Current Openings at United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

The position will support the scale up of early detection and treatment of wasting in all countries of the region, including roll out of the UN Global Action Plan (GAP) on Wasting, with focused support to the first adopter countries in maximising national-level efforts to scale-up prevention and treatment services to address wasting. The position will also contribute to the prevention of wasting, in close collaboration with other colleagues in the section, and will serve as focal point for nutrition and resilience and climate change. Further the incumbent will support the roll out of global partnerships with UN agencies, including the research agenda in documenting evidence on prevention of wasting and scale up of treatment. The nutrition specialist will facilitate the creation and/or strengthening of other strategic partnerships with key stakeholders at regional level on wasting and emergency nutrition.

The successful individual will be responsible for the following key accountabilities:

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Management and advisory support to the Regional Adviser

• Provide advice to the RA in establishing, implementing and monitoring the wasting and NiE components of the annual work plan.
• Ensure results for NiE and wasting are achieved according to schedule and performance standards, and report to RA critical issues for timely action.
• Provide technical assistance and advice to colleagues in the section on the wasting and NiE aspects of programming and implementation to enable them to achieve results.

Programme development and planning

• Provide technical support and guidance on the preparation, design and updating of regional and country situation analyses on wasting and nutrition in emergencies, to inform the regional and country agendas.
• Provide technical and strategic assistance to country offices to formulate, design and prepare the wasting and NiE components of nutrition programmes and develop implementation plans.
• Provide support for country offices to develop the nutrition components of humanitarian response plans, HACs, appeals, proposals and other relevant emergency documents.
• Work closely and collaboratively with colleagues in other UNICEF sectors, particularly Health, Emergency, SBC, ECD, WASH, Social Policy, Supply and Communications and with HQ.
• Provide authoritative technical and operational support on wasting and NiE throughout all stages of programming processes.

Programme management, monitoring and delivery of results

• Collaborate with internal and external partners to establish monitoring benchmarks, performance indicators and other UNICEF/UN system indicators and measurements to assess and strengthen performance accountability and results for wasting and NiE.
• Provide quality assurance and review of country office annual reports, NutriDash, RAM, CSIs and results related to wasting and NiE and review of RO to CO compacts.
• Contribute to the design of evaluations and research related to wasting and NiE and review reports. Identify lessons learned and disseminate and use knowledge.
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Advisory services and technical support

• Provide advice to key government officials, NGO partners, UN system partners, and other country office partners/donors on policies, strategies, best practices and approaches on wasting and NiE-related issues.
• Participate in strategic programme discussions and planning to provide technical advice, contribute to policy discussions, and promote appropriate wasting and NiE interventions.
• Prepare policy papers, briefs and other strategic programme materials on wasting and NiE for management use, information and/or consideration.
• Participate in emergency preparedness initiatives in countries, assessments and response to emergencies in country (surge). Coordinate and provide assistance to the 21 Country Offices in identifying where support is required.

Advocacy, networking and partnership building

• Build and strengthen strategic partnerships on wasting & NiE with relevant UN agencies, regional economic communities, government counterparts, NGOs, national stakeholders, global and regional partners, allies, donors, and academia.
• Build capacity, exchange knowledge and expertise, and/or promote cooperation and alliances to achieve programme goals on wasting and NiE.
• Participate and/or represent UNICEF in appropriate inter-agency discussions and planning on wasting and nutrition in emergencies -related issues.
• Contribute to design and implementation of strengthened resilience programming for nutrition.
• Contribute to building new partnerships on climate and nutrition, including mapping, analysis, research, recommendations, investment cases and advocacy for climate-sensitive nutrition actions, fundraising, technical assistance and documentation.
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Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

• Promote critical thinking, innovative approaches and good practices for sustainable and high coverage wasting programmes and effective and timely NiE responses.
• Keep abreast, research, benchmark, and implement best and cutting-edge practices in nutrition management and information systems for wasting and NiE.
• Contribute to the development of policies and procedures and introduce innovation and best practices on wasting programmes & NiE responses.
• Organize, plan and/or implement capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of country office Nutrition staff, Government counterparts and other stakeholders to promote and deliver results on wasting and NiE.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have

• Advanced university degree in Public Health or Nutrition (preferably with specialized training in public health and nutrition planning, health and nutrition education, health care system management, or epidemiology), Child Development, Social Policy, Social Development, Community Development, or other relevant disciplines.
• Eight years of professional work experience at the national and international levels in planning, programming, implementation monitoring and evaluation of nutrition programmes. Professional work experience in a managerial/leadership position, or a technical expert position in nutrition.
• Developing country work experience
• Background/familiarity and specific work experience on Nutrition in Emergencies and wasting prevention and treatment programmes
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Deadline: 30 Apr 2023

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How can you make a difference?

We are looking for a technically capable community builder with a passion for working with open-source Technology for development(T4D) projects. The successful candidate will be able to promote open-source projects to foster, educate and engage a community of end users.

