possibility of extension.

The consultant will be working remotely due to COVID-19 and will continue working as such throughout the project and 2021 calendar year.

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:

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. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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.

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.

Due to the high volume of applicants, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.