[Hiring] Early Learning Costing and Finance Consultant @AGORA

Role Description

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.

How can you make a difference?

The Government of Solomon Islands (SIG) has committed to a national reform program intended to support economic mobility and social equity as key government priority areas. This initiative includes rolling out free education from 2027, with the potential to include Early Childhood Education (ECE) through to the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) and TAFE/TVET institutions, though the precise details and plans are still in development.

• Solomon Islands has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to education financing, allocating one of the largest shares of the national budget to the education sector.
• Education expenditure has exceeded international benchmarks, with approximately 25-30% of government expenditure directed toward education in recent years.
• In July 2026, the GREAT Government of Solomon Islands released its policy document outlining key policy priority areas, including free education as a flagship government priority.
• MEHRD has asked partners, including UNICEF, for technical support to conduct the economic and policy analysis needed to translate the free education vision into practical, fiscally sustainable costed pathways, models, and options.

Qualifications

• Masters in Education, economics, public policy, or a closely related social science discipline.
• Minimum of seven years of progressively responsible professional experience in education economics, education financing, public financial management or the costing of social sector programmes, including experience in developing country contexts.
• Demonstrated experience leading at least one education sector costing, simulation or public expenditure analysis that was used by a government to inform budget or policy decisions; more than one is an advantage.
• Experience in early childhood or pre-primary education financing or costing, and in working directly with ministries of education and/or finance on budget analysis, unit-cost analysis and fiscal space assessment.
• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.

Requirements

• Ability to build transparent, well-documented and user-editable costing and simulation models, to run sensitivity analysis, and to hand the model over and train government counterparts in its use.
• Strong command of education sector budget analysis, including the ability to work directly from national budget books, appropriation acts and recurrent and development estimates, and to derive credible unit costs from administrative and EMIS data.
• Proven ability to translate technical economic analysis into concise policy and advocacy products for senior government decision-makers, with excellent analytical writing, facilitation and presentation skills in English.
• Political and cultural sensitivity, the judgement required to work credibly within a contested national reform debate, and the ability to build consensus with government counterparts and development partners.

Benefits

• Diverse opportunities for professional and personal development.
• Attractive compensation and benefits package.

Company Description

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.

• UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it.
• 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.