Home-based: Communications and Social Marketing Consultant (30 working days) – Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO)

UNICEF ECARO is looking for a qualified Communications and Social Marketing Consultant to work closely with the Bebbo Central Team and Country Offices.

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, innovation.

Purpose of Activity/Assignment

Recognizing the importance of effective communication and social marketing in the successful implementation and growth of the Bebbo parenting app, UNICEF’s Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO) seeks to engage a Communications and Social Marketing Consultant. This role will support the Bebbo Central Team in planning, implementing, and managing various communication and promotion activities across 15 countries where Bebbo was launched and up to 5 onboarding countries/regions, ensuring consistent messaging and wider reach.

The UNICEF Europe and Central Asia Regional Office has developed and launched a parenting application called Bebbo that supports a digital parenting support programme. The aim is to engage parents and caregivers in nurturing care, positive parenting, stimulation, and learning. This goal is achieved by improving the availability of information and supporting parents through innovation and behavior change initiatives. The app has been successfully launched in 15 countries and has already garnered more than 1.2 million downloads.

Bebbo is a free, easily accessible mobile app available on iOS and Android platforms. It provides evidence-based guidance to support childcare and development, as well as parental well-being and mental health. In addition to early childhood development (ECD) content covering various domains such as health, nutrition, play, safety, responsive parenting, and parental well-being, the app offers functional features for monitoring and recording vaccinations, child growth and development. These features are customizable and tailored to a child’s age, gender, and other parameters. Furthermore, the application is designed to be available in multiple languages, with centrally developed content stored in a Drupal-based Content Management System (CMS).

The Theory of Change for the Bebbo app stipulates that as parents download the app and regularly access and use its key functions, they will increase their knowledge and awareness of key aspects of child development. This increase in awareness is expected to lead to greater parental engagement in nurturing care, positive parenting practices, stimulating and learning activities, and improved parental well-being, ultimately resulting in improved outcomes for children.

Bebbo’s potential to create improved outcomes is supported by several key success factors:

• Growing adoption of mobile devices: The target demographic is increasingly familiar with and reliant on smartphones, expanding the app’s potential reach.
• Limited access to traditional services: Many users face difficulties accessing in-person service providers, making Bebbo a valuable alternative source of information and guidance.
• UNICEF’s content expertise: The organization’s ability to deliver reliable, useful content in a user-friendly format enhances the app’s effectiveness.
• Ecosystem integration: UNICEF’s deep understanding of local service provider networks allows Bebbo to complement rather than disrupt existing ECD programs.
• Open-source flexibility: As an open-source solution, Bebbo is easily adaptable for translation and customization to diverse languages and cultural contexts.
• Inclusive design: The app’s navigation, offline functionality, and core content selection cater specifically to the needs of the most vulnerable parents and caregivers.

As Bebbo continues to expand its reach across multiple countries, there is a growing need for coordinated and effective communication strategies. Each country office (CO) requires support in developing and implementing tailored communication plans, creating engaging content, and ensuring consistent messaging across all platforms. Additionally, there is a need to increase Bebbo’s visibility both within UNICEF and externally, as well as to gather and analyze user feedback to inform future improvements.

To address these challenges, UNICEF ECARO is seeking a Communications and Social Marketing Consultant to work closely with the Bebbo Central Team and Country Offices. This consultant will play a crucial role in:

1. Communication Planning and Implementation – Technical assistance to Country Offices (COs) in developing and implementing effective communication plans for Bebbo.
2. Content Creation and Quality Assurance – Ensuring high-quality content creation and consistency across all Bebbo promotion materials.
3. Surveys and Push Notifications – Coordinating surveys and push notifications to engage users and gather feedback.
4. Bebbo Visibility and Promotion – Enhancing Bebbo’s visibility both internally within UNICEF and externally.
5. Additional Responsibilities – Supporting other related programming activities from a communications perspective.

The consultant will work with the Bebbo Central Team and COs to ensure that all communication activities are aligned with UNICEF’s guidelines and standards, and contribute to the overall success and growth of the Bebbo app.

Scope of Work

Under the supervision of the Innovation Manager, the consultant is expected to contribute to the following tasks:

A. Communication Planning and Implementation

• Technical Assistance and guidance to Country Office (CO) colleagues in drafting and updating communication plans with special focus on digital outreach.
• Provide individual follow-up with each CO to ensure successful implementation of communication plans.
• Actively participate in weekly 2-hour brainstorming meeting/sessions on all aspects of Bebbo.
• Actively participate in coordination meetings with COs.

