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, hope

Together with the Malaysian government and others who are truly passionate about child rights, UNICEF works in Malaysia to ensure every child has the opportunity to grow healthy and happy; live safely; and achieve their full potential.

With the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the 12th Malaysia plan as our guides, we endeavor to change minds, change policies, and in turn change the lives of all children in Malaysia.

https://www.unicef.org/malaysia/

How can you make a difference?

Eliminating child poverty and ensuring access to social protection have been recognized as critical priorities of the Agenda 2030. An explicit requirement to measure and monitor multidimensional child poverty is included under SDG 1.1.2, and similarly, the need to accelerate progress around public spending for poverty reduction under SDG 1.a.2, and SDG 1.b.1 for which UNICEF has recently become a custodian. The effective scale-up of social protection, with a specific attention to children, is included as part of ensuring access to social protection, a core target of SDG 1 (Elimination of poverty), and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). Moreover, social protection is also an accelerator for multiple other goals. Addressing the multiple and compounding deprivations experienced by children requires an explicit commitment to understand their drivers and to scale-up comprehensive strategies to address them. The full realization of the right of children of access to social protection and adequate standard of living will not only ensure that every child lives free of poverty, but also prevent those at risk or vulnerable to poverty due to exclusion and discrimination, or facing environmental and conflict-related risks, from falling into poverty.

Reducing child poverty, enhancing access to gender-transformative, and inclusive social protection, promoting efficiency, transparency and equity of financing, while strengthening capacities at subnational level, including in urban contexts, is critical. 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 for every child.

UNICEF has articulated its contribution to this agenda and added value across various instruments including, the Social Protection Strategic Framework, the Call for Action on Inclusive Recovery and roadmap, the Urban Evaluation and Management Response, the social protection commitments to the Core Commitments on Children (CCS), as well as – most recently – in the new Goal Area 5 of UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025, “Every Child has Access to Inclusive Social Protection and Lives Free of Poverty”.

Job organizational context:

Malaysia  is undergoing a strong recovery from the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with GDP growth exceeding expectations. However, the economy has also suffered from increased cost of living, which continues to affect especially the poorest households. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia had been successful in reducing poverty. The pandemic changed this trajectory, and evidence emerged on reduction of household income levels which led in many cases to households moving from the middle 40 to bottom 40, and from the top 20 to middle 40 of the income distribution. Furthermore, despite impressive socio-economic growth, national figures hide regional disparities, and challenges remain in equity, as illustrated by persistent geographic, gender and well-being inequalities. Social protection programmes in Malaysia exist and target the poorest, however are fragmented and inadequate to effectively reduce poverty. While it is well known that poverty and multidimensional deprivations have long-lasting effects on children’s development and increase the likelihood of chronic and inter-generational poverty, Malaysia does not have measurements of child poverty or of multi-dimensional poverty affecting children. However, households with children experience higher levels of poverty compared to households without children, providing some evidence of children experiencing higher deprivations compared to the rest of the population.

The solutions

Strengthening social inclusion to address multidimensional poverty is a core part of UNICEF’s programme in Malaysia. UNICEF’s social policy programme focuses on analysis of data to inform policy responses to child poverty and budgeting for children and aims to deliver results in five areas:

• Increasing availability of evidence on child poverty, deprivation, wellbeing and inequity.
• Strengthening governance for promotion of child rights
• Strengthening the child-sensitivity of Malaysia’s social protection system
• Strengthening state and municipal capacities for planning and budgeting for children.
• Strengthening the strategic use of public resources for the realisation of child rights

UNICEF Malaysia’s social protection team is working on advocating for a child sensitive social protection system in Malaysia through evidence generation and piloting successful cash plus at the sub-national level, as well as through supporting the measurement of child poverty and access to social services to support evidence based policy making.

Purpose for the job:

Under the general supervision and guidance of the Chief Social Policy, the Social Policy Specialist (Inclusive Social Protection) engages in social protection dialogue for programme development, advocating for increased public resource allocation and improving linkages between social protection and essential social services to support the UNICEF Malaysia country office to continue working towards the realization of children’s rights. Specifically, the Social Policy Specialist (Inclusive Social Protection System) models approaches, conducts analysis, adapts or designs new programmes where possible, and advocates for gender-transformative, disability-inclusive and migrant-inclusive social protection programmes and systems. The Social Policy Specialist (Inclusive Social Protection) will also support efforts in improving child poverty measurements in Malaysia, through sub-national and national efforts.

The Social Policy Specialist is responsible for the following functions:

1.    Inclusive social protection

2.    Cross-cutting social policy areas

Specifically, the Social Policy Specialist (Inclusive Social Protection) performs:

1. Inclusive social protection

• Advocates for inclusion and equity-driven particularly as it relates to gender, disability and migration by advocating and promoting policies that address specific vulnerabilities tied to multifaceted aspects of poverty and the contribution social protection has on reducing exclusion.
• Works closely with colleagues across UNICEF to ensure a coherent agenda on inclusive social protection, engaging with cross-sectoral and thematic areas such as adolescence and humanitarian response.
• Together with child protection, education, nutrition and other substantive sections, identifies the most suitable strategies to develop social protection services for the most marginalized and at-risk children and adolescents supporting inclusion and preventing institutionalization. This includes contributing to the development of inclusive, gender-transformative systems that respond to women’s and caregivers needs.
• Designs, updates, reviews, adjusts, implements and evaluates specific programmes and instruments that contribute to gender-responsive / transformative, disability-inclusive and migrant-inclusive social protection systems.

2. Cross-cutting social policy areas

• Establishes effective partnerships with the government, bilateral and multilateral donors, civil society and local leaders, the private sector, and other UN agencies to support sustained and proactive commitment to the Convention of the Rights of the Child, achieve global UN agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals and strengthen UNICEF’s leading positioning for their implementation as they relate to inclusive, child-sensitive and gender-transformative social protection.
• Analyzes national context, including key socio-economic trends, and their impact on social development, emerging issues and concerns. Uses evidence and data to help the country office predict, prepare for and mitigate risks and adjust programming course.
• Supports the correct and compelling use of data and evidence including on the situation of children, and coverage and impact of child-focused services, in support of the social protection programme and the country programme overall.
• Develops approaches to identify social and behavioural change needs and undertakes interventions for the meaningful accountability to affected populations and community engagement.
• Monitors current technological trends, new modalities of working applicable to social protection versus current and emerging needs to assess their role and match their potential applicability to social protection for enhanced outcomes for children.

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 is required: Economics, Public Policy, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political Science, or another relevant field.
  *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• A minimum of five (5) years of professional work experience in social protection policies, programmes or services including relevant experience from an inclusion lens regarding the most marginalized and at-risk is required.
• Experience in programme design and management and policy advocacy is required.
• Experience working in developing countries / contexts is considered as a strong asset.
• Background and/or familiarity with emergencies and humanitarian contexts is considered as a strong asset.
• Fluency in English and Malay is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or a local language is considered as 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 Value
(https://www.unicef.org/careers/get-prepared#Values)

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s compensation, benefits and wellbeing. (https://www.unicef.org/careers/compensation-benefits-and-wellbeing)

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s salary scale & structure. (https://www.un.org/Depts/OHRM/salaries_allowances/salaries/malaysia.htm)

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s job categories (GS/NO/IP). (https://www.unicef.org/careers/unicef-job-categories)

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, (8) Nurtures, leads and manages people.

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 candidate 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.