Adolescent Development Manager, P-4, LACRO, Panama

Contract

This is a P-4 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 7 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 132,634 USD and 171,004 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 works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for personal and professional development that will help them develop a fulfilling career while delivering on a rewarding mission. We pride ourselves on a culture that helps staff thrive, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, RIGHTS

While adolescence is characterized by a period of heightened vulnerabilities, it also provides a window of opportunity for successful transition to adulthood and equality especially for the most disadvantaged adolescents. Identifying these most disadvantaged adolescents and designing our interventions to address the barriers that limit their fulfilment of rights to development, protection and participation is instrumental to breaking cycles of deprivation and poverty.

Adolescent Development and Participation is central to UNICEF's 2022-2025 strategic plan, which includes a mid-term result focused on empowering children and adolescents. The Programmatic Guidance for the Second Decade (2018) operationalizes UNICEF's approach to ensure all adolescents reach their full potential. This strategic framework aligns with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, guiding UNICEF's work with adolescents in both humanitarian and developmental contexts. Additionally, UNICEF’s efforts to foster adolescent participation are directed by the global guidance “Engaged and Heard” and the Conceptual Framework for Measuring Outcomes on Adolescent Participation.

More recently, UNICEF has launched a new Adolescent Girls' Programme Strategy which aims to accelerate action against these commitments, from adolescent girls' health (including SRHR and menstrual health), nutrition, education and skills, to action on violence harmful practices, and poverty. It articulates a vision for moving forward, with and for adolescent girls.

Together, these frameworks provide the strategic vision, cohesive programmatic priorities and programming principles, reinforcing UNICEF’s role as a partner with governments and other actors to advance the rights of all adolescents.

In alignment with the ROMP (2022–2025) and in coordination with other sections, the Adolescent Development Manager in LACRO leads the implementation of ADAP priorities, focusing on Adolescent Participation and Empowerment, Integral Adolescent Development (especially for adolescent girls), and the school-to-work transition. This position reports to the Regional Gender Advisor and requires effective coordination and collaboration with other sections to achieve results for adolescents.

How can you make a difference?

The Manager supports country office and RO programming processes by providing expert technical advice and operational support to colleagues and internal and external partners and stakeholders to ensure that adolescent development and participation established under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, international treaties/framework and UN intergovernmental bodies, are integrated in UNICEF’s advocacy, policies, programmes and humanitarian work throughout the region.

Specifically, the manager provides quality assurance and technical guidance to COs and RO sections to 1) accelerate adolescent empowerment, participation and skilling , 2) advance integrated/multisectorial policies, programmes and services with a particular focus on adolescent girls 3) promote the transition from school to the world of work. At regional level, the ADAP manager is also responsible for building partnerships, supporting resource mobilization and advocacy as well as facilitating knowledge management and innovation with and for young people.

The Manager contributes to the achievement of sustainable and scalable results on adolescent related programmes/projects according to plans, allocation, results based-management approaches and methodology and UNICEF’s Strategic Plans, standards of performance and accountability framework.

1. Guidance, technical support and oversight to County Offices and Regional Office sections.

• Provide technical guidance, quality assurance and tools to COs in planning, monitoring and reporting adolescent development and participation. This includes Sitan, SMR and CPD formulation, as well as RAM and CSI reporting. Provide input, advice and operational support on the integration of cross sectoral frameworks that promote adolescent development and participation. • Provide strategic guidance and technical assistance to COs to implement and strengthen programming for adolescent development and participation based on UNICEF programmatic frameworks. • Support and monitor the implementation of the Adolescent Girl Programme Strategy across the region, providing technical assistance to regional leadership and teams on regional advocacy on adolescent girls’ rights and to country offices for delivery of results with and for girls (in collaboration with the Gender team). • Provide guidance and technical assistance to COs in strengthening programming that facilitate adolescent’s transition from school to work. Drive the school to work transition agenda at the regional level by convening partners and key actors ensuring alignment with UNICEF’s strategic objectives (in collaboration with Education). • Ensure COs systematically mainstream adolescent and young people’s participation and empowerment in their programme cycle, policy dialogue, and decision-making processes internally and with their counterparts (including governments). • Identify and contribute to addressing capacity-development needs of country teams regarding effective and efficient adolescent programme design and implementation as part of the operationalization of the global and regional UNICEF guidelines and strategies. • Provide technical support to COs on working with and for adolescents and young people in humanitarian and protracted crises (IASC Guidelines on Working With and For Young People). • Assess regional development priorities to identify opportunities and strategies to enhance the delivery of services and achievement of objectives on adolescent development and participation. Work in coordination with RO sections, especially Goal Areas and cross-cutting teams such as Gender, Communications, Planning, and Monitoring & Evaluation to support the implementation of adolescent development and participation programming across all sectors. • Contribute to reporting on regional and country specific results through CSIs and RAM.

