Social & Behavior Change Specialist - Health (P-4), FT, PG - Health, New York HQ

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 171,387 USD and 220,969 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.

UNICEF Program Group is currently undergoing organizational changes; therefore, the exact location of the post has yet to be determined. Selected candidates may be required to commence duties remotely until the location is confirmed. If reassigned or relocated to New York, candidates may be expected to relocate to a new location again during the initial contract or assignment period. When working remotely, the candidate will be required to agree on working hours with the Hiring Office, which may require inclusion of all or some of the NYHQ core working hours (10AM-4PM).

Generating demand for immunization is a key component in Immunization Agenda 2030 as well as in UNICEF Immunizations Roadmap and is an area of UNICEF’s comparative advantage. UNICEF has extensive experience in providing technical leadership in social and behavior change and leading inter agency partnerships to address social and behavioral barriers to improving vaccination coverage and increasing equitable access to quality immunizations services. Effective Social and Behavior Change (SBC) communication encompasses a strategic and innovative mix of communication approaches, platforms and channels (mass, digital and social media, community and social mobilization and interpersonal). The overall goal and contribution of SBC is to increase demand for and utilization of immunization and other essential Primary Health Care services, promote the acceptance and uptake of new and existing vaccines, tackle equity related barriers including gender, and to focus on zero dose children in order to ensure that every child is fully immunized. UNICEF also emphasizes the importance of strengthening capacities of UNICEF Country Offices, government and civil society partners, strategic partnerships, improved evidence use and generation, and establishment of global goods and technical platforms to drive implementation of quality evidence-based programming at scale

For every child, gender equality…..

Under the general guidance of the Senior Adviser Social & Behavior Change (Immunization), the incumbent will provide technical assistance to regional and country offices in the design, formulation, management, execution, monitoring and evaluation of social and behavior change communication (SBCC) strategies to increase community demand for routine immunization, ensuring that corresponding plans of action and programme activities are in place to support country programmes. You will provide support to UNICEF Regional and Country offices and national governments, with a special focus on designing effective strategies to reach out to and actively engage populations who are socially, politically and economically marginalized from accessing routine immunization services, and other basic health and nutrition packages. You will coordinate and provide technical support for the introduction of new vaccines into the routine immunization schedule, as well as promoting key family practices to help improve child survival outcomes, including community prevention and tretment of pneumonia and diarrhea. This post does not supervise any post.

How can you make a difference?

Support to strategy design and development of SBCC interventions

• Provide technical support to regional and country offices on formative research, social data collection, analysis and use to improve country programme delivery.
• Collaborate with global and regional partners to develop and disseminate evidence-based gender responsive global goods to support implementation of SBC/demand generation interventions in countries.
• Assist Regional and Country Office teams in the design, management, and implementation of effective evidence-based, people centred, SBCC/demand generation strategies in the area of routine immunization and other child survival interventions particularly to reach under vaccinated and unvaccinated/zero dose populations.
• Provide technical support to regional and country offices on integrating routine immunization and other public health interventions in development and emergency settings.

Technical support for programme implementation including Monitoring and Evaluation

• Provide technical support to regional and country offices on multi-year plans, national SBCC/demand strategies including GAVI Full Portfolio Planning, Health Sector Strengthening proposals and applications for new vaccine.
• Undertake field visits to monitor and evaluate implementation of projects/programme activities, with a special focus on ensuring equity, with effective tailored strategies to reach children of underserved populations /zero dose communities populations with multiple lifesaving interventions.
• Identify constraints and suggests solutions to relevant counterparts to improve programme delivery.

Strengthen human resource development and national capacity building in evidence-based approaches to demand generation

• Organize, design and implement effective training materials and activities to build capacity in all aspects of evidence based social and behavior change communication/demand generation for routine immunization at Headquarters, Regional and Country Office levels for both UNICEF staff, government and partners.
• Organize and facilitate training on emerging areas in SBCC/demand generation for immunization.

Documentation and publications on findings and lessons learned

• Prepare donor proposals and monitor and evaluate all stages of programme implementation right through to the preparation of timely donor reports.
• Ensure that findings, experiences, lessons learned, best practices and new methods are systematically captured, analyzed and effectively shared with programme staff at Headquarters, Regional and Country Offices as, well as other partners. Ensure that budget is properly planned, monitored and controlled.

Advocacy, networking and partnership building

• Collaborate internally with other UNICEF sections -SBC, gender, sections/units within health to strengthen cross sectoral collaboration.
• Identify, build and maintain partnerships through networking and proactive collaboration with strategic partners, e.g. Demand Hub, academia; research and implementing organizations; media and communication networks; civil society organizations, and critical audiences to reinforce cooperation and/or pursue opportunities for SBCC/demand generation interventions on immunization and health.
• Represent UNICEF in global, regional meetings and forums/events to advocate and promote UNICEF’s leadership role in SBCC/demand generation for mmunization and health; co-ordinate and collaborate with partner agencies through teleconferences and periodic face-to-face meetings in support of joint activities, including resource mobilization.
• Assist in preparing draft documents and briefing notes that include technical and financial program updates to support UNICEF’s fundraising efforts for immunization for governments and National Committees (NatComs).

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

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in social/behavioural sciences, (Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Health Education) with emphasis on strategic communication planning for behaviour development, social mobilization, participatory communication, and research or related field required.
• A minimum of eight (8) years of solid professional work experience at the national and international levels in development, planning and management of communication for development programmes, including several years in developing countries, with practical experience in the adaptation and application of communication planning processes to specific health related and managing social and behavioral change strategies issues is required.
• Experience managing programmes in country/field is a strong asset.
• Fluency in English (written & verbal) is required. Knowledge of an additional UN Language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish) is considered 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.

To view our competency framework, please visit here and 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.
• For more information on remuneration and benefits, please visit UNICEF’s Entitlements’ page. If you would like to find estimates for entitlements, you may use the online Salary Estimate Calculator
• “UNICEF only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED), a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The list can be accessed at http://www.whed.net/”
• Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.
• Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.

Note: Please note that this position has been re-opened in order to broaden the pool of candidates. Candidates who have previously applied do not need to reapply because their applications have already been considered.