HIV/AIDS Officer (NO-B), Pretoria, South Africa, 364 days)

Contract

This is a NO-2 contract. This kind of contract is known as National Professional Officers. It is normally only for nationals. It's a staff contract. More about NO-2 contracts.

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.

UNICEF’s HIV response for children and adolescents must ensure that neither age, poverty, gender inequality, nor social exclusion determine access to life saving HIV prevention, treatment, and care. UNICEF and its partners’ responses ensure all children are born free of HIV and remain HIV-free for the first two decades of life, from birth through adolescence. It means that all children and adolescents living with HIV have access to the treatment, care and support they need to remain alive and healthy. This is UNICEF’s vision of an AIDS-free generation starting with children. Ending AIDS among children is vital to ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 – the overarching goal of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) of which UNICEF is a confounding partner.

Within South Africa, the adolescent HIV portfolio includes a focus on adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) and adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV). Through strategic partnerships under the Global Fund AGYW Strategic Initiative and as part of the Centre for Disease and Control and Prevention, Estee Lauder foundation among other funds MAC (Monitoring Action Cell), UNICEF is committed to improving HIV and well-being related results for adolescents.

For every child, HEALTH.

Health | UNICEF South Africa

UNICEF is committed to ensuring that every child survives and thrives. Young people, especially adolescent girls and young women remain vulnerable to HIV. Despite the remarkable progress made in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, there were 14,000 new HIV infections in children under 15 years of age in 2018, and only 63 per cent of children needing antiretroviral therapy were on treatment. Adolescents – in particular, adolescent girls and young women – are especially vulnerable to HIV. Over a third of all new infections in South Africa occur between the ages of 15-24 years. Of this group, HIV incidence was three times higher among adolescent girls and young women than their male counterparts.

Our approach to South Africa’s health challenge is three-fold:

• contributing to the evidence base for policy, advocacy and programming,
• delivering innovative programmes with partners – especially in high-burden and low-performing districts, and
• supporting the Government to develop and implement policies and strategies to take vital action to scale.

Together with our partners in the South African government, civil society, businesses, academia and communities, we are focused on the following priority areas:

1. Ending preventable newborn and childhood mortality.
2. Eliminating transmission of HIV through the Last Mile Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission Plan.
3. Implementing the multisectoral National Food and Nutrition Security Plan, which aims to tackle undernutrition and child obesity while addressing malnutrition in all its forms.

How can you make a difference?

The HIV/AIDS Officer reports to the HIV/AIDS Manager. The Officer provides professional technical, operational and administrative assistance throughout the programming process for the adolescent SRHR and HIV programmes/projects including the Global Fund AGYW Strategic Initiative within the Country Programme, from development planning to delivery of results, preparing, executing, managing and implementing a variety of technical and administrative program tasks to facilitate programme development, implementation, programme progress monitoring, evaluating and reporting of results.

Key functions:

1. Support programme development and planning

- Conduct/update situation analysis for the programme sectors for development, design, and management of adolescent sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and HIV related programmes. Research and report on development trends (e.g., political social, economic, SRHR, HIV/AIDS) for higher management use to enhance programme development planning, management, efficacy, and delivery of results. - Support the development and ensure that all Global Fund AGYW partnership and rolling workplans, budgets, reports and other donor and administrative agent requirements at county level are completed and submitted to RO in a timely and high-quality manner. - Contribute to the development/establishment of sectoral programme goals, objectives and strategies and results-based planning through analysis of SRHR and HIV needs and areas for intervention and submission of recommendations for priority and goal setting. - Provide technical and operational support throughout all stages of programming processes by executing/administering a variety of technical programme transactions, preparing materials/documentation, and complying with organizational processes and management systems, to support programme planning, results-based planning (RBM) and monitoring and evaluating results. - Prepare required adolescent SRHR and HIV documentations/materials to facilitate the programme review and approval process.

