Temporary Appointment (364 days) – Project Coordinator (BMZ Resilience) P4, WCARO, Dakar-Senegal #111741

Job Number: 527288 | Vacancy Link

Locations: Africa: Senegal

Work Type : Temporary Appointment

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.

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And we never give up.

For every child, hope

BACKGROUND

The Sahel is a vast region with enormous potential for young people and future generations. It is however also, characterized by low rates of human development, with widespread poverty and very high rates of various deprivations affecting children, women and wider communities. The multiple, overlapping structural factors that explain low human development undermine the coping mechanisms of its population and the ability of national and local systems to withstand additional shocks and stresses. Against the backdrop of low human development climate change, environmental degradation, increasing insecurity, population growth, low agricultural productivity, rampant urbanization and underemployment, migration and epidemics further exacerbate the vulnerability of populations undermining hard-won development gains. Access to basic social services across the region is weak and services in place barely meet the needs of communities on an average day, let alone when emergencies strike. Inequities, especially in terms of access and utilization of basic social services and resources, are widespread. Livelihoods mainly consist of subsistence farming and highly mobile pastoralist livestock breading, which have since the 1970s increasingly been undermined by unpredictable rainfall, recurrent droughts and desertification and are further compounded by conflict and insecurity.

Each year in the Sahel, hundreds of thousands of children suffer from Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), especially during the lean season when food becomes scarce and malaria and diarrheal diseases increase.

In 2018, drought, high food prices and conflict have had a serious impact on acute hunger and malnutrition in parts of the Sahel. Across the six countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania and Senegal) over 1.6 million children were at risk of severe acute malnutrition, 50 per cent more than in the Sahel’s last major nutrition crisis in 2012. Food insecurity, inadequate dietary practices at home for young children and mothers, lack of access to safe water and sanitation, as well as armed conflict and population displacement, cause high levels of malnutrition among children. Recurring food and nutrition crises have multidimensional consequences for children; including impact on physical and cognitive development, increased school dropouts, increased exposure to violence and exploitation, which often correlates with food crises and increased levels of distress migration from rural to urban areas that has associated risks for children on the move including break-down of service delivery.

In the highly disaster and conflict prone context of the Sahel, making communities resilient to withstand shocks and stresses is critical to reach and maintain socio-economic development, preserve their integrity and protect children. To invest in risk-informed and conflict-sensitive programmes is a prerequisite for countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the targets of the African Union Agenda 2063. Related approaches have been identified and inform in the UN Support Plan for the Sahel, the Global Alliance for Resilience (AGIR) and UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2018-2021.

How can you make a difference?

PURPOSE OF THE TEMPORARY APPOINTMENT (TA)

The “Building resilience in the Sahel” Program Manager (Mali, Niger, Mauritania will oversee the implementation of the programme, and provide strategic project planning, coordination, implementation and monitoring and reporting support to achieve the delivery of the targeted results. For this, the incumbent will coordinate with UNICEF Country Offices and partners (national governments, INGOs), UNICEF’s Regional Office for West and Central Africa (and potentially regional bodies like the Alliance Sahel, UNOWAS,…) and assure coherent regional advocacy and communication related to the project. The Program Manager will report to and be guided by the Programme Steering Committee “core team” and formally report to Regional Emergency Specialist, in close collaboration with the Regional Specialist – Risk-informed Programming, Climate Change & Peacebuilding. The position will be based in Dakar with extensive travel to the countries concerned by the programme.

SUMMARY OF KEY FUNCTIONS/ACCOUNTABILITIES

3. The Program Manager will:

Ensure the achievement of the project results according to the submitted plans, budget allocations and time frames as outlined in the project logframe

Be responsible for effective management of the project team and resources, ensuring smooth running of the project, promoting team work and an environment that is conducive to delivering effective results as well as sharing of good practices and lessons learned

Oversee and coordinate M&E, proposal writing (if required) and Reporting and coordinate with the core team of the programme at WCARO and beneficiary countries

Coordinate support from the UNICEF’s Regional Office to the concerned UNICEF Country Offices and work closely with partners, including KFW/BMZ to ensure timely and quality project deliverables

Contribute to effective communication and visibility of results

Supervise the M&E specialist, coordinating evaluation and monitoring activities of the programme.

