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Communication for Development Specialist - Community Engagement (P-4), C4D Section, PD - NYHQ (Temporary Appointment)

New York City

  • Organization: UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund
  • Location: New York City
  • Grade: Mid level - P-4, International Professional - Internationally recruited position
  • Occupational Groups:
    • Development Cooperation and Sustainable Development Goals
    • Social Affairs
    • Communication and Public Information
    • Civil Society and Local governance
    • Communication for Development (C4D)
  • Closing Date: Closed

You will be part of a core team dedicated to this initiative, that will manage and develop key partnerships and collaboration, as well as provide strategic technical advice and guidance on the development of global goods. You will also be the part of a project that aims to develop global goods that are intended to streamline knowledge and practice on social science for community engagement in humanitarian action. In addition, you will capture the social science contributions and understanding specifically to link to community engagement practice at the implementation level, and hence the mix of expertise in this portfolio.

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.

Social sciences can support community engagement in humanitarian contexts. For example, during the West Africa Ebola epidemic, anthropologists made essential contributions for identifying issues around safe and dignified burials, which helped inform development of partnerships and social mobilization and community engagement interventions that supported decreasing transmission. Six years later, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, social sciences is being leveraged to inform not just community engagement, but all the pillars of epidemic response (health-seeking behaviours, testing, vaccine distribution). In humanitarian settings, however, the social sciences remain, to date, an insufficiently tapped resource. Social sciences intelligence, insights and analysis can be developed into distinct public goods in humanitarian contexts. Social sciences is joined to community engagement through its explicit focus on the social, cultural, and structural determinants of human development outcomes, a deep focus on the drivers of human behaviour, and a commitment to human rights and public accountability. Community engagement, in turn, plays an essential role in the actions and services that ensure that these considerations can be translated into operational and functional systems approaches from policy level to the frontlines.

Despite these clear intersections, there are issues in the interface between social sciences and community engagement in humanitarian contexts. The result, to date, has been a limited integration of social sciences contributions into community engagement practice, which has implications across all the humanitarian pillars.

Currently there are specific clearly defined contributions that UNICEF C4D has leveraged resources to undertake within a recently launched initiative. This specific initiative has an overall goal to strengthen global and regional demand and capacity for social science integration into community engagement to respond adaptively, rapidly, and accurately in humanitarian emergencies. The objectives are to:

  • improve social science research and analyses for community engagement.
  • expand social science contributions to community engagement and accountability to affected populations (AAP) in humanitarian action.
  • position uptake and use of social data for social science analysis for community engagement in humanitarian action.

The initiative also has a specific timeline from Octo 2020 through March 2022, during which there will be opportunities for leveraging further resources and specially to take forward implementation initiatives with partners at the operational level, namely regional and country level collaborations.

For every child, good communication….

You will be part of a core team dedicated to this initiative, that will manage and develop key partnerships and collaboration, as well as provide strategic technical advice and guidance on the development of global goods. You will also be the part of a project that aims to develop global goods that are intended to streamline knowledge and practice on social science for community engagement in humanitarian action. In addition, you will capture the social science contributions and understanding specifically to link to community engagement practice at the implementation level, and hence the mix of expertise in this portfolio.

How can you make a difference? 

  • Manage a wide range of global actors on prioritization processes for global goods, including leading and co-leading high-level consultations.
  • Coordinate with other agencies focal points and social scientists, strengthen partnerships with main social sciences stakeholders and interact with global platforms leveraging external resources and expanding the partners base.
  • Coordinate with key agencies, actors, groups and platforms who produce and are users of social sciences research for community engagement programming across multiple humanitarian contexts.
  • Contribute to the development of needed social sciences guidance and tools in support of national and local actors.
  • Support regional hubs identify opportunities with global and regional partners (academic and humanitarian practitioners) to test, refine and disseminate global goods and products.
  • Contribute to advise international response partnerships and multilateral institutions:
  • Contribute to the discussion, review and prioritization of global research agendas and roadmaps based on emerging needs and field perspective; call attention of the global social sciences research community to emerging priority areas.
  • Develop or oversee capacity building initiatives.
  • Support the dissemination of the project’s products to partners and platforms at the global and regional levels.

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

  • An Advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in sociology, anthropology, humanitarian studies, or other social sciences is required. Ph.D. in relevant areas highly desirable.
  • A minimum of 8 years of professional experience in humanitarian, public health emergency, or disasters, is required. ()
  • Experience of engagement with policy makers, governments, and donors, developing and implementing programmatic interventions in humanitarian contexts, specifically in the area of C4D, Social and Behavior Change, Community Engagement, and relevant areas,is desirable.
  • Experience developing global goods (guidelines, strategies, toolkits, standard operating procedures) on community engagement is highly desirable.
  • Experience in developing and delivering training / capacity building programmes is an asset.
  • Background and familiarity with Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) is an asset.
  • Demonstrable leadership and knowledge of the latest developments in the field of community engagement in humanitarian contexts (since 2015), namely the Inter-Agency Minimum Quality Standards and Indicators for Community Engagement is highly desirable.
  • Fluency in English (written and verbal) is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

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

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, race, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, appearance, socio-economic status, ability, age, religious, and ethnic backgrounds, 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. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

“UNICEF only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/

This vacancy is now closed.
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