Education in Emergency Officer (EiE Officer)

Details

Mission and objectives

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish children's rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children. UNICEF insists that the survival, protection and development of children are universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress. UNICEF mobilizes political will and material resources to help countries, particularly developing countries, ensure a "first call for children" and to build their capacity to form appropriate policies and deliver services for children and their families. UNICEF is committed to ensuring special protection for the most disadvantaged children – victims of war, disasters, extreme poverty, all forms of violence and exploitation, and those with disabilities. UNICEF responds in emergencies to protect the rights of children. In coordination with United Nations partners and humanitarian agencies, UNICEF makes its unique facilities for rapid response available to its partners to relieve the suffering of children and those who provide their care. UNICEF is non-partisan and its cooperation is free of discrimination. In everything it does, the most disadvantaged children and the countries in greatest need have priority. UNICEF aims, through its country programmes, to promote the equal rights of women and girls and to support their full participation in the political, social and economic development of their communities. UNICEF works with all its partners towards the attainment of the sustainable human development goals adopted by the world community and the realization of the vision of peace and social progress enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.

Context

UNICEF Angola Country Programme Cooperation is for period 2020-2023. The overall goal of the country program is to support the Government of Angola to meet its commitment to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights in line with international conventions and standards. The country program is aligned with the national priorities articulated in the National Develop-ment Plan (PDN 2018-2022) and with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frame-work (UNSDCF 2020-2022). The vision is for all girls and boys in Angola, especially the most marginalized, including those with disabilities and from poor households, to realize their rights. The CP takes an integrated, convergent and lifecycle-based approach with the following components: (a) Outcome 1: early childhood (0-5 years); (b) Outcome 2: school age children (6-18 years); (c) Outcome 3: decentralized support to social services; and (d) Outcome 4: program effectiveness. Continued integrated emergency life-saving interventions to respond to the ongoing drought emergency in Southern Angola is critical to ensure lifesaving programmatic interventions fo-cusing on water, sanitation and hygiene, nutrition, and education in emergencies with child protection in emergencies mainstreamed across multi-sectoral interventions and an overarch-ing behavioural change and information awareness component. Planned interventions are designed and prioritized with the intent and urgency to prevent the loss of human life and fur-ther deterioration of the existing drought emergency, including the situation of the internal dis-placed populations (IDPs) and returnees in Ombadja, Calueque. Specifically, CERF Under Funded Emergency (UFE) funds and the Banco de Fomento Angolano (BFA) funds, will en-able UNICEF to reach the most drought-affected populations providing access to water, im-proved sanitation, screening for malnutrition at health facility level and treatment of children with severe acute malnutrition, infant and young child feeding (IYCF) counselling, continuous access to education, gender-based risk mitigation, prevention or response and life-saving messages on gender based violence (GBV) prevention, and sharing and dissemination of life-saving information. These interventions will be made in schools and neighboring communities, considering schools as platforms for the integrated and comprehensive delivery of basic so-cial services for children. The COVID 19 pandemic added to the factors that aggravated the drought emergency in southern Angola, exposing and amplifying the depth of inequities, and it’s clear that the most vulnerable have been disproportionately affected by school closures. As such, we must do more to support school re-opening and learning recovery with urgent, at-scale action to effectively bring those children who have been left behind back to learning. For the above reasons, in addition to the activities that will be implemented with CERF funds, support will be given in the province of Huila and Cunene to implement the initiative “Mission Recovery”, which seeks to identify children who are not in school or who are in school but lagging behind in education, support them to recover Foundational learning Literacy an Numeracy (FLN), and provide a protective environment through community-based mental health and psychosocial support

