Consultancy Support to UNICEF UAE Programme, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Job no: 537491
Position type: Consultancy
Location: Utd.Arab.Emir. Division/Equivalent: Amman(MENA)
School/Unit: Saudi Arabia
Department/Office: Abu Dhabi, Gulf Area
Categories: Programme Management
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, Opportunity
Over the past few years, UAE has been taking steps to advance human rights and human development in the country. The Government announced a draft law for the establishment of a national human rights institution in line with the Paris Principles. The UAE Cabinet approved the Family Protection Policy which focuses on the centrality of the family for social cohesion. From this overarching policy, numerous actions will follow, such as new disciplines in academia to support family protection, initiatives to prevent domestic violence and formulation of strategies. At the Emirate level, Abu Dhabi established the Early Childhood Authority, further cementing political commitment on early childhood development. The Wadeema Law (Federal Law N.3 of 2016) galvanized the commitment to address issues of child protection. The Law established a protection mechanism in each sector Child Protection Unit (CPU) "aiming at developing and implementing mechanisms and child protection measures".
To support the efforts of the UAE, UNICEF Gulf Area Programme (2019-2023) has outlined three priorities: Early Childhood Development, Child Protection and Data for children.UNICEF is in the process of expanding its programming engagement in the country, broadening its areas of support to include child protection related issues such as child protection online, mental health and psychososcial support. Key partners that UNICEF is currently engaged with include Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood (SCMC), Early Childhood Authority (ECA), Sharjah Child Friendly Office, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Healh, Ministry of Interior, Department of Community Development among others.
Support is also envisaged in education, including quality education, lifeskills of adolescents and youth. UNICEF is working with the education sector in many aspects key to safe schools and it includes a review of the child protection policy, training of child Protection Specialists (CPS), review of the license standards, piloting case management guide and supporting the child protection unit.
UNICEF is seeking a consultant to be based in the UAE to work with the programme team in Abu Dhabi in its plans of programme expansion, including sustaining and further developing strong working relationships with key government counterparts.
How can you make a difference?
The consultancy seeks to deepen and strengthen UNICEF's contribution in the country towards realizing child rights and child protection.
The consultancy is crucial given the COVID related priorities and urgency in accelerated programming. It is also critical as one of the most experienced Arabic speaking staff will be retiring soon. Expanded partnerships and additional funding and existing workload demands that a surge support is required to meet the commitments UNICEF has made to government counterparts.
Description of the assignment:
Overall support in advancing UNICEF's engagement in the following areas of work is envisaged.
Early Childhood Development: UNICEF is working on policy influencing and capacity building on ECD. In terms of ongoing work, content for a mobile application prepared in Arabic and English incorporating culturally suitable, comprehensive and simplified content information, related to nurturing care, stimulation, health and nutrition, protection, responsiveness during the first 1000 days, when development is most pivotal in a child's life has been submitted to Ministry of Health and Prevention for approval. There is a great scope for addressing early childhood development in the country. Specific areas of support include expanding access to the mobile app.
Child Safety: UNICEF GAO curated content to increase the awareness of parents and caregivers to prevent childhood unintentional injuries such as: burns, drowning, falling, poisoning, road traffic accidents, suffocation and chocking, and heat stroke. The content was translated into more than 150 drawings with brief messaging. The tools are to be featured on the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood website initially. Required follow up on this area of work include a sustained awareness generation campaign using the materials under development.
Child Protection: The UAE has made substantial investments in child protection during over the last few years. In 2018, the UAE became the first country in the region to join the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children as a pathfinder country and committed to hosting the next Solutions Summit in 2020. UNICEF GAO provided technical support to an interministerial taskforce (convening the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health and Prevention, Ministry of the Interior, and Ministry of Community Development) working to prepare a strategy for ending violence against children, an expected deliverable under the Global Partnership.
Key areas of focus in the future for child protection include strengthening social work force, a strong focus on child protection systems, stronger branding for child helpline and a strong social and behavioral change programme on the ground.
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support: Following COVID, adolescent mental health has emerged to be an area of focus, given the high levels of suicides in that age group. Partners in the region in almost all the countries have expressed their keen interest in. MHPSS holds promise a good entry point for addressing violence against children, when a direct addressing of the issue may seen to be sensitive. This is one of the key area of focus with the key partner, SCMC, for the upcoming period. With the onset of COVID-19, some other areas of programming, on which UNICEF enjoys good experience, are receiving greater and renewed interest. They include online child protection and positive parenting. These are areas where UNICEF already possesses strong technical capacity.
Key tasks and deliverables:
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have...
For every Child, you demonstrate...
UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA) and core competencies in Communication, Working with People and Drive for Results.
The functional competencies required for this post are...
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 be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. 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:
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.
Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered "staff members" under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF's policies and procedures, and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.
Advertised: Jan 17 2021 Arabian Standard Time Application close: Jan 30 2021 Arabian Standard Time
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