Health Specialist (Data for Health Systems Strengthening and Community Health), P3, Temporary Appointment (6 months), UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia, Kathmandu, Nepal #00127810

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 fulfil 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, health

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programmes, advocacy, and operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop, and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias, or favoritism. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education, and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfil their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. Therefore, the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

UNICEF ROSA, through the Health Section, is gearing its investment in accelerating Primary Health Care (PHC) with a focus on Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) including health financing and community engagement immunization including polio eradication programme, Maternal, Neonatal, Child, and Adolescent Health (MNCAH) and public health emergencies (PHE), particularly the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarding MNCH, the focus is on the acceleration of the unfinished agenda related to newborn health, especially with regard to the quality of care, the oxygen system strengthening agenda, and community-based service delivery. In order to deliver on this agenda, the Health Section needs adequate capacity for more structured and systematic data analysis and knowledge management to set priorities and improve overall planning.

In this context, UNICEF is strategically leveraging regional technical support to optimize the returns on investments for better MNCAH outcomes through HSS. The Health Specialist / Data for Health System Strengthening and Community Health Data will be accountable for tracking child survival and development (CSD) indicators including immunization, maternal, newborn, child, adolescent health, health emergency-related data collection, reporting and analysis and by supporting the regional office and advising countries in South Asia.

How can you make a difference?

Under the general guidance and supervision of the Regional Health Adviser, the Health Specialist (Data for HSS and Community System Strengthening) provides timely and state-of-the-art technical support to UNICEF country programmes, country office, and regional partners for overall health and community systems strengthening, with focus on the health system and PHC analysis, including community health, and monitoring & evaluation. The incumbent will assist the health section in the overall management of initiatives, and projects focusing on Health and Community Systems strengthening, including progress tracking/monitoring and evaluation, and the learning agenda.

Key functions, accountabilities, and related duties/tasks

1. Support to programme development and planning

Provide support to the health section in the development, monitoring, and reporting of health-related projects and programmes focusing on Health Systems Strengthening/PHC and Community Health.

Duties & Tasks:

• Support Health Sections in organizing strategic reflection on implementation with validation/implementation research initiatives, with specific attention to designing and implementing urban and community-based primary health care (PHC) models.
• Support health programme design, including budgets, and planning, and proactively monitor/track progress, resolving implementation bottlenecks and initiating appropriate corrective actions.
• Support health system analysis, with a focus on the development of PHC Country profiles for the eight countries in UNICEF’s South Asia region, covering major epidemiological trends, primary health care and health system maturity, assessment of the 14 PHC levers for each country, policy recommendations, and recommendations for UNICEF country office programming strategy.
• Support the final in-depth analysis and the report writing process for the community health policy and programmatic gaps analysis thus enabling UNICEF to comprehend the prevailing landscape of community health and nutrition systems, including country needs for improvement and strategic actions to enhance community health and nutrition within the context of PHC across the South Asian countries; Further support UNICEF COs in the development, implementation and monitoring of UNICEF CO specific roadmaps and action plans

2. Programme management, monitoring, and delivery of results

Contribute to the timely and accurate measurement and monitoring of change in the health situation of newborns, children, adolescents, and mothers and of the conditions of the most disadvantaged and excluded children to facilitate knowledge generation and inform the planning of programmes and policies.

Duties and Tasks:

• Support in-depth data analysis (in-house and in collaboration with partner organizations) to maximize the use of available primary and secondary sources to provide insights into the health situation of newborns, children, adolescents, and mothers, and deepen the analysis of the situation of the most disadvantaged children.
• Support the establishment and maintenance of internal databases of qualitative and
• quantitative data and information on the status of children’s and women’s rights issues, including equity gaps.
• Support the development and set up of systems, including tools and indicators for rigorous measurement of progress in advancing the newborn, child, adolescent and maternal health agenda and systems. This includes setting up dashboards for health programmes and other child survival sectors on a real-time basis for periodic reporting systems.
• Plan and/or collaborate with internal and external partners to establish monitoring benchmarks, performance indicators and measurement (as needed) to assess/strengthen performance accountability, coherence, and delivery of concrete and sustainable results for the assigned sector in health programmes, with the focus on health and community systems strengthening.
• Support SAR countries in the monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme reviews and annual sectoral reviews to assess progress develop plans, and strategies and identify required action/interventions to achieve results.
• Support the preparation of regular/mandated programme/project reports for management, donors, and partners to keep them informed of programme progress.

3. Monitoring and evaluation, knowledge management and capacity building

Support the Knowledge Management agenda of the health section at the Regional Office relevant to advancing newborn, child, adolescent, and maternal health in the region.

Duties & Tasks:

• Provide technical and operational support to monitor implementation and progress of projects and initiatives work plans, with a focus on health and community systems strengthening.
• Support the development of guidance and progress tracking tools (e.g., an Excel-based immunization tracker) that aim at providing internal oversight of immunization activities, progress, country priorities, technical gaps, and areas of support by the country to inform strategic planning for technical support going forward.
• Support the Health section in creating and utilizing a user-friendly digital dashboard that enhances the capacity to analyze, visualize, and utilize data for strategy development, progress tracking, and resource allocation.
• Support information gathering from UNICEF Health Systems Strengthening/PHC and Community Health and Nutrition Systems strengthening in South Asia, assess data quality, analyses and provide recommendations for a leadership agenda, policy dialogue and programmatic shifts as appropriate.
• Support the Health Section and other relevant Sections in preparing, writing, reviewing, and editing reports, briefs, case studies, manuscripts, and articles for publication (related to health) to ensure optimal quality of the documentation.
• Support research to provide evidence for implementation of best cutting-edge practices.
• Support organization and implementation of capacity-building initiatives to enhance the competencies of relevant stakeholders to promote sustainable results on health-related programmes/projects.

4. Support to resource mobilization

• Provide support to Health section staff to conceptualize and write funding proposals, with input from country offices as appropriate and in coordination with potential donors, including the provision of baseline data and development of monitoring framework for funding proposals that are in line with donor’s requirements.
• Assist the health section in the preparation of programmatic reports.
• Support effective advocacy, communication, resource mobilization, and networking through partnerships and collaborations at the global, regional, and country levels with a focus on community-based PHC and emerging public issues (mental health, road safety, environmental health, etc.)
• Assist the Health Regional Advisor in the preparation of PowerPoint presentations and briefing notes for key events, meetings, and conferences.

5. Other related duties

Support the health section in performing its key responsibilities.

Duties & Tasks:

• Actively contribute to regional activities and exchange of information/ideas with other programmes/projects within and outside the health sector, related to the formulation, planning, implementation, and monitoring & evaluation of overall regional strategies, including areas for acceleration, and support to country offices,
• Perform other related duties as assigned by the supervisor including guiding, training, and coaching staff, interns, and consultants, as needed.

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

Education:

• An Advanced University Degree in public health/nutrition, pediatric health, family health, health research, global/international health, health policy and/or management, environmental health sciences, biostatistics-mathematics, socio-medical, health education, epidemiology or other health-related science is required.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in public health/nutrition planning and management and/or in relevant areas of maternal and neonatal health care, and health emergency/humanitarian preparedness.
• Relevant experience in health/nutrition programme/project development and management in any UN system agency or organization is an asset.
• Solid experience in database management and the use of database platforms and applications is strongly required.
• Experience working in a developing country is considered an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required.

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 promoting 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 candidates 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 who 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.