The technology for development consultant (Community manager) will also liaise with counterparts at external organizations, as necessary, for building relationships, technical documentation for open-source projects and other initiatives related to ICTD DCOE. The consultant will be responsible for creating fora and materials to advocate for RapidPro as a Digital Public Good and Infrastructure for digital messaging and notifications.

The Successful candidate will ensure that RapidPro users are engaged, aware of product improvements and aware of data best practices through regular webinars, meetings and newsletters. In addition, the community manager might be tasked with engaging with individual RapidPro users to learn about their experiences using RapidPro, support with the creation of abstracts for conferences and ensuring that users are aware of and linked to resources on how to deploy RapidPro for their use case.

The Technology for development consultant (Community manager) will also liaise with counterparts at external organizations, as necessary, for building relationships, technical documentation for open-source projects and other initiatives related to ICTD DCOE. The Consultant will also support ICTD DCOE, country office and regional office teams in leveraging the technical documentation to successfully implement programme objectives as well as in the creation of materials for advocacy and sharing outcomes with a wider audience. The consultant may be required to represent UNICEF and ICTD at meetings, conferences, and other events, as well as attend meetings with colleagues based in the field.

Scope of Work:

Summary of key functions/activities:

The consultant will undertake the following activities monthly in support of specific deliverables:

• Support RapidPro scale-up and organizational technology for development mainstreaming activities
• Work with regional Technology for Development (T4D) Business Analysts (BAs), the Health Program Division, and other stakeholders to collect, review, reorganize, and update RapidPro guidance documents, SOPs, “playbooks,” templates/tools, etc to be used by T4D BAs and/or vendors providing “RapidPro expert services” to country office (CO) colleagues
• Develop/adapt RapidPro support materials for use by DCOE RapidPro (or public goods) helpdesk staff, support materials for use by CO-based ICT staff, and materials Regional and Country office T4D staff trainings
• Author and maintain product resources
• Build, manage and grow the RapidPro community
• Build relationships and increase engagement with members of the RapidPro community
• Welcome new members and engage with community user feedback
• liaise with counterparts at UNICEF and external organizations, as necessary, to building relationships with RapidPro users

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• Coordinate discussions with RapidPro hosting vendors
• Share outputs and outcomes from RapidPro working group discussions
• Organize knowledge sharing events and showcases for the work of the RapidPro community
• Create materials for advocacy and sharing outcomes with a wider audience

Maintain and expand web-based and document-based product resources for T4D tools, including:

• Product overview documents for RapidPro and related technologies (such as Superset dashboards, U-Report, Surveyor app, CasePro, and others)
• Content to drive better usage and learning, such as feature overviews, tutorials, and tips/tricks
• Content to introduce and promote exploration and analysis of data generated by RapidPro and other T4D tools
• Technical manuals for setup and configuration of software tools
• Case studies, implementation overviews, and deployment experiences with products by UNICEF and others
• Copywriter’s manual and documentation guidelines for all technical documents
• Update and maintain global content library to streamline RapidPro knowledge management and capacity building with the UNICEF RapidPro ecosystem.

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Drive global recognition of RapidPro capabilities among internal and external stakeholders:

• Web content, key messages, op-eds, fact sheets, blogs, etc.
• Work with ICTD comms team, country and regional offices to develop human interest stories and/or supporting UNICEF programme staff in writing human interest stories, including through assisting with shaping story angles, providing writing tips, and supporting with the finalization of stories.
• Develops donor and fundraising content packages such as fact sheets, beneficiary testimonies, interviews, blogs, etc.
• Works with the team to develop and deliver UNICEF RapidPro newsletter in timely manner.
• Develop messages for social media platforms.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have

• Bachelor’s degree in English, Journalism, Communications, or a related field
• Three to five years of professional experience in communication and writing for an external audience
• Outstanding writing skills in the English language with demonstrated ability for logical and analytical writing as well as ‘de-jargoning’ technical language for a wider audience
• Experience producing detailed technical product documentation
•  Experience working with and building open-source communities
• Attention to detail, research skills and the ability to work under strict deadlines is a must.
• Effective interactive communication
• Client service and people-oriented
• Relationship/community building
• Ability to work across time zones
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In addition, the following will be considered a strong asset:

• Education/work experience in engineering/technical fields
• Humanitarian or development programme background
• Experience using and deploying RapidPro and other T4D tools.
• Familiarity with UNICEF organizational structure.
• Comfortable coordinating between multiple remote teams and stakeholders.
• Superior technical writing skills.
• Superior command of the English language.
• Experience working in low-resource settings and writing for multicultural audiences.
• Experience working with software product development teams.
• Experience in delivering guidance, technical support and mentorship to individuals, teams and groups
• Experience with processing large amounts of information and synthesizing it.
• Ability to work in a team and in a diverse work environment.

Deadline: 01 May 2023