3.1. Specific Areas of Programme Interventions in the Project

Resilient education and peacebuilding: UNICEF will assist communities to increase the number of children who attend school in isolated and high-risk areas. Specific attention will be given to improve learning outcomes and strengthen capacities to provide conflict sensitive education. Education activities will cover out-of-school children and adolescents as well as at risk children to prevent school dropouts. Girls education will be at the center of the approach. The approach will contribute to children retention with an emphasis on girls by integrating school feeding into UNICEF education package.

Enhanced nutrition: because selected communities are particularly at risk, the proposed approach will combine early response to meet immediate needs whilst investing in achieving medium and longer-term nutrition solutions going beyond life-saving intervention. An innovative multi-sectoral approach combining nutrition, health, water and sanitation, education, agriculture and social protection together with community-based interventions will be applied in selected communities.

Community health system strengthening: UNICEF will focus on primary health care and community systems (enabling environment, human resources, information systems, supply chain management, demand for care) to support an integrated approach which will include disease surveillance, epidemic response, basic service delivery – including quality maternal, newborn and child health services, health promotion and disease prevention. Particular attention will be given to fight gender-based inequalities including harmful practices.

Resilient WASH services: UNICEF will scale up WASH services in vulnerable communities, in particular communities facing multiple risks factors such as protracted displacement, cholera epidemics and malnutrition. WASH activities will bridge emergency and development programming in a climate change context. WASH in Nutrition interventions will be rolled out where there are high rates of severe and moderate acute malnutrition.

Protection services for all children: UNICEF will promote a community-based platform offering protection services for children in need including for migrant and displaced communities. The strategy will include promoting legal frameworks, the strengthening of case-management systems (including cross-border), the provision of psycho-social support as well as family tracing and reunification. For communities located on migratory routes, UNICEF will support governments identifying migrant children, offering emergency support and referring children to case management systems. UNICEF will set-up a one-stop welfare shop and deploy mobile teams.

Social Protection: UNICEF will support civil society organizations and other community platforms engagement for im­proved accountability of social protection and shock responsive preparedness and response. Shock responsive social protection – including safety nets will be strenghtened: UNICEF will support individuals, households and communities to become more self-reliant and able to mitigate the negative effects of shocks and stresses. Through this household and community focused approach social protection activities will focus on social transfers, programs to ensure access to services, social support and care services, contribution to legislation and policy reform to ensure equality and non-discrimination. UNICEF will reinforce cash transfer services (Cash Plus) linked to social services and economic development.

3.2 Strengthen regional evidence-based generation and advocacy

With the support of the RO Advisers (and the relevant members of their teams) for Child Protection, Health, Nutrition, Education, C4D, Communication, Resilience, Evaluation, Monitoring and Emergencies, in line with the specific activities within the project described above (3.1.), the Program Manager will:

Provide technical assistance to ensure quality assurance of programming across the 3 countries to strengthen evidence-based advocacy at different levels

Strengthen knowledge management and evidence generation in the program areas covered by the project proposal, and coordinate with WFP monitoring and evaluation teams

Coordinate capacity development of country and regional actors

Ensure close cooperation with the Regional Communications Adviser to ensure, as warranted, media outreach and public advocacy

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

Education

Master degree in political science, social work, social sciences, education, law, international relations, management or any related field. A first-level university degree with two additional years of relevant work experience to may be accepted in lieu of a Master degree.

Work Experience and Requirements:

8 years of professional work experience in project management – delivering on results, monitoring, reporting

Proven experience in effectively managing grants

Ability to analyze, synthesize information and communicate outcomes clearly to different stakeholders

Excellent written and oral communication skills, ability to work independently and in a team, high-level report-writing skills

Good understanding of the issues and complexities of the Sahel crisis and impact on children

Capacity to manage various tasks simultaneously in planning, implementing, and monitoring a complex project over an extended period.

Experience coordinating with other organizations in the collation of information, analysis and development of recommendations.

Knowledge of the UN system

Knowledge of KFW project management is a plus

Ability to work in an international or multicultural environment.

Language Proficiency

Fluency in oral and written English and French is essential.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Integrity and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.

The competencies required for this post are:

Core Values (Required): Commitment, Diversity and Inclusion, Integrity

Core Competencies (Required): Communication, Drive for Results, Working with People

Functional Competencies (Required): Analyzing, Deciding and Initiating Action, Formulating Strategies and Concepts, Leading and Supervising, Relating and Networking, Applying Technical Expertise,

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

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

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 also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles.

Remarks:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Closing Date Mon Jan 27 2020 00:55:00 GMT+0100 (heure normale d’Europe centrale)