Programme Specialist (HCT), P-4, ESARO, Nairobi, Kenya

Overview

Provide HCT technical support to emergency response teams in Horn of Africa.

You have:

• Advanced university degree in Economics, Public Policy, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political Science, Operations Management or relevant field is required.
• At least 8 years of progressively responsible professional work experience in social protection in emergencies, including HCT.
• Extensive programmatic and operational experience designing, implementing and managing cash transfer programmes in emergency contexts, preferably in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Experience in managing implementing partners and financial service providers.
• Ability to conceptualize complex humanitarian-development issues and produce high quality advisory and technical documents.
• Proven ability to communicate and work in a multi-cultural environment.
• Fluency in English is required; knowledge of a second UN or local language is an asset.

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 126,994 USD and 163,733 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 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, Future

The Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region is currently facing a myriad of humanitarian emergencies. The most prevalent is the ongoing drought in the Horn of Africa, which is affecting more than 20 million people across five countries. Even more worrisome is that drought conditions are just one of the many challenges impacting families in these areas, which also include: (i) negative economic and jobs growth; (ii) an accelerating cost-of-living crisis driven by the Ukraine conflict as well as local market dynamics; (iii) other climate shocks, including floods and locust invasions; (iv) health emergencies, which range from cholera, malaria and yellow fever to measles and polio; and (v) expanding conflict, insecurity and social unrest. More and more families are falling into poverty at alarming rates, while those already living below minimum consumption levels are experiencing additional suffering. To survive, households are adopting coping strategies that have dangerous and often irreversible consequences for children. Some of the most common examples include eating fewer and lower quality meals, withdrawing children from school (to save school fees or free their time to contribute to household income), sending children out to beg or work often in dangerous conditions, selling off productive assets (livestock, household items, land), marrying girls early (to save money or earn a dowry) and moving.

To help children and families survive and recover from these crises, UNICEF Country Offices (COs) are providing social protection services. This includes supporting governments to expand their national social cash transfer programmes as well as administrating humanitarian cash transfers (HCT) in areas where populations cannot be reached by national programmes, including internally displaced persons and those affected by conflict. In addition to the immediate emergency response, UNICEF continues to work with governments and partners to strengthen the national social protection system so that it can effectively expand coverage, help families build back in the aftermath of shocks, strengthen household resilience and improve capacity of the system to respond to future shocks.

How can you make a difference?

Under the direction and guidance of the Social Protection Specialist, the incumbent will provide HCT related technical support to social protection, emergency and operations staff in COs responding to the Level 3 emergency drought in the Horn of Africa. This support includes advising on the scale up of national systems to deliver humanitarian cash-based assistance, design and implementation of HCTs, coordination, resource mobilization and in-country surge support when requested by COs. The scope of this position was developed together with the Chiefs of Social Policy in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia and further informed by aggregating the CO technical assistance requests submitted to Regional Office during 2022 and jointly reviewed by emergency team in RO.

Given the scale and protracted nature of the current crisis, the incumbent will be on call to provide roving and surge support to UNICEF COs affected by the emergency. This is anticipated to be provided both in-country as well as remotely based on the specific needs of each CO. As the current situation continues to evolve, additional tasks and accountabilities may arise over the duration of the post.

Major Duties and Responsibilities :

A) Implementation of social protection in emergencies in Horn of Africa COs

The Social Protection in Emergencies Specialist will support COs with the planning, preparedness and implementation of context-appropriate social protection responses, including HCT. Services will be provided on a demand-driven basis (both remote and in-person), responding to specific technical requests from COs. These may include:

1. HCT related needs assessment

• Advises and supports the CO on minimum preparedness requirements related to HCT programming.
• Conducts humanitarian needs assessment at the household level to inform the design of programmes addressing barriers to meet humanitarian needs.
• Analyse rapid market assessments data to inform the assessment of feasibility of HCT interventions.
• Provides technical inputs on the CO’s strategic positioning on cash in emergencies.

2. Design of HCT interventions

• Develops a risk register for HCT programming, jointly with emergency and security colleagues in country, including monitoring and updating as required for the duration of the intervention.
• Provide technical inputs/lead the programmatic design of HCT programmes: targeting, level of benefit, frequency of payments etc.
• Develop the operational model of HCT programmes, this includes selection of payment mechanism in close collaboration with the operations team, use of data management system (advise on data collection, registration, use of data system, data protection etc.).
• Advise COs on coordination, partnerships, communication strategy, and accountability approaches.
• Provide technical inputs to the development of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) framework, which may include Post Distribution Monitoring (PDM) data collection and analysis, use of third-party monitoring and CO programmatic monitoring and compliance with HACT and Quality Assurance standards.
• In close collaboration with the Operations team, identifies or sets up reliable and digitalized payment systems to increase the efficiency, accountability and transparency of HCTs.
• Act as a focal point/super-user of HOPE (Humanitarian Cash Operation and Programme Ecosystem), and liaise regularly with HQ HOPE team, where relevant. Provide feedback to HQ HOPE team on operational effectiveness of the HOPE system and follow up resolution of system bottlenecks and issues when needed.
• Develop or update the CO risk management approach, including identifying best practices across countries to develop predictable and standardised approaches for the use of risk mitigation measures.
• Helps build infrastructure and capacity that enables linkages of cash transfer programmes with other social protection and social sector interventions, especially nutrition and child protection.
• Collaborate with sectoral and cross sectoral programme staffs to ensure that HCT programmes are aligned with UNICEF Core Commitments for Children in Emergencies (CCCs) are met.
• Works to ensure sustainability and to avoid fragmentation through the integration of cash transfer programmes into existing social protection and/or HCT systems, where possible.
• Participates in inter-agency, cash working groups and other relevant fora and identifies opportunities for programme alignment, operational collaboration, information sharing and coordination, while strengthening UNICEF’s standing as a key HCT actor nationally and subnationally.

