Child Protection Assistant

UNICEF helps build a world where the rights of every child are fully realized. It is our conviction that nurturing and caring for children are the cornerstones of human progress. UNICEF was created in 1946 to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path. It has global authority to influence decision-makers, and a wide variety of partners at grassroots level to turn the most innovative ideas into reality.

For 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children's survival, protection and development. The world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and Governments.

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does in programmes, in advocacy and in operations. The equity strategy, targeting the most disadvantaged and excluded children and families, translates this commitment to putting 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 equal 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 protection of the most disadvantaged citizens from violence and improved access to quality health and education services among other services and addressing inequity not only gives all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also leads 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 in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

UNICEF Zambia Country Office 2023-2027 Country Programme Outcome five aims to ensure that by 2027, more children and adolescents live in an increasingly protective environment and benefit from improved child protection services, including birth registration. To achieve this, UNICEF recognizes the important contribution that a functional child protection system that prioritizes the prevention of violence from happening and ensuring children that experience violence and any form of abuse and harm access age-appropriate services is essential in achieving the desired child protection outcomes. UNICEF is providing technical support to the Government and partners to strengthen capacity in prevention of violence against children and promote birth registration. This support includes the development of a Social Behavior Change Plan that articulates the priority S&BC activities to address gender norms and other behavioral practices that drive violence against children. Implementation of the S&BC Plan will be a priority action in further strengthening government, partners and the community capacity to prevent violence on children.

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.

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.

Under the direct supervision of Child Protection Officer for SBC with oversight of the Child Protection Specialist, Child Protection Assistant will undertake the following tasks:

a) Programme planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting:
• Support the implementation of the Child Protection Section annual workplan;
• Contribute to the planning of child protection programmes with a primary focus on ending child marriage, adolescent pregnancy and promote child safeguarding;
• Support CSO partners on implementation of activities outlined in the annual approved program agreement work plans;
• Support monitoring of programmes/projects through field visits and exchange of information with partners to assess progress, identify bottlenecks, potential problems and child protection risks. Make recommendations accordingly to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant officials for timely resolution;
• Contribute to the formulation, design and preparation of programme/project proposals, concept notes, ensuring alignment with UNICEF’s overall Strategic Plans and the Country Programme, as well as coherence and integration with the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF);
• Support program districts in timely reporting and liquidation of funds advanced to implementing partners;
• Contribute to the mainstreaming of child protection in emergencies in overall prevention of violence against children interventions.

b) Support Implementation of Social Behavior Change Plan:
• Support the implementation of the Child Protection Social Behaviour Change Plan as part of systems strengthening to prevent violence against children;
• Organize events and activities to ensure community engagement and participation, and maximum outreach and impact on behavioral and social change;
• Assess and recommend potential contacts, networks, resources, and tools to support maximum impact and outreach of S&BC initiatives;
• Monitor the production of S&BC materials to ensure technical quality, consistency and relevancy of communications materials that are developed, produced, and disseminated to target audience (e.g. individuals, communities, government officials, partners, media etc);
• Collect, assess, and organize information for budget planning and management of programme funds and prepare documentations and related materials for financial planning for S&BC initiatives. Monitor/track the use of resources as planned and verify compliance with organizational guidelines, rules and regulations and standards of ethics and transparency.

c) Advocacy, networking, and partnership building:
• Support the implementation of the advocacy plan on ending child marriage and adolescent pregnancy, including the design and development of materials for the engagement of key influencers and role models;
• Work with adolescents to promote peer to peer support in advocating for adolescent and youth led movements to end harmful norms and practices;
• Contribute to building and maintaining partnerships through networking and proactive collaboration with civil society organizations, community groups, leaders and other critical partners in the community and civil society to reinforce cooperation through engagement, empowerment, and self-determination and to pursue opportunities for greater advocacy to promote child protection;
• Collaborate with internal communication partners to harmonize, link and/or coordinate messaging to enhance S&BC outreach and contribution to child protection outcomes.

In addition, UN Volunteers are expected to:

• 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 IVD);
• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country;
• Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities;
• 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.