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, … good Nutrition,

Middle childhood (5-9 years) and adolescence (10-19 years) represent a critical window of opportunity for growth and development. During this age, children experience rapid physical and neurological development, requiring high amounts of nutritious foods providing the protein, nutrients, and energy they need. Children 5 to 19 years are at risk of various forms of malnutrition, such as micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity, and underweight, which can impact their health for the rest of their lives. However, historically, school-age children and adolescents have been perceived as less vulnerable and received less attention in policies and programmes than other groups. Additionally, school-age children and adolescents are systematically targeted by food companies producing highly processed foods high in calories, sugar, fat, and salt.

UNICEF recognizes the importance of investing in the nutrition of school-age children and adolescents and the criticality of ensuring that they can exercise their right to adequate food and nutrition. Thus, UNICEF has developed an agenda aimed at protecting and promoting diets, services and practices that support optimal nutrition, growth and development. The programming priorities are outlined in UNICEF´s Programming Guidance for Nutrition in Middle Childhood and Adolescence and the Programming Guidance for the Prevention of Overweight and Obesity in Children and Adolescents. These include: (1) improving the quality of foods, in schools and beyond; (2) ensuring food environments are healthy, in schools and beyond, through fiscal policies, front-of-pack food labeling, marketing restrictions of unhealthy foods and beverages, and improving school food environments; (3) micronutrient supplementation and deworming programmes; (4) nutrition education and physical activity in school curricula; and (5) social behavior change campaigns and strategies to promote healthy dietary practices among school-age children and adolescents.

Currently, UNICEF is supporting 90 countries to implement these programmes and policies to prevent all forms of malnutrition among school-age children and adolescents.

How can you make a difference?

To help meet UNICEF’s ambitious agenda on school-aged children and adolescent nutrition, including the prevention of overweight and obesity and micronutrient deficiencies, this role will support in the operationalization of the priorities set out in the Nutrition Strategy, and the Programming Guidance for Nutrition in Middle Childhood and Adolescence and for the Prevention of Overweight and Obesity in Children and Adolescents.

The role will support effective and efficient knowledge management and communication, including supporting the organization of stakeholder convenings and the development of advocacy materials and public-facing reports. It will also support the monitoring and reporting for partnerships across an increasing number of regional and country offices. Finally, the role will support the Nutrition Section’s growing work on youth engagement and participation. 

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

Knowledge generation, management and dissemination

• Assist the headquarters team in their efforts to support the 90 countries, and regional offices, working in the nutrition of school-age children and adolescents, to strengthen and scale-up their programmes.
• Support the headquarters team to work closely with the Health, Education, and WASH Sections to enhance and advance UNICEF’s school health and nutrition programming.
• Contribute to the generation and documentation of best practices and processes resulting from work on the nutrition of school-age children and adolescents using a multisystem approach (such as food environment policies, and school-based micronutrient supplementation and nutrition education programmes), thereby facilitating organizational learning and increasing programme efficiency and effectiveness.
• Coordinate and provide guidance to countries on relevant evidence generation activities including landscape analyses, school food and nutrition assessments, curriculum reviews, and pilot studies to help guide the regional and country office programme development.
• Support the organization of webinars and seminars to exchange best practice and problem-solve across countries.
• Participate in the preparation of, and making professional contribution to, programme reports required for management, donors, programme analysis, annual reports, etc.
• Participate in the preparation of technical guidelines, tools, and reports.

Communications and networking support, including youth engagement

• Produce communication products to support campaigns, priorities and resource mobilization efforts, assist in drafting and editing articles, briefing notes, human interest stories and other advocacy/information materials for both internal and external use, as appropriate.
• Manage the two internal websites (on SharePoint) focused on the nutrition of school-age children and adolescents and well as overweight and obesity prevention. Regularly update them with new evidence, guidance and tools.
• Establish or maintain an up-to-date documentation centre for communication materials including publications, press releases, and clippings, photographs, audio-visual materials, web resources, etc.
• Recommend appropriate information and communication materials for use in media, and other advocacy and communication activities. Recommend the appropriateness, quality, and dissemination of printed and audio-visual materials.
• Work with external organizations to align advocacy events, including joint events, statements and products.
• Support UNICEF Nutrition Section’s work on youth engagement around food systems issues through activities that promote meaningful participation.

Grant management and partnerships support

• Support the preparation and submission of proposals and concept notes to donors. This will involve coordinating with UNICEF National Committees and Private Partnerships and Fundraising teams.
• Develop and maintain a tracking system to track concept note submission, agreement receipts and grant information for partnerships.
• Help coordinate the development of partnership reports, including collating inputs from implementing offices and liaison with National Committees

The following minimum requirements:

• A university degree is required in nutritional science, public health, public policy, international development, Social Sciences and/or related field is required.
• A minimum five (5) years of progressively responsible professional experience at the national/and or international levels in the management (including planning, monitoring, and grant management) of nutrition programmes/projects to improve diets, practices, and services for school-age children and adolescents is required.
• Experience in programming for the nutrition of school-age children and adolescents across multiple systems (education, health, food, social protection, WASH).
• Familiarity with designing and implementing advocacy strategies, including Youth-Led Advocacy, to improve diets, and food and nutrition practices and services for school-age children and adolescents.
• Demonstrated analytical and persuasive writing skills experience, including the ability to convey complex information in a clear manner to diverse audiences.
• Self-motivated with the ability to set priorities and manage multiple tasks under minimal supervision in an effective and efficient manner.
• Ability to work under pressure and respond to deadlines without sacrificing quality.
• .Fluency in English is required. Working knowledge of another UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) 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…

• Builds and maintains partnerships
• Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
• Drive to achieve results for impact
• Innovates and embraces change
• Manages ambiguity and complexity
• Thinks and acts strategically
• Works collaboratively with others

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

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 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.

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.