Task description

The UN Volunteer Education in Emergency Officer position will provide critical support for the implementation, monitoring, systematization and reporting of CERF under funded emergen-cies (CERF UFE), Mission Recovery (FLN) and Safe Havens programme interventios in the south of Angola (Huila Cunene and Namibe), under Outcomes 1 and 2 (supporting children and adolescents under 18) of the Country Programme, in 3 key areas: Essentially, the Educa-tion in Emergency Officer will: 1. Provide technical, implementation and advisory support to UNICEF and partners in Education in Emergency to respond to the drought in the southern of Angola 2. Support the Education section in the planning, implementation, monitoring and sys-tematization, and reporting of Educaction in Emergency and Mission Recovery initia-tives in the southern of Angola. 3. Support the Education section to coordinate with stakeholders and UN agencies on Education in Emergency interventions and Mission Recovery initiatives to respond to the drought emergency and address the learning loss in the education sector in south-ern of Angola. The Education in Emergency Officer will work within the UNICEF Field Office of Lubango, Huila, under the overall guidance of the Chief Education Section and the direct supervision of the Education Specialist NO3 (based in Luanda). Activites will be also coordinated with the Programm Monitorin Officer based in Huila. The Education in Emergency Officer is expected to work closely with the Provincial and Mu-nicipal Administrations of Huila, Cunene and Namibe. As required, and with guidance from section and Programme Officer, he or she will also work with other UN agencies, Civil Pro-tection, and CSOs. Description of tasks: Under the overall guidance of the Chief Education Section and the direct supervision of the Education Specialist NO3, the Education in Emergency Officer will undertake the following tasks: 1. Support efficient Coordination and Communication within the section and with Govern-ment and partners to ensure an integrated response in schools and communities benefit-ing from Education in Emergency (EiE) and Mission Recovery interventions. 2. Provide technical support to provincial and municipal authorities to coordinate and imple-ment EiE and FLN interventions in selected schools . 3. Support logistics and implementation of training sessions, and ensure that EiE and Mission Recovery training programmes (including agenda and main themes) are shared with UNICEF for feedback well in advance of the trainings. 4. Provide technical, logistical and administrative support to the provincial and municipal administrations to distribute EiE supplies and educational materials to schools, monitor and document and report on its distribution/use to beneficiaries at the school level. 5. Support the establishment of effective information management for the education re-sponse this can also include drafting of reports, sharing of key information and database on EiE interventions in the assigned provinces. 6. Support the development of communication material and ensure the visibility of UNICEF and donors in the territory. 7. Provide assistance for the planning of technical and donor field missions from Luanda to the field and to promote EiE and Mission Recovery initiatives. 8. Provide support for programme management and financial oversight of education activities by ensuring HACTcompliance through field visits and programme and financial monitoring, donor reporting, etc. This includes DCT liquidation. Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to: • Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by read-ing relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for in-stance in events that mark IVD); • 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. Results/Expected Output: Education result: The emergency education projects to ensure educational continuity and the recovery and acceleration of learning are being implemented in selected municipalities in the province of Huila and Cunene. Outputs: a) Quarterly submits narrative reports to the Education Section on implementation pro-gress status, with disaggregated information including: # of participants, children reached, disaggregated by sex, grade, classification, school/community and disability; the main themes and points discussed in the trainings; evaluation of the training (pre-post knowledge test or participant evaluations); challenges, strong points and lessons learned; and proposed follow up/coaching and monitoring activities. b) Quarterly submits to the Education Section post distribution monitoring (PDM) re-ports on quantities of EiE supplies received, distributed (school tents, learning kits for students, school-in-a-box, kits for teachers, recreational kit) this includes re-porting on the number of students, teachers, school directors who benefitted from the supplies, disaggragated and the names of the schools. c) Supports the development of the training calendars for all UNICEF-supported EiE and Mission Recovery capacity building activities, in coordination with provincial and mu-nicipal Government authorities and UNICEF. d) Supports to systematise reports on EiE and Mission Recovery, identifying good practices and lessons learned and synthesizing and sharing them for knowledge development and stakeholder capacity building. e) Provides timely inputs for the preparation of key documentation and donor re-ports. f) Supports the development of six Human Interest Stories about students, teachers and parents beneficiaries of the EiE and Mission Recovery interventions. g) Support monitoring, timely implementation of funds and reporting. This includes follow up on requests for direct cash transfers (DCTs) and funds liquidation by partners.