Market Development Specialist

Job Highlight

The Market Development Specialist will support UNICEF Supply Division and UNICEF’s Digital Inclusion team to implement a market acceleration strategy to create a more efficient connectivity solutions market for schools, health facilities, and other sites relevant for delivering essential services for children. This role will help develop the demand for UNICEF Digital Inclusion’s tools that aim to help governments massively scale their ability to contract connectivity for schools, under the Giga initiative, as well as health centers, post offices, and other public sites relevant for UNICEF programmatic objectives.

To achieve this, the Market Development Specialist will develop partnerships with governments, cultivate collaboration opportunities with multilateral organizations, and advocate for improved access to connectivity. Market intelligence and research will be developed to help design and implement a market development strategy that creates a healthy pipeline of countries working alongside UNICEF’s procurement teams to close the digital divide affecting schools, health centers and other relevant sites in low-income countries.

The Giga Procurement Section, based in Geneva, plays a critical role in achieving this goal by ensuring that schools receive high-quality connectivity solutions. This role will be managed by UNICEF Digital Inclusion’s lead for Delivery Solutions to support UNICEF Country Offices and their government partners with technical assistance to efficiently source affordable, quality-assured, and sustainable connectivity.

The incumbent will be supporting a market acceleration strategy to scale connectivity for schools and other child-focused facilities by promoting UNICEF and Giga’s procurement and digital inclusion support to governments.

The role includes conducting market research, building government partnerships, supporting collaboration with multilateral financing institutions, developing advocacy materials, and engaging with telecom providers to strengthen market participation and improve the scalability and sustainability of school connectivity solutions.

The role requires agility and adaptability, aligning with Giga's startup culture while observing public procurement principles and UN rules and regulations. The Market Development Specialist will work closely with UNICEF's Country Offices and ITU teams, as well as other UN agencies. This role demands strong collaboration across various Giga teams, including Mapping, Finance, Country Engagement, Applied Science, Partnerships, and with UNICEF’s 124 Country Offices.

• Building demand for Giga’s procurement and UNICEF Digital Inclusion tools:
  • Engage with governments to promote Giga’s procurement work and understand any obstacles they face to adopt these tools.
  • Work with UNICEF Digital Inclusion’s Delivery Solutions team to adapt its approach and products, considering governments evolving needs, new market trends, and changing ecosystem landscape.
  • Collaborate with global and regional multilateral organizations to generate synergies drive a common agenda in promoting more investment in and scaling procurement of school connectivity solutions.
• Stakeholder Engagement and
  
  Collaboration:
  • Work with internal and external stakeholders to advance UNICEF’s procurement and scale up strategies.
  • Support the team’s efforts to establish partnerships that support the development and implementation of a market acceleration plan to scale the provision of connectivity solutions for schools.
  • Participate in discussions with key partners and attend events to advance UNICEF’s procurement work and agenda.
• Market Intelligence, Analysis and Influencing Strategies:
  • Collect, collate, and analyse market intelligence on global and local markets for connectivity solutions and assess the suitability for deploying UNICEF’s procurement tools.
  • Generate insights on the drivers and barriers for scaling the connectivity of schools and health centres, including the political landscape, regulations, industry ecosystem, or access to finance.
  • Work with UNICEF's Digital Inclusion Applied Science team to ensure that all…