Purpose of Assignment
As the leading UN organizations working for refugees and for children, UNHCR and UNICEF have established a Strategic Collaboration Framework to promote the inclusion of refugees in national child protection systems of host countries and to bring about transformational change for refugee children and their families. By prioritizing inclusiveness, this collaboration intends to supplement the ongoing humanitarian efforts with a robust focus on ensuring refugee children's welfare and rights within host countries. The collaboration has set objectives to establish leadership in child protection; among them is to ensure the inclusion of refugee children in national protection systems, provide high-quality child protection services to all children (both from the refugee and host communities), and foster a sense of empowerment among communities to safeguard the well-being of these groups.
The agencies’ respective HQ child protection teams have agreed to a joint approach to national child protection system strengthening and joint specific objectives, including:
•Technical support on high impact interventions towards refugee children inclusion and strengthening specific elements of national child protection systems;
•Strategic policy advocacy initiatives to advance South to South learning, promote experience sharing amongst key governments and civil society stakeholders;
•Learning products, guidance and synthetized evidence to accelerate inclusion through investments in key programmatic priorities identified as inclusion accelerators.
This approach is supported by PROSPECTS, a groundbreaking multi-year programme financed by the Government of the Netherlands and first launched in 2019. The programme brings together the International Finance Corporation (IFC), ILO, UNHCR, UNICEF and the World Bank to test and scale new approaches to forced displacement in eight hosting countries in the Middle East and North Africa, East Africa, and the Horn of Africa regions – Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan, and Uganda. PROSPECTS aims to shift the paradigm from a humanitarian to a development approach in responding to forced displacement crises, by bringing together development and humanitarian actors, governments, the private sector, and forcibly displaced persons and host communities themselves meaningfully engaged as partners in designing and implementing solutions. Pillar three of PROSPECTS 2 (MAGRP 2024-2027), as well as the project “From Policy to Protection” funded through the Opportunity Fund grant (2026-2027), specifically supports the UNICEF-UNHCR agreed joint approach focused on the inclusion of all children in national child protection systems.
To advance this collaboration, UNICEF seeks to hire a consultant to work jointly with UNHCR and UNICEF to ensure the effective coordination of the child protection implementation of the global PROSPECTS initiative, fostering coherence and synergies between the different streams of work and providing technical assistance to country teams, with support from the global UNICEF and UNHCR team members.
Scope of Work
As per UNICEF commitment to the donor, the Dutch MFA, the consultant supports the joint UNICEF – UNHCR child protection programme under Pillar 3 of PROSPECTS 2 (MAGRP, 2024-2027) as well as the coordination of the project “From Policy to Protection” (Opportunity Fund, 2026-2027). More specifically s/he will contribute to the joint technical support on high impact interventions and joint strategic policy advocacy initiatives objectives. S/he also supports UNICEF and UNHCR global child protection teams regarding the joint learning products to accelerate inclusion and the interagency coordination and reporting components of the joint programme.
The consultant is formally supervised by the Child Protection Specialist, Child Protection System Strengthening and Care, UNICEF Global Programme Division based at Amman Centre of Excellence under the overall supervision of the Senior Advisor Child Protection (Violence Prevention and Response Systems). S/he supports the operationalization of the PROSPECTS programme in close collaboration with both UNICEF Senior Child Protection Specialist in Child Protection in Humanitarian Action team and UNHCR HQ child protection team.
How can you make a difference?
Minimum requirements
Work Experience
Desirables
For every Child, you demonstrate Care
UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). 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 based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. 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, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.
An up-to-date TMS profile and curriculum vitae (CV)
Cover letter
Remarks
UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.
All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.