External Vacancy: Social Policy Specialist (Public Finance for Children), NOC, FT, Ankara, Turkey (Turkish Nationals Only)

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.

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

The Social Policy Specialist (Public Finance for Children) reports to the Social Policy Specialist, NOC for close guidance and supervision. The purpose of this position is to coordinate Public Finance for Children work within the Turkey country office, and undertake analysis and other high quality technical work providing technical analysis, guidance, and knowledge management, remove PFM related barriers to achieving better results for children The post holder will generate knowledge/evidence for technical assistance as well as advocacy purposes and engage at a senior level with a wide range partners including Ministry of Treasury and Finance, Strategy and Budget Office and social sector ministries.

The post holder will also support other sections (such as education, child protection, health, ADAP) within UNICEF TCO in areas where a public finance angle can contribute to improve results for children.  

How can you make a difference?

1) Leading technical work for strategic PF4C initiatives in the UNICEF Turkey country office

• Providing technical inputs to the Country Office on budget and PFM related engagements for investing in children more broadly, with a focus on integrating sector-specific efforts within broader social policy efforts to influence overall budget processes and actors to achieve UNICEF program results.
• Undertaking budget analysis to inform UNICEF’s technical assistance and advocacy to the Ministry of Finance and Treasury and the Strategy and Budget Presidency planning commissions.
• Undertaking budget analysis to inform UNICEF’s technical assistance and advocacy to social sector ministries (MoFLSS, MoNE, MoYS, MoH) to improve social sector ministries’ capacity to strategically plan, request and allocate greater resources for children services.
• Identifying policy options for improved domestic financing of child-sensitive social protection interventions.
• Keeping abreast of or contribute to new methodologies and tools to support equity-based PF4C programming, specifically through financial tracking (top down), financial flow blockage diagnostics (bottom up), and efficiency monitoring tools and applications to improve national and sub-national prioritization and financial governance.
• Liaising with the public sector and other development partners to support improvements of their public budgeting analyses, methodologies, tools and practices, with a view to optimizing investment in children.
• Working with sectoral colleagues at the Country Office to build capacity to undertake costing and cost effectiveness analysis on priority interventions to help inform policy decisions on child-focused investments in education, protection and other areas.

2) Strengthening capacity of local governments to plan, budget, and monitor child-focused social services.

• Undertaking budget analysis to inform UNICEF’s technical assistance and advocacy to local governments (local governorates, provincial administrations of social sector ministries, and municipalities)
• Collaborating with central and local authorities to improve policies, planning, budgeting, consultation and accountability processes so that decisions are child-focused and service delivery more closely respond to the needs of local communities.
• Collaborating with the central and local authorities to strengthen capacity on quality data collection, analysis for policy development, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring of essential social services at the local level.

3) Knowledge Management, Research, and Evidence Generation

• Supporting sector-specific learning on public financing for children.
• Organizing webinars and other learning activities on demand to facilitate peer-based learning on public financing for children across sectors.
• Participating and contributing to the global PF4C Community of Practice.
• Keep abreast of development financing trends and draft issues briefs on implications for investing in children.
• Documenting experiences and analyses of public budgeting and investment for children at national and sub-national levels.
• Developing models for UNICEF's support to public budgeting and investment analysis and implementation at country and sub-national levels.

4) Strengthened advocacy and partnerships for child-sensitive social policy

• Identifying critical partners and establishing effective partnerships with the Government, bilateral and multilateral donors, IFIS, NGOs, private sector, and other UN agencies to address PF4C issues And increase investment in child well-being.
• Contributing to partners' discussions and research on strategic financing issues, such as results-based financing, and leveraging private sector investments with public financial incentives or partnership approaches.
• Undertaking and building capacity of partners for improved monitoring and tracking of public expenditure to support transparency, accountability and effective financial flows for essential service delivery, including through support to district level planning, budgeting and public financial management.

Key Expected Results

• Data and evidence on public budgeting and investment for children in Turkey is collected and analyzed at national and subnational levels, providing a basis for technical assistance, advocacy and other programmatic efforts.
• UNICEF Turkey produces research and documentation of concepts and practices in public budgeting and investment for children.
• UNICEF Turkey enjoys a position of technical expertise and dialogue with the public and private sectors, at national and subnational levels, providing evidence to support decision-making and programming.
• Systems and tools are in place to measure and document evidence related to national and subnational budgeting and investment for children. The context and situation of public budgeting and financing for children in Turkey are adequately documented and reported.
• Joint efforts are in place with IFIs, UN partner agencies and other developmental partners on budgeting and investment to achieve greater outcomes for children.
• PF4C capacities are developed at national and subnational levels.

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

• Advanced university degree in Economics and/or Public Finance is preferred. Advanced university degree in Public Policy and/or Administration or other relevant discipline will be considered.

• Minimum of five years of progressive, professional work experience in applications and advisory related to applied economic analysis, child poverty analysis, budgeting, public financial management, and/or sector financing, in national and international settings.

• Expertise in public finance, economics, and governance; related experience in project management, research and policy analysis.

• Proven record of promoting strategic partnerships with government and other partners.

• Excellent analytical, research and teamwork skills.

• Strong communication skills for knowledge dissemination and advocacy

• Fluency in English and Turkish. Knowledge of another UN language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA).

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are...

Core competencies skills

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (Level 2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (Level 2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (Level 2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (Level 2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (Level 2)
• Drives to achieve impactful results (Level 2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (Level 2)

Functional competencies

• Analyzing (Level 3)
• Applying technical expertise (Level 3)
• Persuading & Influencing (Level 2)
• Planning and organizing (Level 3)

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

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. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

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

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