WASH Innovation Consultant – Collaboration Strategy, Copenhagen, Denmark, Office of Innovation, 6 months (remote) Individual Consultant International Position Short term contract

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?

The success of the Hub depends on UNICEF teams and our partners having strong, coordinated ways of working together to accelerate the development, testing, and scaling of transformative WASH solutions. To support this, we are seeking a consultant to develop a collaboration strategy that enables effective engagement across internal and external actors, while also identifying the specific collaboration needs across the WASH innovation ecosystem. This strategy will outline how the Hub can connect expertise, foster joint problem‑solving, and create an enabling environment where innovative WASH solutions can thrive.

Specifically, the consultant will lead a structured process to map stakeholders, assess existing collaboration practices, and gather insights through targeted consultations with country offices, regional teams, partners, and innovators. Building on this, the consultant will define a clear collaboration vision and design models for how UNICEF engages with startups, researchers, governments, private sector actors, NGOs, field teams and other identified stakeholders. A key component of this work will be designing the requirements and core functions for a digital collaboration platform that supports knowledge‑sharing, partner engagement, and innovation pathways across the Hub.

The consultant will also prepare a practical implementation roadmap that includes phased roll‑out actions, resourcing needs, and a monitoring and learning approach to ensure continuous improvement. While this assignment will be carried out by an individual consultant, the work will be informed by the Hub technical team and relevant partners, whose expertise and insights will be available throughout the process.

Your main responsibilities will be:

The consultant is expected to design a Collaboration Strategy, including outlining a collaboration platform:

1. Conduct a comprehensive collaboration needs assessment
2. Facilitate stakeholder consultations and cocreation activities
3. Develop a holistic collaboration strategy for the Hub
4. Design partnership and engagement models
5. Lead the design and specification of a collaboration platform
6. Develop operational and governance frameworks
7. Create an implementation roadmap with monitoring, evaluation & learning integration

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here:  Collaboration Strategy ToR.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, water engineering, or another relevant field

(a first degree plus two additional years of experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University degree).

Work Experience:

• Minimum of eight years of professional experience in technical project management in the water sector, with a strong track record of delivering complex assignments in development settings.
• Demonstrated experience in:
  • strategy development and strategic planning for scaling projects;
  • knowledge management and evidence‑based decision‑making;
  • designing and applying models for scaling innovation in development contexts.
  
  
• Proven ability to work with government counterparts, manage contracts and projects, and navigate multi‑stakeholder environments.
• Strong experience leading stakeholder engagement processes, including facilitation of workshops, consultations, and co‑creation activities across diverse actors (government, academia, private sector, NGOs, and innovators).
• Demonstrated experience of collaboration platform design, including digital systems
• Commitment to UNICEF’s values—Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS)—and to advancing equitable, child‑centred WASH innovation.

Skills:

• Exceptional research, analytical, synthesis, and concise report‑writing skills, with the ability to translate complex information into actionable recommendations.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to engage multidisciplinary teams and convey insights to technical and non‑technical audiences.

Language Requirements: Fluency in English

Desirables:

• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts.
• Experience collaborating with private‑sector innovation actors and/or accelerating innovation in low‑resource settings
• Familiarity with working in developing countries, emergency contexts, or fragile environments
• knowledge of another UN language is considered 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
• Financial proposal must include travel costs (economy class) and daily subsistence allowance if travel is required as per TOR and any other estimated costs: visa, travel/health insurance.
• Interested applicants are required to submit a technical proposal.

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

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships

(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness

(3) Drive to achieve results for impact

(4) Innovates and embraces change

(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity

(6) Thinks and acts strategically

(7) Works collaboratively with others

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

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.