Programme Specialist (Generation Unlimited), P3 - Temporary Appointment at UNICEF

Job Number: 523271
Location: Abuja, Nigeria
Work Type: Temporary Appointment

How can you make a difference?
Generation Unlimited focuses on identifying, co-creating and supporting solutions that have the potential to deliver results at scale for young people, especially those in the greatest danger of being left behind. To have maximum impact, Generation Unlimited will focus on three priorities:

Secondary-age education:

• Adolescent girls and boys need support so they can complete primary and secondary education with meaningful learning outcomes. This support should include accredited and flexible learning opportunities for those who cannot attend regular school. Efforts need to begin with the most disadvantaged such as adolescent girls, adolescents from poor households, adolescents with disabilities and adolescents who live in conflict situations or who are on the move.

Skills for learning, employability and decent work:

• Young people, especially young women, should have access to opportunities to develop skills for learning, employability and active citizenship. They also need support as they transition from education to work. Examples of support include apprenticeships and internships. They will need digital and technological skills for the workforce of the future and for emerging economies.

Empowerment, with a focus on girls:

• Adolescent girls, boys and other young people need support to understand their rights and build their own assets and agency to make life choices. This includes opportunities to civically engage, including digitally, and to voice their opinions on issues that affect them. When they start at a disadvantage, girls need extra support to build lifelong assets like networks, capital, knowledge, skills and self-belief.
• Under the supervision of the Deputy Representative, drive UNICEF's catalytic role in the development of Generation Unlimited in Nigeria, providing technical expertise, helping to define priorities that resonate with young Nigerians and building a coalition of contributing stakeholders (including UNICEF) based on their respective comparative advantage. Contribute to the achievement of integrated, sustainable and scalable adolescent development and participation results across programmes in line with UNICEF's country programme priorities.

Key Expected Results

• Conceptualize and develop Generation Unlimited Nigeria blueprint and roll-out strategy to reflect priorities of and solutions by/for young Nigerians that will enable every young person aged 10-24 to be in some form of school, learning, training or employment by 2030;
• Work with existing collaboration with government and broad-based partnerships, and identify new opportunities, engage and gain commitment from a diverse network of stakeholders (including the private sector, specialized agencies, foundations, NGOs etc) to contribute to Generation Unlimited Nigeria based on their respective comparative advantage to expand opportunities for the empowerment and meaningful engagement of adolescents and young people and identify innovative, cutting-edge solutions for and with young people that are ready to be taken to scale;
• Prioritize mechanisms that include and support young people to lead in identifying solutions, building the evidence base, implementing, monitoring and evaluation of the solutions. This will ensure that the voices of adolescents and young people are systematically taken into consideration in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the programme cycle;
• Mobilize and leverage resources and strategic partnerships to integrate key components of the Generation Unlimited initiative into existing strategies, programmes and frameworks.
• Provide technical leadership and cross-sectoral coordination to generate knowledge on the situation of adolescents, support sector specific analysis of data on adolescents and improve utilization of sex and age disaggregated data within UNICEF monitoring and evaluation tools and among partners.

Requirements
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have:

• An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: International Development, Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Education or another relevant field, with specialized training in areas such as gender, diversity, community leadership and engagement, entrepreneurship, innovation and social behavioural change.
• At least 5 years of relevant experience working with children and marginalized youth in the global south, including on adolescent/youth/community engagement and innovation.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, public speaking, presentation, writing, critical thinking and analytical skills.
• Fluency in English.
• Previous experience in Africa is essential.
• Experience in working with teams.
• Good computer skills with software proficiency in Windows, Microsoft Office Suit (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote).

View our competency framework at: http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/files/UNICEF_Competencies.pdf