Social Policy Specialist (Public Finance), Nairobi

• Organization: UNICEF - United Nations Children's Fund
• Country: Kenya
• City: Nairobi
• Office: UNICEF Nairobi
• Grade: P-4
• Follow @UNjobs

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) | Nairobi Kenya

Closing date: Sunday, 11 September 2016

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Job no: 498620
Work type: Fixed Term Staff
Location: Kenya
Categories: Social and Economic Policy, P-4
If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world's leading children's rights organization would like to hear from you.
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.
Purpose of the Position
The overall purpose of this position is to provide oversight, quality assurance and technical support to the Public Finance work carried out by UNICEF Country Offices and support their efforts to leverage greater, more effective, and equitable domestic public investments in children and ensure results in the areas of health, education, HIV, nutrition, child protection, social inclusion, and WASH.
This role will provide staff capacity development, technical, knowledge management, and strategic partnership support to UNICEF engagements in ESAR related to budgets and public financial management, in order to improve the enabling environment and remove Public Finance Management (PFM) related causes and barriers to achieving results for children.
In addition, the position will contribute to generate regional level knowledge on Public Finance for Children (PF4C) for advocacy purposes with a wide range of partners, including with the Africa Union, and develop and expand regional partnerships in the area of PF4C.
Key Expected Results

• Advisory services and technical support
• Knowledge generation and management
• Capacity Building
• Communication, Networking and Partnership

Key Accountabilities and Duties & Tasks
1. Advisory services and technical support
Result: Regional and Country Offices expand, lead and deliver high quality standard programmes in the area of PF4C due to strong technical leadership

• Provide technical leadership for the scaling up of UNICEF's PF4C work in the region in line with the strategic direction of the regional Social Policy programme. Provide specific technical support, quality assurance and oversight to assure high quality in all aspects of PF4C programme activities conducted by Country Offices and the Regional Office in Eastern and Southern Africa. In particular, this includes the provision of guidance to COs on the development of child-focus Investment Cases and Budget Analysis.
• Provide specialized technical expertise to national partners in the area of PFM, with a particular focus on strengthening PFM systems for the monitoring of allocation and expenditures in key sectors for children (health, education, HIV, nutrition, child protection, social inclusion, and WASH) through PER and PETS.
• Support country programme development, monitoring and evaluation in the area of PF4C.
• Provide country offices with documentation and research related to PF4C. Develop how-to information sheets and manuals on applying existing tools and frameworks to support equity-based sector programming, including contributing to sector guidance on enabling budgetary environment in key sectors for children.
• Support sectors costing their plans and developing investment cases

2. Knowledge generation and management
Result: Up-to-date technical expertise is maintained, expanded, and disseminated throughout the Organization, and shared with regional/national institutions/partners

• Serve a regional focal point of technical expertise in the area of PF4C. Monitor developments in technical area, as well as political and social developments, at the national and regional levels. Contribute to the regional Social Policy knowledge management by analyzing and disseminating available national budget data, information systems, and trends to evaluate cost and impact on SDGs, capturing determinants of the trends and their implications for country programming.
• Build and maintain a regional database with key PF4C indicators
• Synthesize best practices in PF4C from ongoing programmes/projects and disseminate through print, electronic media and through facilitation of exchange visits, study tours, workshops, and training. Document investment cases for leveraging resources for PF4C.
• Compile evidence on the investments of countries in the region in key sectors for children and develop relevant knowledge products for advocacy use by the Regional Office.
• Monitor the implementation of Financing for Development's countries commitments.

3. Capacity Building
Result: Country Offices, Regional Office staff and national partners lead PF4C regional programme development, implementation and management processes due to continual, effective capacity building

• Design a regional programme with Regional and HQ Advisors to upgrade the capacity of key counterpart staff, as well as UNICEF Regional and Country Office staff, in the area of PF4C.
• Provide technical inputs for capacity development efforts of UNICEF staff in country offices and, upon Country Offices' request, of their partners, in the in the area of PF4C and FFD. Provide technical guidance on the design, content and delivery of staff training courses or workshop in the area of PF4C.

4. Communication, Networking and Partnership
Result: Effective communication, partnerships, representation and networking are forged to develop harmonized programme interventions and expand programmes and networks

• As the credible voice of the Region for the PF4C area, enhance UNICEF's regional technical leadership role by forging internal and external partnerships in the development of harmonized programme interventions, through representation in regional fora, including the Africa Union, with partners and stakeholders.
• Develop and maintain collaboration with the Communication and C4D Advisors to develop innovative strategies for increasing social accountability and demand of citizens across the region for greater investments in children.
• Build strategic alliances with various international and regional partners, national associations, entrepreneurs, academics, religious organizations and NGOs active in the area of PFM/PF4C. Contribute to a better integration of donors into consultative processes and networking.
• Strengthen strategic partnerships for PF4C work in support of the Social Policy agenda of the region. Establish institutional links with UN agencies and other relevant entities to improve the financing and implementation of Social Policy.

Qualifications of Successful Candidate

• An advanced university degree (Master's) in Economics and/or Public Finance is preferred. Advanced university degree in Public Policy and/or Administration or other relevant discipline will be considered.
• A minimum of eight years of progressive, professional work experience in applications and advisory related to budgeting, public financial management, and sector financing, in the applied, national and international social development settings is required.
• Hands-on experience with PFM issues required.
• Experience in budget analysis, costing and developing investment cases in key sectors for children such as health, education, water and sanitation, social protection, nutrition is an asset.
• Experience in designing and implementing Public Expenditure Review and Pubic Expenditure Tracking Survey is an asset.
• Fluency in English (written and verbal) is required.
• Fluency in another UN language (Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian and Chinese) is an asset.

Competencies of Successful Candidate
Core Values

• Commitment
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Integrity

Core competencies

• Communication - Level II
• Working with People - Level II
• Drive for Results - Level II

Functional Competencies

• Leading and supervising - Level II
• Formulating strategies/concepts - Level II
• Analyzing - Level III
• Relating and networking - Level II
• Deciding and initiating action - Level II
• Applying Technical Expertise - Level III

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages qualified female and male candidates from all national, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organisation.