The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programmes, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, nutrition, education and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital.
Purpose of the Position
Under the supervision of the Social Policy Specialist, the incumbent will provide capacity building support towards UNICEF’s work with the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services and sub-national level Technical Assistance (TA) support and assistance. By way of paternity cover for the social policy officer, the incumbent will focus on the strengthening of M&E systems, data systems and shock-responsiveness of the Social Cash Transfer programme. In addition, the incumbent will provide support to accelerate the implementation of activities around of social protection and social cash transfer policy frameworks and identification of graduation pathways. The position will therefore have a primary focus on activities that will lead to accelerated strengthening of the ministry’s policy framework and programming guidelines, coming from a situation of considerable backlog.
Key Accountabilities
Establishes effective partnerships with the Government, bilateral and multilateral donors, NGOs, civil society and local leaders, the private sector, and other UN agencies to support sustained and proactive commitment to the Convention of the Rights of the Child and to achieve global UN agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals.
Identifies other critical partners, promotes awareness and builds capacity of partners, and actively facilitates effective collaboration within the UN family.
Helps manage and coordinate technical support around child poverty, social protection, public finance and governance ensuring it is well planned, monitored, and implemented in a timely fashion so as to adequately support scale-up and delivery. Ensures risk analysis and risk mitigation are embedded into overall management of the support, in close consultation with UNICEF programme sections, Cooperating Partners, and governments.
Supports the development of social protection policies, legislation and programmes with attention to increasing coverage of and impact on children, with special attention the most marginalized. Identifies, generates and presents evidence to support this goal in collaboration with partners. Specifically:
Support finalisation of revised Social Cash Transfer guidelines and their operationalisation
Support finalisation of revised Public Welfare Assistance Scheme guidelines and their operationalisation
Support finalisation of revised National Social Protection Policy and its operationalisation
Support the finalisation of the SCT graduation protocol
Support the scoping of graduation pathways for SCT beneficiaries
Support the finalisation of the Cash Plus Guidelines
Supports strengthening of integrated social protection systems, providing technical support to partners to improve the design of cash transfers and child grants and improve linkages with other social protection interventions such as health insurance, public works and social care services as well as complementary services and intervention related to nutrition, health, education, water and sanitation, child protection and HIV. Specifically
Supports the strengthening of the SCT M&E system including the population of indicators in the system and the piloting of the performance monitoring in selected districts
Supports the shock-responsiveness agenda of the SCT in the humanitarian-development nexus, including the finalisation of the relevant SOPs
Supports the implementation of the Africa Risk Capacity funded Emergency Cash Transfers, including the support to third party monitoring, MIS module finalisation and communication
Supports the finalisation and implementation of the Evaluation Management Response to the ECT evaluation
Supports and contributes to effective and efficient planning, management, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the country programme. Ensures that the social planning project enhances policy dialogue, planning, supervision, technical advice, management, training, research and support; and that the monitoring and evaluation component strengthens monitoring and evaluation of the social sectors and provides support to sectoral and decentralized information systems. Specifically:
Assists the Social Policy Specialist with technical inputs to donor proposals, programme management, coordination, reporting and supervision activities.
Supports internal M&E needs of the section
Supports internal integration platforms such as adolescent programming.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
A university degree in one of the following fields is required: Economics, Public Policy, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political Science, or another relevant technical field.
A minimum of two years of relevant professional experience
Knowledge and experience with diverse social protection programmes, particularly cash transfers
Basic understanding of both humanitarian and development programming
Demonstrated understanding of monitoring and evaluation methodologies
Familiarity with the Zambian Social Protection Landscape
Experience of working with government partners at national and sub-national levels.
Fluency in English
Knowledge of the local working language of the duty station is an asset
