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Working arrangement: Office Based 

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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 a Future. 

How can you make a difference?  

This consultancy will provide senior technical and strategic support to UNICEF India to design and operationalise the early phase of a catalytic financing facility. 

The purpose of this consultancy is to provide senior technical, strategic, and partnership enablement support to: 

• Develop and refine catalytic/innovative financing models tailored to the Indian context across multiple UNICEF priority functions (including but not limited to nutrition). • Strengthen UNICEF India’s ability to originate, assess and structure innovative financing opportunities through market scanning, risk/feasibility analysis, and partner mapping. • Engage with central and state government stakeholders to validate appetite, readiness, and feasible adoption pathways for staged financing approaches. • Design feasible governance, risk management, compliance and verification/learning approaches that make models credible and scalable. • Produce high‑quality, audience‑specific knowledge products, briefs and materials for internal decision‑makers and external partners to support mobilisation and positioning. 

The aim is to accelerate two key priorities in India 

(1) nutrition programming and 

(2) multisectoral programming (nutrition, health, education, child protection and WASH) in India. 

The assignment is deliverable-based, time-bound, and linked to defined outputs, consistent with UNICEF consultant modalities. 

The consultancy responds to the following needs identified through internal discussions and project materials: 

1. Nutrition programming 

• Developing an India-specific financing approach that is feasible within India’s compliance and regulatory context to address nutrition financing gaps, including programme modeling, generation of evidence for decision making, system strengthening and behaviour change communication. • Designing and implement the operational mechanism of a staged financing approach with Option A (Pooled Grant Facility) as the core mechanism; Option B (Match/Multiplier) and Option C (Outcome-Based Financing) introduced selectively and only when systems and verification mature; Option D (Blended Finance) considered only later and only if a clear market bottleneck is demonstrated. • Ensuring all recommendations respect both Government of India compliance and regulatory context and UNICEF rules and procedures; e.g. UNICEF can host/manage pooled and match funds, but cannot host/manage repayment-based instruments (e.g., Outcome based financing/Blended finance). 

2. Multisectoral programming 

• Building on what has been identified for Nutrition programming, exploring India’s financing opportunities for social sectors on interest for UNICEF, including nutrition; either separately or in combination, within India’s compliance and regulatory context. • Developing examples of financial models and their potential management mechanisms either as single options or through a staged financing approach that could be considered as feasible options to address financing gaps in key social sectors; this could be for 1 sector or multiple sectors together. • Ensuring that the proposed options are in line with India’s and UNICEF’s compliance, regulatory and procedures context.  

Scope of Work: 

Under UNICEF supervision, the consultant will deliver outputs across the following workstreams: 

1. Nutrition Programming 

a. Designing the Nutrition Programming Facility based approaches and staged instrument architecture 

• Propose / design financial mechanisms options that seems most adapted for Nutrition Programming (single option and/or staged), pros and cons, opportunistic timeframe for each mechanism and organizational arrangements essential for smooth operationalization both for nutrition and for all sectors. • Translate these designs into implementable operating models (windows, governance, decision gates, and criteria to move from pooled grants → match → selective Outcome-based financing) → Blended financing and consider “parallel windows” approaches if staged or mix models are not practical. • Describe independent verification, associated terms of reference and potential instruments to be used for each of the different financial mechanisms options presented. • Ensure that the designs reflect UNICEF constraints regarding hosting/management of different instruments. • Realise an appetite check mapping of donors / philanthropic / CSR partners / multilateral institutions if relevant and practical adoption pathways aligned with existing performance-linked incentive models referenced in discussions. 

b. Exploring Government’s engagement and readiness (Centre + States) 

• Develop a structured approach to identify and engage states/districts ready to commit to performance pathways and to sense-check feasibility with central/state counterparts. • Support mapping of potential government champions and practical adoption pathways aligned with existing performance-linked incentive models referenced in discussions. 

 c. Documenting donor/investor readiness and partnership mobilisation support 

• Develop a user-friendly advocacy narrative package and briefing materials for high level decision makers (government and donors) explaining the different approaches proposed in simple, decision-oriented language. 

d. Preparing capacity transfer and institutionalization 

• Assist UNICEF in introducing and informing Government counterparts on the facility concept, staged instrument logic, and verification/learning approach. 

2. Multisectoral Programming: Building on the learnings from the Nutrition design, proposing adapted models that could support multisectoral programming: 

a. Multi‑sector financing strategy, modalities and pipeline 

• Analyze UNICEF India priority portfolios and existing financing mechanisms to identify catalytic/innovative financing opportunities across multiple sectors/functions (nutrition plus other priorities). • Develop a multi‑sector pipeline of prospective instruments and partner pathways, with clear feasibility criteria and sequencing logic. • Conduct business/market analyses of financial markets and trends relevant to India and document key internal/external risks and mitigations for shortlisted modalities. • Undertake feasibility assessments for shortlisted instruments (what it is; where it fits; readiness assumptions to validate; risks/mitigations). • Where relevant, draw on innovative finance typologies such as impact investing, climate risk financing, sovereign‑linked instruments, and results/outcome‑linked approaches (without presuming their use) applicable to the Indian market context. • Consider how single and mixed funding sources may apply and how we may be able to integrate and activate across sources such as Government, IFI, CSR, Foundations etc. 

b. Facility/vehicle design (nutrition as anchor use‑case; reusable across sectors) 

• Translate the staged approach into implementable operating model components (windows, decision gates, roles, reporting and learning loops). • Ensure designs respect UNICEF operating constraints and propose partnering /structuring routes as per UNICEF guidelines. • Document strategic decisions and operational processes to ensure transparency and facilitate future replication. 

c. Governance, risk, compliance and verification readiness 

• Document key compliance considerations relevant to innovative finance and propose feasible structuring options, including “parallel windows” approaches where blending is not practical. • Develop a concept for independent verification and a learning agenda (without assuming specific KPIs not yet agreed), sufficient to support credible reporting and potential future performance‑linked instruments. • Maintain robust tracking and reporting mechanisms to monitor progress against objectives and deliverables, including an issue/risk log and decision points. 

d. Partnerships, positioning and knowledge products 

• Support partnerships and resource mobilisation engagement with private sector partners and philanthropy/CSR, and coordinate with relevant teams on engagement with development banks/financial institutions where applicable. • Develop partner‑facing narratives and briefs that explain the staged approach in simple, decision‑oriented language for different audiences (government, philanthropy/CSR, financiers). 

If you would like to know more about this consultancy, please review the complete Terms of Reference here: Terms of Reference TMC0006160.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have...  

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.  

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.