Senior Coordinator – Alliance (P-5), Child Protection Section, Programme Division, NYHQ, Requisition #539127

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, hope.

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, 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, 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. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

Strategic Office Context:

The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action is a global network of operational agencies, academic institutions, policymakers, donors and practitioners. It supports the efforts of humanitarian actors to achieve high-quality and effective child protection interventions in all humanitarian contexts. The Alliance achieves this primarily by facilitating inter-agency technical collaboration, including production of technical standards and tools, capacity building, evidence generation, and advocacy on child protection in all humanitarian contexts. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) co-leads this network with a rotating NGO (currently, Plan International).

The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action

The Alliance’s work falls into five broad categories:

•  Standard setting and guidance development: The Alliance develops standards for child protection in humanitarian action (CPHA) and generates technical guidelines and associated materials for use by humanitarian personnel. It also promotes the integration of humanitarian standards and norms into practice and encourages efforts to learn from their use and make them better. The Alliance is the custodian of the Child Protection Minimum Standards (CPMS), which are considered a companion to the Sphere standards.

•  Capacity building, learning and development: The Alliance develops the technical capacity of child protection by identifying, expanding and strengthening the CPHA workforce; mapping capacity gaps; defining priorities and strategic direction in terms of capacity development; and providing learning opportunities, both face-to-face and remote.

•  Evidence and knowledge generation: The Alliance invests in generating and making available robust evidence on the effectiveness of programs and strategies in protecting children in humanitarian settings.

•  Advocacy: The Alliance engages in advocacy for child protection and its beneficiaries. This includes ensuring child protection needs are reflected in the global humanitarian architecture and associated processes.

•  Convening: The Alliance convenes humanitarian child protection actors working at local, national, regional and global levels to promote knowledge sharing and technical collaboration.

How can you make a difference?

Under the direct supervision of Senior Advisor, Child Protection in Emergencies and overall guidance from the Associate Director, Global Chief of Child Protection Section, you will provide leadership to The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (the Alliance) on behalf of UNICEF in order to improve results for children at country level. Specifically, you will co-lead, together with a rotating NGO counterpart, the collective work of the Alliance under the agreed collective goal of ensuring that the efforts of national and international actors are of high quality and effective in protecting children in humanitarian settings.

You are responsible for managing the relationship with the NGO co-lead for the Alliance, as well as managing and leading on the following aspects of the functioning of the Alliance: You are responsible for establishing productive and effective relationships with other entities and actors working in the same and related sectors, to ensure complementarity and coordination of work. You act as a representative for the community of actors working on child protection in humanitarian settings. You are responsible for managing staff under your supervision, as required.

Summary of key functions and accountabilities:

1. Strategic leadership

• Foster and maintain excellent methods of working between group members, including transparent governance arrangements.
• Provide leadership in the visioning, strategy development and formulation of work plans for the Alliance to ensure work plans are consistent with the stated goal and outcomes and that work planned is relevant, results-oriented, cost effective and incorporates a clear measurement framework. 
• Work jointly with the Child Protection AoR and UNHCR to ensure that the work of the Alliance and the provision of technical programmatic support and guidance from working groups and task forces within the Alliance to field level coordination mechanisms in all humanitarian and refugee settings is complementary and well-coordinated.

2. Management

• Oversee all administrative and budgetary processes required to support the setting and implementation of the Alliance’s work plan, as it relates to UNICEF’s responsibilities.
• Undertake fundraising and donor reporting as required to facilitate the implementation of the workplan.
• Manage staff and consultants as required.
• Provide input into UNICEF’s internal reports and planning processes, as relevant.
• Liaise with the NGO coordinator in day-to-day management of and coordination between the Working Groups and Task Forces of the Alliance.
• Ensure the planning and implementation of the Annual Meeting for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.

3. Performance monitoring and quality control of results

• Plan and coordinate interagency evaluation exercises and periodic sector review meetings of the Alliance with donors, government counterparts and other stakeholders and oversee the preparation of status reports. Follow up on the implementation of recommendations to further enhance the partnership and interagency action to improve child protection in emergencies.
• Ensure appropriate mechanisms are in place for monitoring performance, the sharing of lessons and experiences, and reporting so that the goals and objectives of the Alliance are met.

4. Advocacy, networking and partnership building

• Participate in strategic discussions to influence policy and agenda setting for promoting child protection in humanitarian response.
• Build and strengthen strategic partnerships through networking and advocacy with local/national governments, UN system agency partners, donors, internationally recognized institutions, NGOs; funders, research institutes and- private sector to reinforce cooperation and/or pursue opportunities to promote goals and achieve sustainable and broad results on child protection.
• Ensure that appropriate mechanisms are in place to facilitate (inter-sectoral) planning, coordination and action. Ensure integration of cross-cutting issues, such as gender, disability, etc, into the work of the Alliance.
• Ensure that the Alliance has adequate access to decision-making processes and fora within the humanitarian sphere.
• Develop communication strategies, implementation plans and activities for maximum communication impact and outreach to promote awareness, establish partnership for sustainable results in the area of child protection in humanitarian settings.
• Support fundraising for the Alliance activities  and advocate for increased funding for the sector

5. Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

• Promote critical thinking and innovative approaches for child protection related initiatives, and establish partnerships to move such ideas forward.
• Keep abreast of latest research and evidence. Introduce and promote best and cutting-edge practices on child protection programming. Facilitate the generation and dissemination of best practices and knowledge learned.
• Provide overall technical leadership in the identification of critical capacity gaps and provide global oversight of subsequent action to address these at the global interagency level.
• Oversee Alliance’s knowledge management work to ensure effective dissemination, roll out and use of Alliance products by relevant actors.

The efficiency and efficacy of the incumbent impacts directly UNICEF’s global leadership for child protection, which is our mandate and responsibility. Our goal is to provide best in class technical leadership, including convening and normative standard setting, for child protection in all settings. This role directly impacts our responsibility for child protection in humanitarian action.

Key Expected Results

The strategic and effective leadership and coordination of child protection advocacy, capacity building, technical guidance and standards, evidence generation and learning with UNICEF’s key partners contributes to achievement of the stated goal for the Alliance: The efforts of national and international actors are of high quality and effective in protecting children in humanitarian
settings.

Improvements in child protection programs and projects in turn contributes to maintaining/enhancing the credibility and ability of UNICEF as a provider of high quality and lifesaving programmes in humanitarian settings, and a leader in the field of child protection.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have:

• An Advanced University Degree in international development, human rights, psychology, sociology, international law or other social science field is required.
• A minimum of 10 years of professional experience   at the national and international levels in the field of child protection in humanitarian settings, strategic leadership, network and partnership building at the global level is required.
• Demonstrated track record in the development of global public goods and resource mobilization are preferred.
• Relevant experience in broader child protection and in other humanitarian sectors, including with national or international NGOs is an asset. Experience working at country level in humanitarian contexts is an added advantage.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or local language of the duty station is considered as an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Care, Respective, Integrity, Trust and Accountability.

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

For more information on remuneration and benefits, please visit UNICEF’s Entitlements’ page.  If you would like to find estimates for entitlements, you may use the online Salary Estimate Calculator

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.