Fixed Term: Planning Officer, NOB, Islamabad, Pakistan, # 116181

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for personal and professional development that will help them develop a fulfilling career while delivering on a rewarding mission. We pride ourselves on a culture that helps staff thrive, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, Commitment! 

Pakistan was the sixth country in the world to sign and ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, less than one year after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989. However, children and adolescents living in Pakistan still face acute challenges.

UNICEF supports the Government of Pakistan to accelerate progress for children, work to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and help children realize their rights under the Convention on the Rights of Children. This will be made through, among other things, strong partnerships with provincial authorities, teachers and health professionals, frontline workers and social mobilisers, communities and families, and of course the children and adolescents themselves. 

In particular, UNICEF will work so that:

• Every child survives and thrives — being in good health, immunized, protected from polio and accessing nutritious food.
• Every child learns.
• Every child is protected from violence and exploitation and registered at birth.
• Every child lives in a safe and clean environment, with access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation.

To learn more about UNICEF work in Pakistan, please visit the country website www.unicef.org/pakistan and videos on YouTube and Vimeo

The Planning Officer, under the guidance of Planning and Monitoring Specialist, will support the Pakistan Country Office in ensuring systematic planning and monitoring of Country Programme, including partner guidance, and reporting on programme implementation. The position is central to the office in ensuring that results are well planned and monitored, and appropriate course corrections and programme adjustments are affected. The Officer provides professional technical, operational, and administrative assistance throughout the planning process preparing, executing, managing, and implementing a variety of technical and administrative tasks to contribute to programme planning, implementation, oversight and reporting and results and recommendations are implemented and followed up.

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

1. Programme Planning and coordination.
2. Programme performance monitoring
3. Planning & Monitoring Capacity Building
4. UN Joint Programming – support planning and monitoring functions of current and future UN joint programmes

How can you make a difference? 

1. Programme Planning and coordination:

• Support sectoral officers and field office teams when developing provincial or federal rolling workplans ensuring quality control, standardization, and convergence including reporting on progress of the equity and gender marker as outlined in the Programme Policy and Procedures Guidance. Ensure that field level plans influence national level sectoral plans. Trigger complementarity, synergy and convergence entry points when developing implementation plans and establish a systematic monitoring framework.
• Cross sectoral programmes: Support the office at central and field office level to coordinate and monitor emergent cross-sectoral issues: adolescent development, gender, climate change, DRR, Urban etc.
• Support field office planning and monitoring officers in conducting quality control of field missions to ensure they contribute towards rolling work plans and ensure follow up of findings.
• Support the development of guidance and coordination mid and end year reviews and compilation of findings.

2. Programme performance monitoring

• Provide technical support to ensure that the country office and field offices has quality information to assess progress towards expected results established in rolling work plans.
• Provide technical support as necessary to identifying and adjusting a set of programme performance indicators, in the context of the Rolling Work Plans at federal and federal level.
• Provide technical support to ensure that monitoring systems are in place and that key annual programme indicators are tracked and analyzed, including those related to partnerships initiative, and provided regularly to the field office teams to guide programme and management reviews and decisions.
• Keep tracking of follow-up action based on management decisions resulting from Field Office performance monitoring and evaluation.
• Compile monitoring information/data and make them available to programme/planning sections.
• Contribute to the preparation of management reports (e.g., relevant sections of the mid and end year review and annual reports and RAM. Assist in the preparation of reports on systemic issues, good practices or any other analysis or data related to programme implementation, including programme’s performance, relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, and sustainability, as well as good practices in partnerships and collaborative relationships.
• Provide technical support as necessary in organising and managing annual/mid-year/mid-term/end term country programme reviews.
• Support the programme components to effectively monitor and report on the intersectoral programme results, cross sectoral programme component results and field office results to facilitate programme coherence and convergence where appropriate.

3. Planning Innovation, Knowledge Management and Capacity Building

• Provide technical support to ensure that the Planning and monitoring capacities of Field Office staff and Sub-national partners – government and civil society – are strengthened enabling them to increasingly engage in and lead bottom-up-planning and monitoring.
• Overall implementation of planning and monitoring capacity building strategy for sub-national partners and institutions and corresponding activities.
• Develop simple guidance and training materials to help build planning and monitoring capacity of staff and partners.
• Provide support to staff to troubleshoot in area of planning monitoring.
• Adapt Head Quarter tools and guidance on programme monitoring, including monitoring plans, and support staff capacity building in their use.
• Supports the PMD section teams in the roll out of relevant UNICEF Corporate Tools/Systems i.e., eTools, Power BI, etc.
• Undertakes visits to counterparts and field offices to identify and manage programme related risks and monitor programme implementation.

4. UN Joint Programming – support planning and monitoring functions of current and future UN joint programmes

• Support preparation of proposal for joint programmes – ensuring they are linked to PCO’s CPD results and have logical results frameworks, results-based budgets, and M&E plans.
• Support the monitoring of results for joint programmes – the includes providing guidance to UN agencies, planning of periodic reviews and documenting results, and adjustments of plans.
• Support the reporting requirements of joint programmes – this includes capturing results from field monitoring and periodic reviews as well as ensuring the results are results based and well linked to the proposal and the agreed workplans.
• Support UNICEF engagement with the UN system to ensure we fully adhere to planning requirements for the UN Sustainable Development Plan including quality assurance of outcome and output level planning and entering plans into the UN INFO system.

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

• Education: A first university degree (i.e., Bachelor or equivalent) in social sciences, development planning, planning, evaluation, survey implementation, advanced statistical research.
• Work Experience: At least two years of relevant professional work experience in programme development and implementation, including monitoring and evaluation activities.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of a local language is an asset.
• Derisible: Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered 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

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships

(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness

(3) Drive to achieve results for impact

(4) Innovates and embraces change

(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity

(6) Thinks and acts strategically

(7) Works collaboratively with others 

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

This position has been assessed as an elevated risk role for Child Safeguarding purposes as it is either a role with direct contact with children, a role that works directly with identifiable children’s data, a safeguarding response role, or an assessed risk role. Additional vetting and assessment for elevated risk roles in child safeguarding (potentially including additional criminal background checks) apply.

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 measures to include a more diverse workforce, such as paid parental leave, time off for breastfeeding purposes, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

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. UNICEF is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. 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.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be 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 canceled.

Remarks:

• As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.
• UNICEF’s active commitment to diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable female are encouraged to apply.
• Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions 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.
• 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. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.
• Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.