UNICEF works in 190 countries and territories to protect the rights of every child. UNICEF has spent 70 years working to improve the lives of children and their families. Defending children’s rights throughout their lives requires a global presence, aiming to produce results and understand their effects. UNICEF believes all children have a right to survive, thrive and fulfill their potential to the benefit of a better world.

For every child, safety

Uganda is currently hosting nearly 1.3 million refugees from South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi and other countries, out of which approximately 64% are children, stretching the governments capacity to provide sufficient and quality services to its limits. Refugee children have experienced and are at risk of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation requiring provision of critical child protection services. As part of its Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, UNICEF is providing critical life-saving child protection services to refugee and other emergency affected children in Uganda to ensure their protection from all forms of violence. UNICEF is also supporting the Government of Uganda to strengthen its child protection national and subnational system that prevents gender-based violence and violence against children and delivers quality and equitable response services to survivors and victims. The Child Protection Officer will be based in the Country Office where the Child Protection Program is a key component of the UNICEF Uganda Country Program.

The Child Protection Program consists of 3 outputs on 1) enabling/prevention; 2) response services, including social welfare and justice; and 3) birth registration and the CP Officer would report to the Child Protection Specialist who heads the Response Services output.

How can you make a difference?

We are looking for a dynamic and innovative Child Protection Officer with a background in social development planning and management in child protection or justice for children or related area to contribute towards achieving the child protection goals for the Uganda Country Office. The key tasks include the following:

Supporting Programme Development & Planning

• Contribute to Situation Analysis for the child protection sector for development, design and management of child protection systems strengthening programs in Uganda, including for refugee affected children, especially related to justice for children and social welfare workforce strengthening to identify critical programme intervention points, identify measures, prepare programme work plans, make recommendations and prepare reports
• Contribute to the development of child protection program goals, objectives and strategies and results-based planning (RBM) through research, collection, analysis and reporting of child protection, including social welfare, justice for children, needs of refugee and other emergency affected children and other related information for development planning and priority and goal setting
• Provide technical and operational support throughout all stages of programming processes and prepare required documentation to facilitate programme review and approval

Programme Management, Monitoring and Delivery of Results

• Work closely and collaboratively with stakeholder and partners to discuss operational and programme implementation issues, provide solutions and recommendations and capture and institutionalize important lessons learned
• Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme reviews and annual reviews with governments and other counterparts to assess and report on necessary interventions
• Monitor and report on sectoral programme resources (financial, administrative and other) and prepare sectoral programme reports for management, donors and partners

Technical & Operational Support to Programme Implementation

• Undertake field visits to monitor and assess programme implementation and decide on required corrective action
• Provide technical and operational support to all external partners on UNICEF’s policies and strategies to support efficient programme implementation

Networking & Partnership Building

• Build and maintain effective partnerships with government counterparts and national stakeholders through active knowledge sharing and capacity building to achieve and sustain results on child protection
• Develop advocacy materials to raise awareness for child protection programmes and also support fundraising
• Participate in appropriate inter-agency meetings to collaborate with interagency partners and colleagues on UNDAF operational planning and harmonize UNICEF’s policies and strategies in UNDAF development & planning process
• Research information on potential donors and prepare resource mobilization materials and briefs for fund raising and partnership development purposes

 Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

• Identify, capture, synthesize and share lessons learned for knowledge development and to build the capacity of stakeholders
• Apply innovative approaches and promote good practice to support the implementation and delivery of concrete and sustainable program results
• Research and report on best practices for development planning of knowledge products and systems, including on the inclusion of refugee and other emergency affected children in government protection system strengthening interventions
• Participate as resource person in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of clients/stakeholders on child protection

To qualify as a Programme Specialist and advocate for every child, you will …

• Have a Belgian nationality.
• Have a Master level degree in international development, human rights, psychology, sociology, international law or other social science field.
• Have at least 2 years of relevant work experience in social development planning and management in child protection/justice for children and/other related areas at the international level and/or in a developing country.
• Relevant experience in child protection and related areas, programme/project development and management in a UN system agency or organization is an asset.
• Experience in both development and humanitarian contexts is an added advantage.

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or a local language is an asset.
• Be no older than 32 years of age as of 31 December of the year of application.

For every Child, you demonstrate:

• Respect for and adherence to UNICEF’s core values of Commitment, Diversity and Inclusion, Integrity and proven understanding and sensitivity to cultural nuances
• Interpersonal skills, capacity to work with different personalities to deliver on shared results
• Drive for results, setting high standards for the quality of work
• Capacity to think outside of the box and drive innovation
• Strong communication skills, fluently and confidently gathering and expressing and writing opinions and information
• Ability to analyze various sources of information and make rational judgements
• Ability to build effective relationships with a wide range of partners both internal and external and establish networks
• Ability to work strategically to realize UNICEF’s goals
• Ability to effectively promote ideas and recommendations on behalf of self as well as others/team
• A high level of proficiency in planning and organizing to deliver results on time
• Ability to identify issues, conduct rigorous research, and make conclusions and recommendations