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, a U-Reporter,

In recent years UNICEF has increased its focus on young people. The UNICEF Strategic Plan 2022−2025 recognizes the whole spectrum of young people, including young adults or youth over 18. It includes in its Change Strategies: “working with children, adolescents, families, communities, public systems and private stakeholders towards more peaceful, equitable, inclusive and resilient societies, with people-centered decision-making mechanisms and increased uptake of protective practices.”

Taking its cue from the strategic plan, the Global Communication and Advocacy Strategy (GCAS) asserts the important role that young people can play in the successful realization of UNICEF’s mandate, and outlines the need to listen to, co-create and collaborate with young people and create meaningful engagement opportunities for them to make a difference.

Within the Division of Global Communication and Advocacy (DGCA), the Youth Engagement Team works to strengthen the organization’s capacity to engage young people as advocates and campaigners for children’s rights through our flagship campaigns and initiatives and ensure that the perspectives and voices of young people are an integral part of our communications and advocacy.

U-Report is one of UNICEF’s flagship initiatives to engage and empower young people. It is designed to strengthen community-led development, citizen engagement and access to and use of real-time monitoring and participation platforms. U-Report allows youth to speak out via SMS and other channels – through polls and unsolicited messages – on what is happening in their communities. It provides a forum to amplify their voices through local and national media and acts as a citizen-sourced, real-time data point for key stakeholders, service providers and decision-makers about the issues being faced in communities. The platform also feeds back valuable information to the U-Report participants, so they are empowered to work for change and improvements in their localities themselves.

This position resides within Youth Engagement, as part of the DGCA, and reports to the Digital Communication Specialist.

How can you make a difference?

The Digital Communication Officer (U-Report Data Officer) is accountable for the accomplishment of the stated key end-results by providing professional expertise and technical assistance in information/data collection, statistics and data analysis, monitoring & evaluation (M&E), digital monitoring and analytics, social listening, narrative and report writing, and in implementing training programmes to support data collection, monitoring and evaluation of U-Report country and region-specific programs.

Key functions, accountabilities and related duties/tasks:

1. Ongoing monitoring of and reporting of U-Report’s global growth and engagement

• Identify and adjust a set of programme performance indicators in the context of the annual and multi-year M&E Plan that captures the outputs, outcomes and impacts of youth participation, and define a practical way to generate ongoing reports.
• Implement monitoring processes within U-Report programmes at a global level, ensuring key monthly and annual programme indicators are tracked and analyzed, and regularly reported to the Youth Engagement Team to guide programme and management decisions.
• Produce monthly reports on U-Report’s global growth and youth engagement on the platform, ensuring effective analysis and communication of results.
• Assist in advising on best industry practices and suggest using new features and tools to optimize U-Report’s monitoring and evaluation.
• Develop, maintain and update a data dashboard that enables access to up-to-date information on U-Report’s performance at a global level.
• Liaise with the external vendor regularly, managing the back-end analytics to address any ad hoc requests and problems raised.
• Safeguard the data and ICT environment and infrastructure of U-Report.

2.  Analysis of U-Report Actions

• Analyze U-Report data and generate reports and narratives useful for the programme, partners, and the U-Report community. This includes collecting, cleaning, analyzing, identifying key insights, generating data visualization and narrative reports of U-Report polls, chatbots, and other actions, and automated qualitative analysis of open responses.
• Compile, harmonize, analyze and generate reports on engagement information/data from previous U-Report actions at the global and national levels, and make them available to Programme Group (PG), Advocacy, Regional Offices (RO), Country Offices (CO) and partners.
• Assist in the preparation of RapidPro flows of reports on agreed content for polls, chatbots and other U-Report actions, ensuring required M&E structures are in place.

3. Digital Monitoring, Analytics and Social Listening

• Utilize various digital analysis tools to generate detailed monthly and annual digital performance reports of U-Report digital platforms (e.g. website, online app) and social media.
• Monitor the performance of digital communication campaigns.
• Ensure that every new external global digital platform and campaign includes the required technical implementation for data gathering and reporting.
• Leverage social listening tools to inform actionable insights on trending topics ahead of major campaigns and in support of UNICEF’s ongoing priorities.
• Provide the Youth Engagement Team with intelligence and insights as needed.

4.  M&E Capacity Building

• Contribute to the development and deployment of an M&E capacity-building strategy for ROs and COs.
• Provide support to COs and ROs, ensuring they are aware of and have access to guidance and resources for the analysis, monitoring and evaluation of U-Report data/information.

The Digital Communication Officer (U-Report Data Officer) will use their problem-solving and analytical skills to ensure the most relevant and strategic information to manage the U-Report programme and its social media is available, systematically monitored, analyzed and made available through reports and narratives useful for the programme, partners, and the U-Report community.

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

Education:

A minimum of 2 years of relevant experience in data science, statistics, or software development.

Experience:

• Experience analyzing data/behavior of users generated by internet-based services.
• Experience conducting statistical analysis of raw data.
• Experience in data visualization and quantitative report writing.
• Experience in working on mobile technology platforms. Working knowledge of U-Report or RapidPro in any context is required.
• Information technology management and business operations in a large international organization and/or corporation are required.
• Expertise in programming in R includes querying Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Structured Query Language (SQL) databases and developing libraries.
• Experience with SQL and associated skills, such as developing efficient queries and working with views and triggers.
• Proficiency in Python, Git, Superset, and Facebook Marketing API.
• Expertise in Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and SEO tools and methodologies.
• Expertise in social media measurement, with experience in all major platforms.
• Expertise in paid media measurement, with strong knowledge of advertising strategies and experience in Meta platforms, Google Ads and other digital channels.
• Close familiarity with social listening methodologies and tools.
• Experience of working in the UN or a non-profit organization is a plus.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in English 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, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1)
• Works Collaboratively with others (1)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (1)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (1)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.
We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.
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 is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children.

Remarks: 

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic are encouraged to apply.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be cancelled.

All selected candidates will 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.

Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

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