Social Policy Officer

UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF is guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child and strives to establish children's rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behaviour towards children. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has been present in Brazil since 1950, supporting the most important changes in childhood and adolescence in the country. UNICEF participated in major immunization and breastfeeding campaigns; the mobilization that resulted in the approval of Article 227 of the Federal Constitution and the drafting of the Child and Adolescent Statute; the movement for universal access to education; programmes to combat child labour; among other great advances in guaranteeing the rights of Brazilian girls and boys. In recent decades, Brazil has promoted a strong process of inclusion of children and adolescents in public policies. However, a significant portion of the population remains excluded. Therefore, in its cooperation programme with the Brazilian Government for the period 2024-2028, UNICEF focuses its efforts on the most vulnerable and excluded girls and boys, with a special focus on children and adolescents who are victims of extreme forms of violence. These children and adolescents in situations of greater vulnerability are spread throughout Brazil, but they are more concentrated in the Amazon, in the Northeast and in large urban centers. Through the UNICEF Seal, UNICEF promotes commitments to guarantee the rights of children and adolescents in the Northeast and in the Amazon regions in Brazil. In large cities, UNICEF works with a focus on reducing intra-municipal inequalities, through the #AgendaCidadeUNICEF.

Brazil has made important progress in tackling child poverty over the last decades, nevertheless, there are still important challenges to cope with. More than 20 million children and adolescents (0-14 years old) lived in monetary poverty (46.2%) and 5.8 lived in extreme monetary poverty (13.4%) in 2021. Furthermore, approximately 32 million children live in multidimensional poverty, with deprivation on sanitation (21.2 million), information (6.2 million), housing (4.6 million), education (4.3 million), Water (3.4 million) and exposure to child labor (2.1 million)

The Social Protection system, although relying on a well-established Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS), still stumbles in achieving the necessary coverage, adequacy and shock responsiveness for services and benefits that are instrumental to tackling multidimensional poverty. Social assistance surveillance is fragile, with less than one-third of Brazilian municipalities with a formal social assistance surveillance structure in place, which weakens the monitoring and evaluation capacity to inform social protection initiatives. Moreover, there is a lack of updated protocols to support vulnerable families to access fundamental rights.

To address the challenges and improve conditions for children, adolescents and their families, it is crucial to strengthen institutions to better plan, design and implement public policies and budgets, especially those in close contact with the population as the Social Assistance Reference Centers (CRAS). In this sense, UNICEF has been working in partnership with the national and sub-national governments to strengthen SUAS. UNICEF also works alongside governments to increase public spending for children as a related cross-cutting strategy to advance the Social Policy agenda in Brazil.

At the national level, UNICEF’s partnerships with SUAS focus on developing protocols and technical guidance. At the sub-national levels, UNICEF supports the municipalities mainly through the UNICEF Seal, which is implemented in Brazilian municipalities across the Semiarid and Amazon regions, over four years, focusing on social protection, early childhood development, education, water and sanitation in schools, youth employment, mental health (especially among adolescents) and prevention and response to violence and pilot interventions.

UNICEF works also at national and with pilots at municipal and state level, to identify public investment for policies for children and adolescents. Increase transparency on the public budget is important to improve effectiveness and efficiency on public finance for children.

To ensure effective coordination and technical support to the Social Policy agenda in the State of Para, UNICEF will recruit a UN Volunteer who will be based in Belém.

Under the overall supervision of the Chief Field Office in Belem and technical guidance of the Social Policy section, the selected UN Volunteer will contribute to UNICEF’s work undertaking the following tasks:

Provide technical support to the Social Policy and Social Protection agendas in the State of Para
• Liaise with key stakeholders and partners at municipal, state and federal level.
• Provide technical support and advice on UNICEF’s strategic engagement with federal, state and municipal social protection counterparts.
• Provide technical support to advance UNICEF Social Policy and Social Protection agendas.
• Constantly map out bottlenecks, barriers and opportunities to strengthen Social Policy and Social Protection.
• Report regularly and timely the ongoing initiatives and results achieved.
Support the strengthening of local governments capacities to plan and budget for child-focused social services.

• Establish and strengthen strategic partnerships with State and Municipal Governments, Legislative branches, CSOs, Academia, Think Thanks, in order to advance the public finance for children, in Para.
• Identify key partnerships to identify public spending on early child development (ECD), children and adolescents in the State and selected Municipalities.
• Undertake budget analysis to inform UNICEF’s advocacy and technical assistance to the State and Municipal Governments, planning and social sector secretaries to improve equitable allocations for essential services for children.

Support the programmatic implementation of the Social Policy initiatives:
• Provide technical support in Social Policy to Selo UNICEF, including technical support to its implementing partners.
• Support evidence generation and needs assessments related to Social Policy.
• Any other related tasks as may be required or assigned by the supervisors.
Furthermore, UN Volunteers are encouraged to integrate the UN Volunteers programme mandate within their assignment and promote voluntary action through engagement with communities in the course of their work. As such, UN Volunteers should dedicate a part of their working time to some of the following suggested activities:
• Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day).
• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country.
• Provide annual and end of assignment self-reports on UN Volunteer actions, results and opportunities.
• Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;
• Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers.
• Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.

Results/expected outputs:

• Improved information management and relationship between social protection field partners (municipal government, non-government organization, UN agencies, and others) .
• Quality material and knowledge products for internal and external audiences produced in a timely fashion, including for training.
• Adequate support provided to the Social Protection team.
• Capacity development and technical assistance provided, when working with governmental or non-governmental counterparts, including Implementing Partners (IPs), considering also the Humanitarian-Development nexus.
• A final statement of achievements towards volunteerism for peace and development during the assignment, such as reporting on the number of volunteers mobilized, activities participated in and capacities developed.