Social Policy Specialist (Child Poverty and PFM) NO-3 at UNICEF

Purpose of the job:

Under the general guidance of the supervisor, the incumbent is responsible for providing technical support to the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of all stages of social policy programing and related advocacy from strategic planning and formulation to delivery of concrete and sustainable results as provided above. This encompasses both direct programme work with government and civil society partners as well as linkages and support to teams working on education, health, child protection, water and sanitation, and nutrition.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

Within the delegated authority and under the given organizational set-up, the incumbent would be assigned the primary, shared, or contributory accountabilities for all or part of the following areas of major duties and key end-results:

1. Improving data generation on child poverty & vulnerability for increased use for policy and programme action: Supports the collection, analysis and user-friendly presentation of data on multidimensional and monetary child poverty, including strengthening national capacity to collect routinely, report and use data for policy decision-making. Provides timely, regular data-driven analysis for effective prioritization, planning, and development; facilitates results-based management for planning, adjusting, and scaling-up specific social policy initiatives to reduce child poverty. Analyzes the macroeconomic context and its impact on social development, emerging issues and social policy concerns, as well as implications for children, and proposes and promotes appropriate responses in respect of such issues and concerns, including government resource allocation policies and the effects of social welfare policies on the rights of children.                                                                                                                                      
2. Improving use of public financial resources for children: Facilitate and undertake budget analysis to inform UNICEF's advocacy and technical assistance to Ministries of Budget and planning, Finance, and social sector ministries to improve equitable allocations for essential services for children. Works with sector colleagues to build capacity to undertake costing and cost effectiveness analysis on priority interventions to help inform policy decisions on child-focused investments. Supports the identification of policy options for improved domestic financing of child-sensitive social protection interventions. Undertakes and builds capacity of partners for improved monitoring and tracking of public expenditure to support transparency, accountability and effective financial flows for essential service delivery, including through support to district level planning, budgeting and public financial management as well as facilitating community participation.                                                                                                  
3. Programme Management: Contribute in the management of social policy section by ensuring that technical support around child poverty, public finance and local governance is well planned, monitored, and implemented in a timely fashion so as to adequately support scale-up and delivery. Ensures risk analysis and risk mitigation are embedded into overall management of the support, in close consultation with UNICEF programme sections, cooperating partners, and governments. Supports and contributes to effective and efficient planning, management, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the country programme. Ensures that the social planning programme enhances policy dialogue and policy reforms, planning, management, training, research and support; and that the monitoring and evaluation component strengthens monitoring and evaluation of the social sectors and provides support to sectoral and decentralized information systems.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have

Minimum requirements:

1. An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: Economics, Public Policy, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political Science, or another relevant technical field.
2. A minimum of five years of relevant professional work experience is required. Experience working in a developing country is considered as a strong asset. Background and/or familiarity with emergency is considered as a strong asset.
3. Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or a local language is an ass