Social Protection Officer – Inclusive Social Assistance Monitoring

Details

Mission and objectives

UNICEF is the only organization mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to safeguard the rights of all children everywhere. That mandate is rooted in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which sets out universal and indivisible rights.
UNICEF has been working in Cambodia since 1952 to protect the rights of children
UNICEF promotes the rights and well-being of every child in everything it does. Together with our partners, we work to translate this commitment into practical action, with a dedicated effort to reach the most vulnerable and excluded girls and boys in urban and rural poor areas of Cambodia. We focus on equity, so our achievements benefit all children.

Context

UNICEF in Cambodia works as part of the United Nations system, with the government, civil society and other development partners to fulfil its mandate to promote and protect the rights of children and women. UNICEF’s work is guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and core human rights treaties, especially the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The UNICEF / Royal Government of Cambodia five-year country programme 2024-2028 has been developed to advance the realization of children’s rights in Cambodia and aims to foster the growth and potential of all children and adolescents, especially the most vulnerable, by develop-ing, funding, scaling innovative solutions and models into sector policies and children’s programs. It also seeks to enhance national and subnational systems to improve the quality, inclusivity, and resilience of infrastructure and services. The pro-gramme also emphasizes community mobilization and social participation to pro-mote positive norms, practices, and behaviors, while engaging policymakers, development partners and private-sector entities to support and advance child rights. The five country programme components include health and nutrition; education; child protection; WASH; and policy and public finance for children (PPF4C). The country programme officiate is located in Phnom Penh with total staff number approximate-ly 110 persons, 20 of whom are internationals and 90 nationals of Cambodia.
UNICEF Cambodia’s PPF4C team is designed to contribute to various programme components through collaboration with national, sub-national stakeholders, and international organizations. The programme aims to ensure an increased utilization of harmonized, inclusive, and equitable social protection and services by boys, girls, adolescents, and caregivers, particularly the poor and vulnerable. This goal aligns with mitigating vulnerabilities and promoting resilience. The plan’s outputs include inclusive social protection, public finance for children and governance. Inclusive social protection will emphasis on strengthening the national social protection system, expanding its scope, enhancing responsiveness to shocks, ensuring disability inclusion, adapting to the climate, and harmonizing with other social protection programmes. There’s a focus on multi-dimensional child poverty, particularly within vulnerable groups, the rollout of family package, integrating ‘cash plus’ initiatives in family packages, improving referral systems between social protection and other services, advancing digital system interoperability, and strengthening integrated social assistance monitoring system. Key partners in the implementation process include GS-NSPC, MoSVY, NSAF, MLVT, NGOs/DPOs, and other organizations.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Social Protection Specialist, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:
• Assist in developing integrated social assistance monitoring and shock-responsive family package (SRFP) guidelines.
• Assist in creating workflows and report formats for an integrated social assistance monitoring module essential for the development of a system-based monitoring tool and mechanisms.
• Analyze data from the system for purposes of programme planning, management, monitoring and evaluation – particularly in relation to monitoring the roll-out of Family Package activities.
• Conduct field-based coordination meetings with sub-national NSAF to improve programme delivery and monitoring, specifically within the six UNICEF target provinces, ensuring synergy with other programme components for effective implementation and monitoring under the office’s sub-national approach.
• Undertake field site visits to assess the implementation’s progress and resources, which includes contributing to joint monitoring and reporting.
• Support government partners to plan, implement and monitor activities related to the implementation of social assistance programmes.
• Contribute to the analysis of progress against social protection activities in the RWP 2024-2025 and provide input for relevant reporting.
• Attend technical consultation meetings, prepare notes and undertake follow-up actions and coordination related to programme implementation and monitoring
• When required, assist in strengthening programme linkages with other PPF4C outputs and other four office programme components, and contribute to the preparation and follow-up of the implementation of relevant financial and administrative support.
Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to:
• Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day);
• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country;
• Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities;
• Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;
• Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers;
• Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service when-ever technically possible.
Results/Expected Output:
• Generation of increased understanding of social protection, particularly social assistance shock responsive social protection.
• Engagement with vulnerable group, including IDPoor households, women and children regarding the needs and the strategy to address through social assistance delivery and its linkage with other social services.
• Contribution to building knowledge and skills in planning, implementation and monitoring of social assistance programme and shock responsive social protection that con-tributes to UNICEF, partner government and development partner policy and program; as well as resource mobilization efforts.
• Contribution to enhanced planning, implementation and monitoring of the RWP implementation of the social assistance family package and shock responsive family pack-age that increasingly meets the needs of girls and boys, including assisting with the re-porting of results of this work.
• Excellent network of relationships with national and sub-national partners involved in social protection activities, and improved coordination amongst partners.
• Professional expertise built in social assistance programme delivery, at both national and sub-national levels.