2. Programme implementation, monitoring and delivery of results

- Work closely and collaboratively with internal and external colleagues and partners to discuss operational and implementation issues, provide solutions, recommendations and/or alert appropriate officials and stakeholders for higher-level intervention and/or decision. Keep record of reports and assessments for easy reference and/or to capture and institutionalize lessons learned. - Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme reviews and annual reviews with government and other counterparts to assess programmes and projects and to report on required actions/interventions at the higher level of programme management. - Actively monitor the development and progress of TA deliverables, ensuring timely communication of bottlenecks and challenges affecting planned times and ensuring high-quality inputs for assurance and finalization that are in line with agreements and feedback per UNICEF and Global Fund agreements. - Monitor and report on the use of sectoral programme resources (financial, administrative and other assets), verify compliance with approved allocation/goals, organizational rules, regulations/procedures and donor commitments, standards of accountability and integrity. Report on issues identified to ensure timely resolution by management/stakeholders. Follow up on unresolved issues to ensure resolution. - Prepare regular/mandated sectoral programme/project reports for management, donors, and partners to keep them informed of programme progress.

3. Technical and operational support to programme implementation

- Conduct regular programme field visits and surveys and/or exchange information with partners/stakeholders to assess progress and provide technical support, take appropriate action to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant officials for resolution. Report on critical issues, bottlenecks, and potential problems for timely action to achieve results. - Provide technical and operational support to government counterparts, NGO partners, UN system partners and other country office partners/donors on the application and understanding of UNICEF policies, strategies, processes, and best practices on adolescent SRHR and HIV related issues to support programme implementation, operations, and delivery of results. - Organize, participate and contribute to review, validation and reporting meetings and activities with UNICEF CO (Country Office) and RO, Global Fund AGYW core team and country teams, PRs/SRs and other partners as necessary for deliverable finalization.

4. Networking and partnership building

- Build and sustain effective close working partnerships with relevant sector government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate programme implementation and build capacity of stakeholders to achieve programme goals. - Draft communication and information materials for CO programme advocacy to promote awareness, establish partnership/alliances and enhance resource mobilization for UNICEF HIV programmes/projects. - Work closely with UNICEF country office (CO) and Regional Office (RO), Principal Recipients and Sub Recipients (PRs/SRs) Ministries of Health and other partners on country-level discussions to identify, support implementation and monitor technical assistance (TA) requests from PRs/SRs within the Global Fund AGYW Strategic Initiative partnership. - Participate in appropriate inter-agency (UNCT) meetings/events on programming to collaborate with inter-agency partners/colleagues on UNDAF operational planning and preparation of adolescent SRHR and HIV programmes/projects and to integrate and harmonize UNICEF position and strategies with the UNDAF development and planning process. - Research information on potential donors and prepare resource mobilization materials and briefs for fund raising and partnership development purposes.

5. Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building

- Identify, capture, synthesize and share lessons learned for knowledge development and to build the capacity of stakeholders on adolescent SRHR and HIV. - Apply innovative approaches and promote good practice to support the implementation and delivery of concrete and sustainable programme results. - Research, benchmark, and report on best and cutting-edge practices for development planning of knowledge products and systems. - Participate as resource person in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of clients/stakeholders. - Support the communications of key outcomes from the Global Fund AGYW partnership.

Impact of Results

The efficiency and efficacy of support provided by the Officer to programme preparation and planning and implementation of HIV/AIDS related programmes/projects contribute to accelerating UNICEF and national development efforts to eliminate new HIV infections among children and adolescents, and young women; to provide life-saving protection, care and support to children and their families affected by AIDS that in turn contribute to achieving UNICEF’s vision, commitment and goal to an AIDS-free generation that starts with children and the “Three Zeros” – zero new infection, zero deaths and zero discrimination.

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

• University Degree in public health, pediatric health, family health, health research, global/international health, health policy and/or management, environmental health sciences, biostatistics, socio-medical, health education, epidemiology, or other health related sciences is required
• A minimum of 2 years of professional experience in HIV/AIDS planning and management and/or in relevant areas of health care, health/emergency preparedness at the international level and/or in a developing country is required. Experience in HIV/AIDS programme/project development in UN system agency or organization is an asset.
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language 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

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.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

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 benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements. 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 promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, 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.

Remarks:

UNICEF’s active commitment towards diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government 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.

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