UNICEF is supporting health, nutrition, HIV prevention, education, access to safe drinking water, sanitation and protection for children and families caught in the conflict.

UNICEF Ukraine’s Youth and Adolescent program focuses on empowering adolescents and young people to be active agents in Ukraine’s recovery, social cohesion, and EU integration process. Key priorities include youth civic engagement, skilling, employability, psychosocial wellbeing, and policy advocacy.

This UNV assignment will support the meaningful participation of adolescents and young people through structured platforms such as the Young People’s Advisory Board (YPAB), advancing employability and entrepreneurship initiatives linked to Ukraine’s recovery, and strengthening youth-related policy reform at national and local levels. The UNV will also contribute to improved information management and reporting to capture results and evidence for advocacy. In addition to duty station-specific vaccine requirements, appointments are subject to confirmation of fully vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the appointment. UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for UN Volunteers with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage applicants to disclose their disability during the application in case reasonable accommodation is required.

1. UCO Youth Participation and Coordination (Young People’s Advisory Board)

• Coordinate the Ukraine Country Office Young People Advisory Board (YPAB) as a youth-led inclusive participation and advisory platform, ensuring effective communication, planning, advocacy, and implementation of agreed activities in line with UNICEF participation standards.
• Organize and facilitate regular (bi-weekly) YPAB meetings, including agenda setting, documentation, follow-up on youth recommendations, and support to youth-led initiatives and working groups.
• Facilitate structured consultations, joint initiatives, and sustained engagement between YPAB members, UNICEF program sections, and external stakeholders (including Government counterparts, civil society, and UN partners) to strengthen cross-program coordination, policy dialogue, and coherence across ADAP-related initiatives.
• Ensure meaningful and safe inclusion of adolescents and youth from vulnerable and under-represented groups (including IDPs, youth with disabilities, young women, and marginalized communities), applying equity, safeguarding, and accountability principles throughout participation processes.
• Support the design, coordination, and facilitation of capacity-building, leadership development, peer-to-peer learning, and mentoring activities for YPAB members, strengthening their skills in advocacy, communication, civic engagement, and project management.
• Support youth engagement in advocacy initiatives, campaigns, and consultations at national and sub-national levels, including logistical coordination, safeguarding compliance, documentation of youth inputs, and follow-up to ensure feedback loops and visible impact.
• Establish and maintain simple monitoring and documentation mechanisms to track participation processes, outcomes, and lessons learned, and contribute to periodic narrative and results-based reporting.

2. Information Management, Knowledge Sharing, and Technical Quality Support

• Support systematic data and information management related to adolescent and youth participation, skills, and employability, including data collection, consolidation, analysis, visualization, and reporting.
• Coordinate inputs and support preparation of SitReps, donor reports, internal updates, dashboards, and briefing materials related to ADAP and youth participation work.
• Maintain and update knowledge-sharing platforms (e.g. SharePoint and internal communication channels), ensuring timely access to guidance, tools, good practices, and key documents.
• Provide technical and quality assurance support to ensure that youth participation, skills development, and employability considerations are meaningfully integrated into programme planning, implementation, monitoring, and reporting across sections.
• Support field monitoring visits, program reviews, and learning exercises, including documentation of findings, lessons learned, and recommended follow-up actions.
• Collaborate closely with sectoral colleagues (e.g. Education, Child Protection, Social Policy, Health, WASH, Gender) and external partners to identify implementation bottlenecks, support adaptive solutions, and strengthen coherence between youth participation and broader recovery, human capital, and systems-strengthening priorities.

3. Capacity Building and Safeguarding

• Ensure safeguarding protocols are consistently applied in all youth engagement activities, with special attention to IDPs, youth with disabilities, and girls.
• Support the design and rollout of training modules for UNICEF staff, partners, and youth leaders on adolescent participation and safe civic engagement.