(364 days): Project Specialist (Child Labour and Responsible Business Conduct) P3, Geneva, Switzerland

Overview

Lead global work on effective measures to prevent child labour.

You have:

• An advanced university degree in social sciences, development, business or another relevant technical field.
• Or a first level university degree in a relevant field combined with 7 years of professional experience.
• Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible professional work experience in responsible business conduct or sustainability, or social impact of business, or international development, or action on child labour.
• Experience of managing the review and assessment of field-based development work as well as literature.
• Technical background in child rights or child protection, rights-based programme approaches and at least 2 years of field experience with focus on child rights or associated programming.
• Experience and demonstrable skills in producing, editing and uploading online content.
• Experience with technical knowledge sharing tools (Office 365).
• Experience in facilitating online communities of practice and discussion groups.
• Excellent writing and editing skills in English, fluency in other UN languages an asset.
• Ability to work independently and meet tight deadlines.
• Experience of working with industry platforms, investment institutions, and with governments, the UN, and NGOs or within the corporate sector would be additional assets.
• UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability.
• UNICEF competencies required for this post are Formulating Strategies and Concepts, Relating and Networking, Analyzing, Persuading and Influencing, Planning and Organizing.

Contract

This is a P-3 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 5 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 137,578 USD and 180,148 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

UNICEF is seeking a knowledgeable and forward-looking person to lead global work on effective measures by business to prevent and address child labour, with particular reference to business own-conduct. UNICEF is upgrading its work on child labour, taking a comprehensive approach that brings together action by both the public and private sectors, with an emphasis on addressing root causes.

Progress to end child labour has stalled for the first time in 20 years, reversing the previous downward trend that saw child labour fall by 94 million children between 2000 and 2016. As the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, 2021 has seen renewed international focus on this violation of children’s rights.

Child labour is most likely to be involved in production for domestic consumption, particularly in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa or rural south Asia where boys and girls alike in child labour are mainly involved in subsistence agriculture. However, a non-negligible proportion of children are engaged in production directly linked to exports and many more children are indirectly linked to global supply chains through labour in upstream tiers. Informal operations are often part of extended value chains. Furthermore, the impact of working conditions and employment policies in formal business institutions on parents, caregivers and communities can be a driver of child labour in ostensibly non-related informal settings.

In agriculture, child labour takes place in family subsistence and smallholder farming, commercial plantations and other forms of commercial farming, agro-industrial complexes, capture fisheries, aquaculture, post-harvest fish processing and forestry. Family run small-scale farms may be selling to brokers who in turn sell onwards to larger companies, as is the case in the cocoa industry. Services and industry account for smaller but still substantial shares of children in child labour. In services, child labour includes domestic work and work in commerce, transport and motor vehicle repair. Child labour in industry comprises work in construction, mining and manufacturing. Artisanal miners may sell their output to formal mining companies or to brokers who then sell onto such companies. While agriculture has roughly equal shares of boys and girls in child labour, a greater degree of gender specialization occurs in services and industry. Outside of agriculture, girls in child labour are much more likely to be in services, including domestic work, and boys are more prone to be in industry.

The world of business carries a significant responsibility for eliminating child labour from supply chains, just as it does for addressing other forms of adverse impact on children. Most major businesses are aware of the risk of child labour, although fewer are active in taking systemic steps to prevent it beyond mitigation of individual cases or taking company-focused measures. A continuing weakness is the integration of action by business to the addressing of root causes. Poorly designed business measures may displace child labour from one form of activity to another or have negative unintended consequences for broader child protection and equitable access to services.

From the perspective of responsible business conduct, child labour is often the immediate focus of business or regulatory concern about adverse business impact on children. While this provides opportunities, there is also risk that action on business touch points with children can begin and end with labour. This has consequences for due diligence and impact assessment tools and methodologies, guidance tools and the design of regulation, obscuring other salient impacts that business policies and practices can have on children’s rights and the measures needed to prevent or mitigate them. Other salient impacts might include adult working conditions that inhibit good parenting, violence, poverty, poor access to education and other services, family separation, gender stereotyping, exposure to harmful online content, products with negative health impacts and more besides. Some of these are also drivers of child labour.

While the role of the State and the responsibilities of businesses are not the same, at a minimum business measures to address child labour should address own conduct and not undermine wider protection and prevention systems and measures. Optimally, action by business should contribute to institution and systems building and be integrated with action to address root causes.

