Innovation Officer, NO-1, FT, Iran #125357 (Iranian nationals only)

Contract

This is a NO-1 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-1 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.

For every child, Health and Nutrition

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, emphasizing the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to children’s rights into action. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. To the degree that any child has an unequal chance in life — in its social, political, economic, civic and cultural dimensions — her or his rights are violated. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education, and protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries. This is why the focus on equity is so vital. It accelerates progress towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

Considering that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a middle-income country and it ranks highly on the human development index, the Iran Country Office aims to apply innovations to address social behaviour chance by ensuring that programmes consider human-centred design, thereby increasing responsiveness to local needs, cultural appropriateness, rather than supply driven technological innovations.

Purpose for the job: The position’s purpose is to work jointly with the Social and Behaviour Change (SBC) Section in developing and implementing innovative approaches and practices with relevant implementing partners. The position will also contribute to expanding and enhancing innovation ecosystems that enable achieving results for children. In this respect, the post will support developing, mobilizing, and managing partnerships with public organizations, intergovernmental and international organizations and forums and forge and manage long-term partnerships with the general public and with the private sector to leverage resources to promote innovative social behaviour change approaches to achieving results for children.

The position is considered as a supportive role to the social behaviour change officer (NOB) to provide technical guidance and advice on enabling SBC through innovation. It contributes directly to the implementation of programmatic strategies for delivery of results through innovation and engagement of relevant sectors of the business ecosystem.

How can you make a difference?

Key functions, accountabilities, and related duties/tasks:

• Spearhead innovation initiatives and work closely with programmes to facilitate efficient and effective implementation.

• Support technical and operational knowledge transfer to prgramme staff, implementing partners and other relevant stakeholders.

• Support research on perspective social and behavour change using innovation and provide analysis of the areas of work, outreach, financial position and reputation of prospective partners.

• Provide effective and timely professional assistance and support in exploring developing, managing, and monitoring innovation opportunities and platform for children with various private and public sector partners, academia, and other stakeholders.

• Collaborate with partners to carry out a rigorous and transparent approach to evaluation in consultation with other key UNICEF staff and partners to improve the efficiency and quality of programme delivery through social behaviour and innovations.

• Participate in annual review meetings with partners and contribute to the preparation of annual programme status reports in a timely manner, as required.

• Act as innovation focal point inside and outside the office representing UNICEF innovation interests, prioirities, and positioning social behaviour change and innovation strategies in delivering results for children.

• Contribute to ideas for opportunities to develop new and existing synergies with other UN agencies to senior external partnership officers in order to support a more effective and efficient approach to programme delivery using partnerships, participation and innovation as change strategies.

Impact of Results:

The incumbent gathers, analyses and reports information in a manner that draws out fact-based insights to inform approaches to innovation and effectively engage relevant partners and stakeholders towards an impactful programme design and implementation using social behavour change. She/he captures relevant information and progress and ensures internal information sharing to enhance the required efficiency and coordination for an agile and responsive delivery of results for children in an enabling environment.

Through the sets of activities assigned to this position, UNICEF will be able to create an enabling environment and ecosystem to integrate innovation as a change strategy under each thematic area and hence accelerate achieving the planned results.

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

• A university degree is required in one of the following areas: Business, Marketing, Social Sciences, International Relations, Public Administration, Public Policy, Social Policy, Social Development, or other relevant disciplines.
• A minimum of one year of relevant professional work experience with the public and private sector
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset.
• Fluency in English & Farsi is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset.

Specific Technical Knowledge & Competencies Required:

Knowledge of and experience with developing and managing social innovations and initiatives are assets.

Knowledge of local and global business ecosystem situation and trends

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. For this position, eligible and suitable candidate with disability are encouraged to apply.

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.