2. Advocacy, networking, partnership building and resource mobilization

• Leverage regional opportunities and build strategic partnerships with governments, UN agencies, donors, NGOs, and the private sector to align resources and promote sustainable outcomes on adolescent development and participation for UNICEF in LAC. • Create and use opportunities for regional advocacy to influence policies, programmes and budgeting at all levels related to adolescent development and participation based on improved evidence data. • Support the design and implementation of UNICEF’s regional advocacy strategy on adolescent girls and the establishment of new partnerships to accelerate the implementation of the Adolescent Girl Programme Strategy across the region. • Co-facilitate the Working Group on Youth of the UN Regional Collaboration Platform for LAC. Represent UNICEF in regional inter-agency discussions and planning on adolescent and youth to ensure the organizational position, interests and priorities are fully considered and integrated in regional planning and agenda setting process. Strengthen engagement with ILO, UNFPA and other UN agencies for the roll-out of the skilling, participation, school to work transition and adolescent girls’ agendas. • Provide support and capacity building to regional adolescent and young people’s engagement platforms and initiatives. Promote co-creation with young people and representation of LAC adolescent and youth at regional and global forums. • Collaborate with PFP and RO Sections and COs for the development of regional multi-country, multi-sectoral funding proposals to support adolescent and young people’s participation and skilling, identifying possible sources of new funding from both the public and private sectors.

3. Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building.

• Lead and collaborate with other RO sections in the development of public goods that promote/support implementation of the adolescent development and participation agenda with a focus on participation, skilling, school to work transition and adolescent girls’ empowerment and leadership. • Facilitate the engagement of adolescents and young people in UNICEF programme cycle to ensure evidence-informed programming and policy making, targeting in particularly vulnerable and adolescents and young people in LAC. • Establish a regional community of practice to foster knowledge sharing and innovative approaches, enabling the exchange of best practices, expertise, and lessons learned to support the development, planning, and scaling up of effective programmes for adolescents and young people across the region. • Drive and support innovative approaches and co-creation with young people to enhance adolescent and young people programming. Collaborate with youth, partners, COs, and stakeholders to develop cutting-edge solutions and leverage emerging technologies, ensuring that the voices of adolescents shape impactful and sustainable initiatives, with a specific focus on mental health, nutrition, adolescent girls and school to work transition. • Organize/plan/implement capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of a wide range of internal and external partners/stakeholders to achieve sustainable results on adolescent development and participation programmes and initiatives.

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here: Adolescent Development Manager, P4.

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

Minimum requirements:

• Education: An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: anthropology, psychology, sociology, education or another relevant technical field.
• Work Experience: A minimum of eight years of professional experience in social development planning and management of programmes for social development and child and adolescents’ rights, including five years of professional experience working on adolescent/young people’s issues, preferably focusing on engagement and participation and/or young people’s transition from to school to work in low- and middle-income countries.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English and Spanish is required.

Desirables:

• Proven experience working to support adolescent girls’ empowerment and leadership, and the delivery of programmatic results for adolescent girls.
• Experience in the LAC region is a strong asset.
• Experience in multi-sectoral work and successful engagement/collaboration with different UNICEF sectors and UN partners is a strong asset.
• Experience working regionally, providing technical assistance to a wide range of country offices is highly desirable.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency.
• Knowledge of French and/or Portuguese is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships

(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness

(3) Drive to achieve results for impact

(4) Innovates and embraces change

(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity

(6) Thinks and acts strategically

(7) Works collaboratively with others

[add the 8th competency (Nurtures, leads and manages people) for a supervisory role].

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

This position has been assessed as an elevated risk role for Child Safeguarding purposes as it is either a role with direct contact with children, a role that works directly with identifiable children’s data, a safeguarding response role, or an assessed risk role. Additional vetting and assessment for elevated risk roles in child safeguarding (potentially including additional criminal background checks) apply.

UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

We offer a wide range of measures to include a more diverse workforce, such as paid parental leave, time off for breastfeeding purposes, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). 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 is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference and background checks and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. 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.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

UNICEF’s active commitment to diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable candidates from underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.

UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

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

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.