Social Policy Officer

Volunteering Finance & Economy

Overview

Support technical, administrative and operational aspects of social policy and child poverty efforts.

You have:

• At least three years of professional work experience at the national and/or international level in public policy analysis, public finance for children, and/or social protection and programming addressing child poverty and exclusion; experience with government and/or think tanks and civil society organization in related field is an asset, as is experience working in the UN or another international development organization.
• Excellent oral and written skills in English and Macedonian, excellent drafting, formulation, reporting skills; knowledge of Albanian considered a strong asset.
• Accuracy and professionalism in document production and editing.
• Excellent interpersonal skills; culturally and socially sensitive; ability to work inclusively and collaboratively with a range of partners, including authorities at different levels, civil society and youth organizations.
• Ability to work and adapt professionally and to effectively address challenges; ability to work effectively in a multicultural team of international and national personnel.
• Solid computer literacy, including proficiency in various MS Office applications (Excel, Word, etc.) and email/internet; familiarity with database management; and office technology equipment.
• Self-motivated, ability to work with minimum supervision; ability to work with tight deadlines.
• Sound security awareness.
• Demonstrate an interest in and commitment to the protection, promotion and realization of child rights, with a focus on the most vulnerable, and volunteerism as a mechanism for durable development, and the UN System.

Contract

This is a UNV National Specialist contract. This kind of contract is known as National UN Volunteer. It is normally only for nationals. More about UNV National Specialist contracts.

North Macedonia is home to over 372,000 children, an estimated 120,000 of whom are at risk of being left behind due to poverty or exclusion. The new UNICEF Country Programme Document 2026-2030 aims to ensure every child and adolescent, particularly the most vulnerable and marginalised reaches their full potential and realizes their rights. This is achieved by driving systemic change to ensure that policies, budgets, services and measures advance children’s rights and benefit children living in poverty, Roma children and children with disabilities.

The National UNV Specials will provide technical, administrative and operational support to the development, implementation, monitoring and reporting of social policy and social protection programmes, focusing on public finance for children with a strong focus on equity, the optimization of delivery of social services, particularly to reach most vulnerable and marginalized children, and efforts to address child poverty.

By focusing on public finance, the reorganization of social services, and the sustainable implementation of targeted inclusion measures this role helps to create sustainable changes in the equity, effectiveness and efficiency of social services and the reduction of child poverty and exclusion.

The UNV post will be under the direct supervision of the Social Policy Specialist, a senior position in the office. The key function of this position is to support evidence generation and analysis, technical assistance and advocacy efforts in social policy areas, with specific focus on public finance for children and social protection, and addressing child poverty and exclusion through targeted measures/services.

More specifically, the UNV Social Policy Officer will undertake the following tasks: - Support the collection, analysis, and clear presentation of data on multidimensional and monetary child poverty for use in policymaking. - Prepare timely, regular, data-driven analysis to inform prioritization, and development of results-based management for initiatives to address child poverty and exclusion. - Provide inputs for the adjustment of social protection policies, legislation, and programmes to increase coverage and impact on children, with a focus the most marginalized. - Support planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting of integrated social protection including the design and improvement of cash transfers, child grants, and linkages to other interventions and essential services. - Contribute to budget analysis and the development of advocacy briefs to ensure equitable allocations for children and support costing and cost-effectiveness analysis on child-focused investments. - Contribute to advocacy and strengthening partnerships for child-sensitive social policy, and collaborations with government, donors, civil society, and other UN agencies to advance children’s rights and global agendas. - Support the management and coordination of UNICEF programmes on child poverty, social protection, public finance, embedding risk management and effective planning, monitoring, evaluation and programme results reporting. - Support other relevant tasks as requested by the supervisor

Core Values • Care • Respect • Integrity • Trust • Accountability • Sustainability

Core competencies • Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1) • Works Collaboratively with others (1) • Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1) • Innovates and Embraces Change (1) • Thinks and Acts Strategically (1) • Drives to achieve impactful results (1) • Manages ambiguity and complexity (1)

Functional Competencies • Persuading and influencing (1) • Applying technical expertise (1) • Learning and researching (2) • Planning and organizing (2)

• At least three years of professional work experience at the national and/or international level in public policy analysis, public finance for children, and/or social protection and programming addressing child poverty and exclusion; experience with government and/or think tanks and civil society organization in related field is an asset, as is experience working in the UN or another international development organization. • Excellent oral and written skills in English and Macedonian, excellent drafting, formulation, reporting skills; knowledge of Albanian considered a strong asset. • Accuracy and professionalism in document production and editing. • Excellent interpersonal skills; culturally and socially sensitive; ability to work inclusively and collaboratively with a range of partners, including authorities at different levels, civil society and youth organizations. • Ability to work and adapt professionally and to effectively address challenges; ability to work effectively in a multicultural team of international and national personnel. • Solid computer literacy, including proficiency in various MS Office applications (Excel, Word, etc.) and email/internet; familiarity with database management; and office technology equipment. • Self-motivated, ability to work with minimum supervision; ability to work with tight deadlines. • Sound security awareness. • Demonstrate an interest in and commitment to the protection, promotion and realization of child rights, with a focus on the most vulnerable, and volunteerism as a mechanism for durable development, and the UN System.

North Macedonia is a landlocked country, geographically located on the Balkan Peninsula, south-eastern Europe with around 1.8 million inhabitants. It is an upper-middle-income country, candidate for EU membership and NATO member. The capital city is Skopje with around 600,000 inhabitants. It is the largest city of North Macedonia, the country's political, cultural, economic centre. There is a wide range of hotels, restaurants, education institutions, access roads, public transport (buses, taxis, trains), public services and places for recreation, airports.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for UN Volunteers with disabilities. This may include, for example, accessible software, travel assistance for missions or personal attendants. We encourage you to disclose your disability during your application in case you need reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process and afterwards in your assignment.

Note on Covid-19 vaccination requirements

In addition to duty station specific vaccine requirements, appointments are subject to confirmation of fully vaccinated status against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) with a World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed vaccine, which must be met prior to taking up the appointment. It does not apply to UN Volunteers who will work remotely and are not expected to work on or visit UNICEF premises, programme delivery locations or directly interact with communities UNICEF works with, nor to travel to perform functions for UNICEF for the duration of their contracts.

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Potential interview questions

Added 6 months ago - Updated 6 months ago - Source: unv.org