Home-based: Product Management Consultant

**Job no**: 567477

**Contract type**: Consultant

**Duty Station**: Geneva

**Level**: Consultancy

**Location**: Switzerland

**Categories**: Information Communication Technology, Early Childhood Development

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**

Under the supervision of the Innovation Manager, in coordination with the ECD Specialist, ECD Regional Adviser and the Technology for Development Business Analyst, the consultant will provide technical assistance related to the different streams of work as specified above under next steps, envisioned to be provided by the Regional Office to Country Offices.

**Background**

Recognizing the potential of digital solutions in improving the quality of life and services for children and their families, UNICEF’s Europe and Central Asia Regional Office (ECARO) supports the careful development and scale-up of technology-based solutions across the countries in the Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region. UNICEF is seeking an experienced product management consultant to support Bebbo’s growth journey.

THE CHALLENGE - To thrive and develop optimally, young children need nurturing care primarily provided by their parents, with support from service providers and the wider community. Parents require information on all aspects of health and development from reliable sources, guidance on how to promote children's well-being through daily practices, even if they cannot access services, as well as motivation, encouragement, and support for their own well-being. However, in many instances, this support is lacking due to staff shortages, disruptions in service provision caused by the pandemic, war, and a lack of validated information.

Several apps that offer guidance to parents are currently available on the market. However, they are typically offered only in English, focus mainly on limited thematic content like play activities, and lack the capacity for parents to familiarize themselves with, track, and support all aspects of their child's health and development. Additionally, most of these apps are not free of charge and cannot function offline, posing a significant barrier, especially for the most vulnerable families.

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 these improved outcomes is supported by several success factors:

- Increasing adoption of and familiarity with mobile devices across the target demographic
- Difficulties accessing service providers (another source of such information and guidance)
- UNICEF’s ability to provide reliable and useful content in a user-friendly manner
- UNICEF’s understanding of local service provider ecosystems to support rather than disrupt/compete and to enable integration of the app into overall ECD program response
- Success of the app as an opens source solution, open for easy translation and customization to different languages and local contexts

Next steps - The next phase of this initiative will focus on:

- **Continuing to improve the existing app and CMS**
- **Continue leveraging push notifications for user engagement**
- Build on the current push notifications learnings in coordination with Bebbo program countries to strengthen user engagement.
- **Making the app available in more countries and regions** (as the app goes global)
- The app is currently deployed in 14 countries and ongoing work is happening to support 2-3 more countries. This will necessitate adapting the content and the app itself to align with national contexts.
- **Design requirements for next major app version** (Bebbo 2.0)
- Documentation of functional and technology requirements for Bebbo 2.0 is required for the next major app upgrade.
- **Changes in technology architecture**
- As more countries and regions join the digital parenting programme the technology architecture of the app needs to be relooked at and migrated from single site architecture to multi-site architecture.

To achieve these objectives, the Bebbo team - including the Product Manager Consultant will do the following:

- Work with technical vendors to improve, test and deploy a new version of the app that is fit for use across the new countries
- Optimize, expand and