3. Oversight and quality assurance of HCT implementation

• Conducts analysis of cash transfer programmes, including registration, payment, verification exercises, etc., to identify implementation bottlenecks and areas of poor performance and identify solutions.
• Liaises regularly with key organizational stakeholders (internal and external) through the established coordination mechanisms to ensure follow-up actions at the respective levels are taken.
• Disseminates UNICEF’s HCT-related guidance and tools as well as, where appropriate, inter-agency strategies and operational guidelines.

4. HCT monitoring and evaluation

• Coordinates and supports payment verification and other elements of programme monitoring according to the established monitoring frameworks and schedules.
• Documents field experiences, including new implementation models and programmatic approaches, coordination mechanisms, joint programme delivery, etc.

5. HCT reporting, knowledge management and capacity building

• Ensures that all programme documentation is in place and that all required reports are prepared and submitted according to the schedule or on demand.
• Produces knowledge management products for cash transfer programmes documenting good practices and lessons learned.
• Delivers bespoke or larger group capacity building on cash transfers, both internally and externally.

6. Cross-cutting social policy areas

• Supports the correct and compelling use of data and evidence in support of the HCT programme, the social policy programme and the country programme overall.
• Assesses the contribution of the HCT programme into the national shock responsive social protection system, identifying potential entry points for engagement with governments and other partners to utilize lessons learned in future responses.
• Works towards gender-responsive-transformative, disability-inclusive and migrant-inclusive systems by integrating the inclusion lens into HCT programmes.
• In close collaboration with the SBC team, develops HCT specific communications and cash plus approaches to identify social and behavioral change needs and undertakes interventions for the meaningful accountability to affected populations and community engagement.
• Monitors current technological trends, new modalities of working applicable to HCTs versus current and emerging needs to assess their role and match their potential applicability for enhanced outcomes for children.

B) Support regional oversight and coordination

1. Review CO emergency response plans and reports to ensure that social protection in emergencies is adequately reflected and that information is accurate.
2. Review and provide inputs into regional emergency appeals, Humanitarian Action for Children (HAC) appeals and situation reports (SitReps).
3. Support humanitarian response monitoring at the Regional Office, including the development of an HCT/shock-responsive social protection dashboard to track CO cash responses and facilitate reporting.
4. Act as a focal point for the HCT team in HQ to ensure proper dissemination of HCT guidance and tools. This includes developing and/or updating a summary of UNICEF process flows for various components of HCT (contracting of payment service providers, roll out of MIS (Management Information System) /HOPE, post-distribution monitoring, etc.), standard operating procedures (SoPs), operational planning processes, risk assessment and monitoring, and operational and distribution monitoring.
5. Produce knowledge management products for social protection in emergency responses. This may include compilation of lessons learned, specific operational guidance notes, summary reports for HQ and summary snapshots of UNICEF responses in the region with a focus on integrating HCT approaches into shock-responsive social protection systems strengthening.
6. Support the development and implementation of country-level cash strategies for COs, working specifically with social protection, emergency and other sectoral colleagues to ensure coordination of all cash responses at country level.

Key Expected Results

1. COs are implementing social protection in emergencies, including HCTs, in line with UNICEF standards, including with relevant measures that ensure accountability to affected populations, appropriate risk management and monitoring procedures in place, and with the required documentation, process flows and scale up plans.
2. COs are supported with resource mobilization efforts, including ensuring that cash responses are considered and included (where relevant) in all emergency fundraising proposals.
3. The Emergency Planning and Preparedness process for HCT is completed in each CO and supplemented by an office-wide Cash Strategy that clearly defines the CO-specific cash approach, roles and responsibilities of staff, and engagement with coordination bodies (cash working group, food security clusters, etc.).
4. Regional Office reporting is up to date and accurately reflects all social protection in emergencies activities ongoing in COs, including resource needs, coverage, linkages with other sectors and scale up/down plans.

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

• Advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: Economics, Public Policy, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political Science, Operations Management or another relevant field.
• At least 8 years of progressively responsible professional work experience at the national and international levels in all aspects of social protection in emergencies, including HCT and/or shock responsive social protection.
• Extensive programmatic and operational experience designing, implementing and managing cash transfer programmes in emergency and humanitarian contexts, with preference given to experience in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Experience in managing implementing partners, including financial service providers.
• Clearly demonstrated ability to conceptualize complex humanitarian-development issues and produce high quality advisory and guidance services, technical documents, analytical materials and/or guidelines.
• Proven ability to communicate and work in a multi-cultural environment.
• Familiarity with UNICEF’s programmes in emergency contexts is preferred, with priority given to candidates experienced in UNICEF HCT programming processes.
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of a second UN and/or local working language of the duty station an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

• Care
• Respect
• Integrity
• Trust
• Accountability
• Sustainability

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• Builds and maintains partnerships (1)
• Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (1)
• Drive to achieve results for impact (1)
• Innovates and embraces change (1)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)
• Thinks and acts strategically (1)
• Works collaboratively with others (1)

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 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.

Potential interview questions