Programme Specialist

This position requires consistent and persistent effort over long time to achieve the desired results in terms of enabling employment opportunities for young people. Since the results of the problem as deeply rooted as unemployment in the country can only be fructified in the long term, it will require the incumbent to be engaged in scalable models and strategic partnerships. To achieve the scalability to ‘100 million young people connected with employment opportunities by 2030’ (Generation Unlimited’s Goal), the incumbent needs to be able to forge and maintain partnerships at the highest level with government as well as corporates. At the same time, the incumbent will be expected to learn diplomatic communication and negotiation skills to establish and maintain trusted partnerships for achievement of objectives and develop working relationship with them.

Technical guidance and support:

• Support co-creation and validation of solutions with existing stakeholders and potential solution providers.
• Identify new partners and stakeholders in employment ecosystem that align with YuWaah’s strategy and support them with partnership opportunities
• In cooperation with key stakeholders (YuWaah Secretariat, UNICEF ICO teams, government, private, CSO partners and young people) and in accordance with YuWaah Theory of Change, develop strategy and implementation plans
• Prepare annual workplan and budget for thematic area “Economic Opportunities for young people” and track fund needs and utilization
• Provide technical guidance for identifying key partnerships opportunities for “Aspirational economic opportunities for young people”
• Draft policy papers, briefs and other strategic materials for YuWaah advocacy purposes
• Support YuWaah India partners in perspective-building on “Aspirational economic opportunities for young people”
• Contribute to the development and implementation of policies to ensure optimum efficiency and efficacy
• Operationalization of the taskforce, including support to the finalization of membership and distribution of roles and responsibilities
• Monitor key partnerships to access progress, identify bottlenecks, problem solve and co-create new ideas and initiatives
• Provide oversight to enablement of economic opportunities through YuWaah digital aggregator platform and YuWaah skills platform
• Plan and contribute to scaling up of pilots for economic opportunities that were initiated in the first year with support from partners
• Provide technical and operational support throughout all stages of programming processes and to ensure integration, coherence and harmonization of programmes/projects with other UNICEF sectors and achievement of results as planned and allocated.
• Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme reviews and annual reviews with the government and other counterparts to assess progress and to determine required action/interventions to achieve results.

Partnerships and Networking:

• Support development of programmatic and strategic relationships with existing and potential partners including the state government, private sector, NGOs/CSOs, industry aggregators, young people, other partners to optimize their contribution to YuWaah and to reinforce cooperation to achieve sustainable and broad results on YuWaah programmes.
• Support enhancing relationships with existing and potential contributors for catalytic funding and with non-traditional partners, including on innovative financing modalities and leverage financing
• Coordinate information exchange and synergies between flagship initiatives of hyper local job connects, apprenticeships, youth entrepreneurship within YuWaah partners
• Actively monitor key partnerships through field visits, surveys and/or exchange of information with partners/stakeholders to assess progress, identify bottlenecks and potential problems and take timely decisions to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant team members for timely resolution.
• Prepare regular/mandated reports for management and YuWaah partners to keep them informed of partnership progress.
• Organize large scale consultations by convening various public and private partners together on a forum to inform policy recommendations and bring the voices of young people to the centre

Innovation:

• Apply/introduce innovative approaches to enhance opportunities of hyper local job connects, apprenticeships, youth entrepreneurship for young people, for the delivery of concrete and sustainable results
• Research and suggest on best international practices to be explored for possible adaption in India
• Plan and conduct joint research studies with government and private partners to understand future employment ecosystem in the country and support stakeholders with informed decision making
• Draft policy papers with support from partners and major players in the ecosystem and align with relevant ministries for advocacy
• In alignment with YuWaah’s core principles, engage closely with young people and YPAT network to imbibe youth centrality in all the work related to economic opportunities
• In alignment with UNICEF and YuWaah’s core principles, build strategy and engage closely with partners to include marginalized youths and enable opportunities for them

Advocacy & Communications and Knowledge Management:

• Support in drafting of public advocacy materials, human interest stories, social media material as applicable.
• Support development of lessons learned, review of successful and unsuccessful experiences and share observations/findings so that best practices benefit YuWaah’s implementation and strategy

Education:

• An Advanced University degree in social science or relevant field
• At least 5 years of progressively responsible professional work experience at national and / or international levels in programme/project planning and implementation, with a particular emphasis on livelihood enhancement, employment connects, entrepreneurship promotion.

WORK EXPERIENCE

• A minimum of 05 years of experience in designing, planning, organising, and conducting mixed method evaluations and also conducting robust monitoring.
• Strong experience in managing research and evaluations (developing a plan/terms of reference and schedule, assigning tasks, ensuring milestones are met on a timely basis, ensuring project costs are within and approved budget, and ensuring that objectives are adequately addressed) is mandatory
• Proven experience in setting up monitoring processes is mandatory
• Developing country work and/or field experience is an asset
• Proven experience in coordinating to develop and manage a MIS system is preferred
• Demonstrated ability to produce high quality evaluation reports; a solid publication record in peer-reviewed journals is strongly preferred. A writing sample exclusively authored by the candidate to be included in the application.
• Experience in education, skills/employment adolescent/youth development and engagement is preferred
• Experience with working with UN agencies, international donors and similar organisations is preferred

Languages:

• Fluency in English and Hindi is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or another Indian local language is an asset.

Source:  https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/570467