JOBS

Exciting Remote Consultancy Opportunity: Apply Now for the Youth Innovation Consultant Position at UNICEF

Ednah Carrick December 5, 2025

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Closing Date: 9 December 2025

Exciting Remote Consultancy Opportunity: Apply Now for the Youth Innovation Consultant Position at UNICEF

About UNICEF

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you. For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS.

Remote Consultancy: Youth Innovation Consultant

Duty Station: Programme Group – Generation Unlimited

Purpose of Activity

Generation Unlimited (GenU) is a global public–private–youth partnership dedicated to expanding opportunities for young people aged 10–24 to transition from learning to earning by 2030. Through its Entrepreneurship and Livelihoods workstream, GenU partners with governments, the private sector, and youth networks to design and scale models that equip young people with skills, mentorship, and pathways to dignified livelihoods.

This remote consultancy will strengthen the operational delivery and youth integration functions across GenU’s programme initiatives, with an emphasis on structured coordination, mentorship systematization, and cross-portfolio continuity. The consultant will ensure that programme frameworks—across employment and entrepreneurship clusters such as AI-enabled, green, health, and necessity/subsistence—translate into actionable plans with clear milestones, consistent follow-up, and meaningful youth engagement.

The Youth Innovation Consultant will work under the overall guidance of the Deputy Director of Programmes, the direct supervision and oversight of the Youth Engagement and Entrepreneurship Lead and will collaborate closely with the Country Support and Global Solutions hubs. The consultant will also coordinate with colleagues leading the Evidence/MERL, Communications, and Programme Operations functions to ensure coherence, alignment, and timely execution of deliverables.

The Youth Innovation Consultant will:

provide project management and coordination support across ongoing and emerging entrepreneurship and livelihoods initiatives;
build and manage the mentorship and incubation support architecture, ensuring continuity and institutional learning; and embed youth centrality as a functional component of programme design and delivery, connecting young people’s perspectives to real-time implementation improvements.

Scope of Work

The consultant will be responsible for the coordinated delivery of outputs that strengthen the operational execution, mentorship architecture, and youth integration across Generation Unlimited’s entrepreneurship and livelihoods initiatives.

The consultant will focus on the following interlinked areas of work:

Programme Coordination and Delivery Management
Mentorship System Development and Knowledge Continuity
Youth Integration and Cross-Portfolio Alignment

Each area is designed to result in time-bound, tangible deliverables that contribute to GenU’s entrepreneurship portfolio implementation quality and coherence.

Programme Coordination and Delivery Management

The consultant will strengthen the operational backbone of entrepreneurship and livelihoods initiatives by ensuring consistent follow-up, documentation, and supporting coordination across stakeholders. This includes:

Supporting coordinating cross-functional collaboration programme hubs to ensure milestone-based delivery and information flow.
Supporting work planning, synthesis of action points, and preparation of progress updates and briefing notes

Mentorship System Development and Knowledge Continuity

To strengthen incubation support for young entrepreneurs, the consultant will:

Design, document, and operationalize the mentorship framework for entrepreneurship programmes, outlining structures for matching, onboarding, and engagement of mentors and mentees.
Support coordinating with internal teams and partners to align mentorship support with ongoing entrepreneurship and innovation activities (e.g., AI, health, green, and necessity entrepreneurship).
Track mentorship outcomes and compile insights to inform the evolution of mentorship and incubation approaches across the portfolio.
Maintain and organize institutional knowledge products (frameworks, trackers, case studies, and lessons learned) to support future continuity and onboarding of new consultants or staff.

Youth Integration and Cross-Portfolio Alignment

To embed youth perspectives and ensure programmes remain responsive to young people’s needs, the consultant will:

Facilitate the integration of youth inputs from YPATs, alumni, and programme participants into design and implementation processes.
Develop light feedback mechanisms to capture youth perspectives on relevance, feasibility, and impact of entrepreneurship initiatives.
Support the operational rollout of youth-centric approaches, ensuring youth engagement principles are reflected in programme governance, selection, mentorship, and learning processes.
Collaborate with the Youth Engagement team to translate youth feedback into actionable recommendations for programme improvement.
Support the coordination and facilitation of the P2E Youth Consultation Board, convening quarterly consultations to gather youth perspectives on priority topics such as accreditation, content focus, and related areas.
Support the coordination and implementation of YPAT micro-structures for GenU global programmes, including the Girl’s Education and Skills Partnership (GESP) GAP.

Thought Leadership and Youth-Centric Evidence Generation

To strengthen GenU’s global positioning and ensure youth perspectives meaningfully shape entrepreneurship and livelihoods programming, the consultant will deliver clearly defined, time-bound outputs that contribute to GenU’s thought leadership agenda. This work focuses on translating evidence, youth insights, and programme learnings into high-quality knowledge products and strategic communications.

Develop youth-led knowledge products, including blog posts, policy notes, or evidence summaries aligned with GenU’s entrepreneurship and livelihoods priorities.
Coordinate youth contributions for global platforms such as the Green Jobs for Youth Pact, GPE, and YFI, ensuring youth perspectives are clearly captured and reflected.
Support the development of flagship knowledge products, contributing research, drafted text, or youth-generated content for reports, concept notes, or positioning papers.

Qualifications

Education:

Bachelor’s degree in International Development, Business Administration, Public Policy, Social Sciences, or a related field.

Language Proficiency:

Fluency in English required. Working knowledge of another UN language an asset

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required *:

At least three (3) years of progressively responsible experience in programme or project management, coordination, or delivery within international development, innovation, or youth-focused initiatives.
Experience supporting entrepreneurship, livelihoods, or mentorship programmes is highly desirable.
Demonstrated ability to coordinate multi-stakeholder workstreams and manage implementation plans, trackers, and milestone-based delivery systems.
Experience supporting the execution of entrepreneurship, livelihoods, or youth innovation initiatives in global or regional contexts.
Proven skills in organizing, documenting, and synthesizing programme processes, lessons learned, and implementation results.
Familiarity with mentorship and incubation frameworks, including participant matching, monitoring, and engagement processes.
Strong understanding of youth engagement and participatory programme design approaches.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across diverse teams and time zones.
Analytical and problem-solving skills with attention to detail, accountability, and follow-through.
Ability to work independently, meet deadlines, and adapt flexibly to evolving priorities