The Child Rights and Business (CRB) team in UNICEF’s Private and Fundraising Partnerships Division (PFP) has developed an innovative approach to mainstreaming child rights across business policy and practice. The approach mobilizes UNICEF’s unique position as a UN organization with a child rights mission and mandate and a field presence in over 190 countries. It involves three key approaches:

1. Integrating children’s rights into business world “infrastructure”—in other words, putting children’s rights into the mainstream of Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) monitoring and reporting, fiduciary duty, business impact assessment, sustainable and responsible business conduct, regulatory controls governing social impact (such as mandatory business human rights due diligence requirements, etc).
2. Building on these foundations, developing with the world of business practical solutions to addressing and preventing business risk to children. This involves identifying and working out practical measures that businesses can take (and regulators and investors require). What works? Where? How?
3. Bringing practical action by business back to UNICEF to inform programmatic approaches. This involves technical collaboration with UNICEF’s Programme Division and programme staff in the field.

The CRB team provides leadership on the implications for children and UNICEF of thematic areas of business activity, such as supply chains, marketing or regulation. It contributes thought leadership, evidence and research, written up in case studies, guidance and tools, embedding the impact of business into UNICEF’s regulatory and planning systems. The team works with governments, business platforms, businesses and UNICEF sectoral specialists to develop tools, guidance documents and case studies supporting the integration of children’s rights into business policies and practices.

Purpose of position

To lead global CRB work on effective measures by business to prevent and address child labour, with particular reference to business own-conduct. This will include assessing approaches to preventing and addressing child labour currently being taken by business institutions, both using human rights frameworks and beyond, to identify strengths and weaknesses. It will develop, with business partners and other relevant experts, tools and guidance and case studies of effective measures, including how to integrate business responsibilities with wider prevention measures. The post will collaborate closely with the Child Protection Section of Programme Division (PD), including to jointly develop integrated public and private sector engagement on child labour by UNICEF and to support UNICEF and National Committees piloting of implementation with business.

Primary responsibilities

1. Conduct an empirical and literature review of measures being developed and taken by business institutions and their partners to prevent and address child labour, establishing strengths and weaknesses, to identify avenues for work by both industry, regulators and UNICEF.
2. Supervise implementing partner(s) for the development of comprehensive guidance for businesses and policy makers on responsible and sustainable business approaches to preventing child labour, with a focus on root causes.
3. Maintain oversight of major business trends and initiatives on child labour and their interface with wider measures and mechanisms demanding responsible business conduct and respect for human and children’s rights, in order to inform CRB colleagues, PD and the rest of UNICEF.
4. Working with business institutions, governmental and trade bodies, and other relevant stakeholders (including UN partners and within UNICEF), develop further tools and guidance for business on effective measures and the management of the interface between business addressing its own impact and sustainable approaches to the elimination of child labour. Provide input to business initiatives as strategic and relevant.
5. Develop, collate and quality assure CRB tools, guidance and case studies for UNICEF Offices. Contribute to tools and guidance prepared by PD on child labour and by the rest of the CRB team on child rights and business.
6. Support resource mobilization efforts, including by mapping potential public donors, funding opportunities and preparing donor proposals.
7. Support NatCom, CO and RO results reporting on child labour.

Deliverables

• An empirical review of business approaches to preventing and addressing child labour developed, carried out and published for both external and internal audiences.
• Guidance for business, policy makers and UNICEF on business and child labour developed and disseminated through publications (e.g. articles, blogs) and interaction with business and the rest of UNICEF in events and webinars.
• Contributions made to tools and guidance prepared by the CRB team and other relevant parts of UNICEF (Programme Division in particular).
• A mapping of donors, funding opportunities and preparation of donor proposals.
• Contributions made to annual result reporting and annual reports.

Estimated duration of the contract

• 364 days

Reporting to:

• Corporate Alliances Officer, Child Rights and Business, Partnerships Team, Geneva.

Working Place:

• Geneva (but remote working may be possible, subject to negotiation).

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

Education:

• An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: social sciences, development, business or another relevant technical field.
• Alternatively, a first level university degree in a relevant field combined with 7 years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible professional work experience in responsible business conduct or sustainability, or social impact of business, or international development, or action on child labour including at the international level.
• Experience of managing the review and assessment of field-based development work as well as literature.
• A technical background in child rights or child protection, rights-based programme approaches and at least 2 years of field experience with a focus on child rights or associated programming.
• Experience and demonstrable skills in producing, editing and uploading online content.
• Experience with technical knowledge sharing tools (Office 365).
• Experience in facilitating online communities of practice and discussion groups.
• Ability to work independently and to meet tight deadlines
• Experience of working with industry platforms, investment institutions, and with governments, the UN, and NGOs or within the corporate sector would be additional assets.

Language requirements:

• Excellent writing and editing skills in English, fluency in other UN languages an asset.

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 UNICEF competencies required for this post are...

• Formulating Strategies and Concepts (L II)
• Relating and Networking (L II)
• Analyzing (L II)
• Persuading and Influencing (L II)
• Planning and Organizing (L II)

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

Click here to learn more about UNICEF’s values and competencies.

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:

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

Potential interview questions