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, inspiration

In recent years, UNICEF has developed research, tools, and guidance with various partners to effectively engage business in its programming. In 2018, a Business and Community Resilience (BCR) approach was piloted in Indonesia, which helped create a solid foundation for shaping a formal engagement strategy with the business sector in support to the national Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience agendas of the country. In subsequent years, BCR expanded into other regions, notably Latin America, South Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa, thereby deepening UNICEF’s engagement with businesses and their networks to promote child-centred humanitarian action and resilience. Similar approaches were also adopted and pursued in other East Asia and Pacific countries such as the Philippines and Viet Nam.

The BCR Partnerships Specialist will play a pivotal role in advancing UNICEF’s business engagement at global, regional and national levels in countries where BCR is being mainstreamed into Country Programmes. The incumbent will support the Global BCR team that leads on BCR globally and provides global oversight and strategic engagement. His/her role will also be about ensuring global coordination between BCR focal points at regional and national levels and to support the implementation of the grant under the global BHA-UNICEF partnership for BCR. This function will facilitate the coordination, and manage the implementation, monitoring and reporting of actions under the recently established USAID-BHA and UNICEF partnership agreement. The BCR Partnerships Specialist will dedicate a significant portion of his/her time to support the scale up of BCR in EAPRO and especially with business networks in Asia-Pacific and regional partners such as Connecting Business Initiative (CBi) to promote a child-centered humanitarian action and community resilience, including in disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation and emergency preparedness.

How can you make a difference?

The BCR Partnership Specialist will report directly to the EAPRO Emergency Specialist and work closely with the EAPRO CRB team. He/she will also have a matrix reporting to the PFP/MSPA Partnerships Specialist acting as the Global BCR Lead and working in close collaboration with other members of the BCR global team (EMOPS IAHP and HPS and PG/BECR).

The incumbent will support the global coordination of the BHA grant and provide technical support to the Regional Offices (East Asia and Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, South Asia and Eastern and Southern Africa regions), with a particular focus on the East Asia and Pacific region. The latter will involve close liaison and support to the three EAP priority countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam) to operationalize their BCR action plans.

He/she will also be uniquely positioned to strengthen the collaboration between UNICEF and UNDP/OCHA on the Connecting Business initiative as well as with UNDRR on the ARISE initiative on business engagement in DRR, including in direct dialogue with regional business networks. Potential areas of collaboration could look to identify common objectives and further linking such initiatives with existing humanitarian and development programmes. The BCR Partnerships Specialist will be accountable for the achievement of the following outcomes:

Global coordination role and support (30%)

• Coordination of BHA Phase II project planning and implementation in collaboration with relevant ROs and COs, including through regular project coordination calls, periodic updates and timely donor reporting.
• Effective communication and reporting to the Global BCR team and senior management upon request.
• Advisory support to businesses to identify, integrate and implement humanitarian operational contributions and improve business processes aligned with child-centred standards and principled approaches e.g. do no harm.
• Technical guidance and support to country offices in engaging businesses to promote ‘responsible business conduct’ and supporting operational partnerships on child-centred humanitarian action and resilience building.
• Support to scenario-based partnership brokering exercises implemented at regional level.
• Development of BCR communication and advocacy products
• Promotion of BCR knowledge exchange and learning across the organization, including enhancing PFP Knowledge Exchange Platform, documenting good practices and lessons learnt, organizing exchange events, etc.
• Design of a set of indicators and framework for measuring how UNICEF work with private sector in humanitarian action. The model should be applied with regions in pilot contexts to establish its relevance, redundancies and areas for improvement.
• Contribution to global advocacy and fundraising efforts;
• Quality reporting and consistent monitoring of results.

EAPRO technical support role (70%)

• Operationalization of regional partnerships with business networks in humanitarian action,  disaster risk reduction and community resilience. Building on the past and current experiences and in consultation with COs, key business networks as well as partners such as CBi and ARISE, develop a ‘menu of options’ for engaging businesses in humanitarian action, disaster risk reduction and community resilience. It will highlight potential areas for operational collaboration across the CCC programme commitments.
• Advocacy and promotion of CCCs, Children’s Rights and Business Principles and other relevant frameworks with key regional business networks. This will be achieved through the production of a reference guide for businesses as a key stakeholder in humanitarian response and resilience building.
• Capacity development for businesses in child-centred humanitarian action and resilience. This will involve developing a training package in collaboration with regional business networks (e.g. PDRF, KADIN and VCCI) and piloting it in at least two countries in East Asia and the Pacific.
• Building from the existing EAP regional roadmap results framework, develop a dedicated results framework for stronger tracking of BCR outcomes and integration of BCR approaches within the broader UNICEF’s humanitarian and development programming processes. Design a set of indicators and framework for measuring how UNICEF work with private sector in humanitarian action, with piloting in at least one country in EAP Region.
• Strengthened partnerships with regional partners such as UNDP, OCHA, UNDRR and ASEAN to advocate for child-centred policies and strategies relative to business engagement in humanitarian action and resilience. This could involve co-organizing event involving business networks and donors e.g. Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on DRR.
• Scaling-up of BCR programming across the EAP region, including through increased senior management commitment and leadership, stronger integration of BCR in country programmes and technical capacities to implement BCR approaches. Support development of CO BCR strategies and action plans.
• Enhanced regional network of CO BCR focal points, with strengthened knowledge, capacity and resources to support BCR implementation at the country level. Revamped EAPRO’s BCR share point site as a go-to resource for EAP COs.

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in one of the following fields: partnership development, social sciences, public administration, international law, public health, nutrition, international relations, business administration or other related disciplines. Preferably a combination of management, administration, and relevant technical fields.
• A minimum of 5 years of progressively responsible professional work experience at the national and international levels in programme/project development, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and administration.
• Developing country work experience or field work experience, preferably in the context of humanitarian action and disaster risk management.
• Experience engaging with the private sector in the context of development, disaster risk management or humanitarian programmes.
• Specialized training/experience in disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and resilience building highly desirable.
• Relevant experience in a UN system agency or a Non-Government Organization is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language 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…

(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.

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. 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.

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 from programme countries 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). 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.