B. Content Creation and Quality Assurance

• Guide COs in developing compelling human-interest stories and case studies for Bebbo; review and provide feedback on these to ensure high-quality content.
• Review parenting content added by COs for language consistency to be shared with other COs.
• Review pregnancy content being added for language consistency and alignment with other Bebbo content.

C. Surveys and Push Notifications

• Support designing and implementation of the surveys/interviews in multiple languages, providing regular individual follow-up with each CO.
• Create new push notifications in English for Bebbo and guide/provide feedback to each CO on their push notifications.
• Follow up with COs to ensure they write their own push notifications and provide support in scheduling them on Firebase.

D. Bebbo Visibility and Promotion

• Ensure the Bebbo site remains up to date.
• Ensure Bebbo is featured on relevant platforms across UNICEF to increase internal visibility.
• Draft collateral and content for conferences, awards, and other visible events outside UNICEF to increase Bebbo’s visibility.
• Manage the Bebbo quarterly newsletter, drafting content in Word and MailJet in collaboration with COs.
• Provide inputs on fundraising documents from a communications perspective to support Bebbo’s growth.

E. Additional Responsibilities

• Ensure all parenting communications are aligned with UNICEF’s guidelines and standards.
• Collaborate with the central team and COs to continuously improve Bebbo’s communication strategies.

Work Assignment Overview

Tasks / Milestone	Deliverables / Outputs	Timeline / Deadline
A. Communication Planning and Implementation	1. 12+ updated communication plans for launched countries and 3+ draft plans for onboarding countries/regions (including support to COs on campaign implementations)	5 working days; By 28 February 2025
2. Participate and prepare quarterly summary on brainstorming sessions and CO coordination meetings (2 reports)	2 working days; Between November 2024 and February 2025
B. Content Creation and Quality Assurance	3. 4 reviewed and edited human interest stories/case studies	3 working days; By 28 February 2025
4. Quarterly summary on content review for language consistency (2 summaries)	3 working days; Between November 2024 and February 2025
C. Surveys and Push Notifications	5. Support to evaluation study from communications perspective	2 working days; By 28 February 2025
6. 60 push notifications created in English (10 per month) and up to 100 notifications scheduled in Firebase (including the ones drafted by COs)	3 working days; By 28 February 2025
D. Bebbo Visibility and Promotion	7. Updated Bebbo site content	1 working day; By 30 December 2024
8. 2 Bebbo quarterly newsletters drafted and distributed	3 working days; Between October 2024 and January 2025
9. Collateral and content for at least 4 events / conferences / campaigns / fundraising proposals	4 working days; As needed, by February 2025
E. Additional Responsibilities	10. Best practices report on communication activities, achievements, and recommendations across Bebbo COs	4 working days; By 30 December 2024

Estimated Duration of the Contract

30 working days between September 2024 and February 2025.

Consultant’s Work Place and Official Travel

The Consultant will be remote/home-based with no travels foreseen.

Estimated Cost of the Consultancy & Payment Schedule

Payment will be made on submission of an invoice and satisfactory completion of the above-mentioned deliverables. UNICEF reserves the right to withhold all or a portion of payment if performance is unsatisfactory, if work/outputs are incomplete, not delivered or for failure to meet deadlines. All materials developed will remain the copyright of UNICEF and UNICEF will be free to adapt and modify them in the future.

Please submit a professional fee (in USD) based on 30 working days to undertake this assignment.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in Communications, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Social Sciences or a related field.
• 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.
• A minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience in digital communications and content creation of which a minimum of 3 years working on communication in parenting programmes and supporting in developing and implementing digital communication strategies and plans.
• Knowledge of survey design and analysis is an advantage.
• Knowledge of the environment in which UN/UNICEF operates and understanding the constraints of working in a Europe and Central Asia region.
• Excellent communication abilities, in both written and oral forms.
• Ability to align technical goals with UNICEF strategic goals — that always will mean UNICEF’s mission over any particular technology.
• Fluency in English is a minimum requirement. Fluency in languages of the UNICEF ECA region would be an advantage.
• Familiarity with the domain of early childhood development would be a plus, but you will be supported by subject matter experts

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS), and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most marginalized children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family 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.

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.

Remarks:

Please include a full CV and a Cover Letter in your application. Additionally, indicate your availability and professional fee (in USD) to undertake the terms of reference above. Applications submitted without a professional fee will not be considered. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates are subject to confirmation of fully-vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the assignment. It does not apply to consultants who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their consultancy contracts.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the selection process and afterwards in your assignment.