Overview
The Country Project Specialist will coordinate with UNICEF Country Offices to initiate and implement Digital Inclusion programmes, including developing work plans, managing donor deliverables, and coordinating technical support.
Key Responsibilities
- Develop tailored onboarding strategies, narratives, materials, and briefing notes for countries.
- Engage with UNICEF COs and governments to onboard them for DI activities.
- Coordinate internal DI pre-onboarding planning and discussions.
- Contribute to Digital Inclusion lead generation and opportunity identification.
- Maintain country engagement and intelligence databases.
- Document lessons learned in onboarding and collect monitoring and impact information.
- Manage in-country implementation through development of country strategies and implementation planning.
- Provide country-level project management of DI services delivery.
- Track country engagement and implementation status.
- Liaise between Country Offices and Digital Inclusion technical teams for procurement, contracting, resource mobilization, and fund flow processes.
- Contribute to the organization and implementation of Digital Inclusion-related events, recruitment, and missions in-country.
- Guide UNICEF COs in the establishment and functioning of country-level governance mechanisms.
- Coordinate closely with ITU on in-country planning, data activities, and implementation.
Required Experience
- A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in either international development with strong exposure to Country Office programming, or management consulting focused on policy and international development.
- Proven experience leading end-to-end delivery of multi-stakeholder projects (government, partners, technical teams), managing planning, execution, and monitoring phases with defined workplans, KPIs, and reporting mechanisms.
- Demonstrated experience managing in-country project delivery in development contexts, including coordinating cross-functional teams and driving execution against national priorities.
- Desired: Experience working within UNICEF.
- Desired: Exposure to implementing technology-enabled programs with an understanding of how technical outputs translate into operational delivery.
- Desired: Formal Project Management certification and experience with PM approaches and use of tools for tracking KPIs, risks, and dependencies.
- Desired: Exposure to national policy frameworks related to technology development, implementation, and infrastructure development.
- Desired: Experience supporting policy engagement or integration of digital connectivity into national strategies or sector plans.
- Desired: Translated complex, cross-sector concepts into clear, actionable guidance, producing structured frameworks, briefs, and implementation plans.
Qualifications
- An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) is required in one of the following fields: statistics, economics, social sciences, development sciences, and management or related degree.
- 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.
