Inclusion Associate

UNICEF BLR organization mission TBD

Belarus Country Office is operating in an Upper Middle-Income Country context with a pro-gramme throughput of US$ 4 million per year. One of the leadership (crosscutting) areas where UNICEF Belarus is positioning itself as a partner of choice for the government is social inclu-sion. Within Country Programme 2026-2030, UNICEF has identified the Leadership area “In-clusive society, policies, and services” – reflecting its commitments to focus on programming deeply-rooted in the principles of social justice, inclusiveness, and human rights where children and young people are able, regardless of gender, ability, religion, migration status and socio-economic status to access essential services and fully participate in society.

In Belarus, in recent decade, there is progress towards an inclusive society, which continues progressively. Unfortunately, barriers and bottlenecks remain, including beliefs and attitudes of exclusion, which hamper the achievement of an inclusive society. Children with disabili-ties and special needs are particularly affected or at risk of being excluded. They still experi-ence differential access and low coverage by quality inclusive services in all sectors. These children and adolescents, when they come from families of disadvantaged socio-economic situation, and particularly those ‘at social risk’, are at increased risk of being deprived of parental or family-setting care. Many children already living in institutions, who face particular issues to learn productive and social-emotional skills, and transition to adulthood, from learning to earning, are children with disabilities.

UNICEF support national and local partners to develop and implement inclusive policies, and promotes inclusive services, with the aim to increase access to quality delivery of intercon-nected services (health, nutrition, education, skills development, participation, and child pro-tection) for all children and their families. UNICEF programming focuses on sustainable results at scale for a society and services inclusive of the at-risk and disadvantaged children above.

Under the direct supervision of Deputy Representative, the Inclusion Associate will undertake the following tasks:


1. Support to program development and planning on inclusion

· Contribute to the development of strategic documents including work plans and project documents with government and CSOs partners for 2026-2027, ensuring cross-sectoral linkages and focus on inclusion of the most at risk and disadvantaged children, particularly those with disabilities or special needs, across all programmes

· Support system strengthening and capacity building of social workforce; through the inte-gration of a family-centered approach and best interest of the child principle into social work. Support the development of a minimum service package for vulnerable families with children with disabilities and/or special needs to prevent institutionalization.

· Map successful inclusive education practices and approaches, and support partners in their scaling-up, contributing to programming and project design on inclusive education, for sustainable results at scale building on recent achievements.

· Support design of projects to scale up social-emotional skills integration in technical voca-tional education at national level; explore opportunities for scaling up career guidance and learning to earning programming for children with disabilities / with special needs in Bela-rus.

· Work closely with UNICEF Health Officer to advocate for and design project to improve outreach and targeting of health services – particularly early childhood interventions and youth friendly health services targeting children with disabilities, young children with devel-opmental delays, adolescents with special health needs.


2. Technical and operational support to program monitoring and reporting

· Facilitate organization of technical meetings and inter-agency consultations, including with partners and donors, prepare agendas, briefing and follow-up notes, and talking points.

· Compile data, evidence, success stories and lessons learned for inclusion in annual reports, donor updates and knowledge products and for advocacy purposes, working closely with the Communication team.

· Conduct regular program field visits and/or surveys and/or exchange information with partners/stakeholders to assess progress and bottlenecks, provide practical recommendations related to social inclusion of most vulnerable children.

· Provide support to government counterparts, CSOs, UN partners and other country office partners/donors on the application and understanding of UNICEF policies, strategies, processes and best practices on social inclusion of the most vulnerable children, particularly those with disabilities or special needs.

· Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with government counterparts, other UN agencies, through active sharing of information and knowledge, building capacity of stakeholders to achieve and sustain results built on for social inclusion best practices.

Evidence-based advocacy, communication and partnership

· Collaborate with communication team on advocacy efforts to change policies and systems to improve inclusion of the most vulnerable children. Jointly with communication team, de-velop communication and information materials to promote awareness on gaps in inclusion and UNICEF and partners programming, for a wide range of audience.

· Contribute to research information on potential donors and prepare resource mobilization materials and briefs for fund raising and partnership purposes.

Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to:

· Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day);

· Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country;

· Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities;

· Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publica-tions/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;

· Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers;

· Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering, or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.