Current vacancies

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. 

For every child, Life

www.unicef.org/somalia

How can you make a difference? 

1. Develop a workplan and consultation materials for workshop(s) or interviews with national and sub-national line ministries, UN agencies, national and international NGO partners, CSOs and the donor community in Somalia in relation to identified child survival priorities.

2. Conduct a desk review of existing strategies, other recent documents and various data sources including WASH, Nutrition, Social behaviour change, Additionally, conduct a risk analysis for childhood illnesses and mortality and identify priorities emerging from the current evidence base

3. Conduct a risk-analysis for Somalia, describing environmental and societal risk factors related to the health and survival of pregnant women and under-5 children , by type (e.g., violence, natural disasters, migration flows), geographic location, seasonality , urban/rural settings, socioeconomic status, and others ; their impact on the provision of maternal, newborn, child health, and nutrition services, including supply and demand bottlenecks; and what best practices exist to ensure the continuation of those services during shocks and stresses

4. Conduct virtual and physical consultation workshop(s) and/or individual interviews with key stakeholders, documenting findings, and triangulating information to identify bottlenecks and priorities for the child survival action plans.

5. Develop a draft of national child survival operational plan (that will inform state level child survival action plans) and a Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation framework based on the desk review and consultation workshops and interviews with key stakeholders.

6. Share the draft of national child survival operational plan with Monitoring, learning and evaluation framework with review committee compromising of Federal and state Ministries of Health (MOH), UNICEF, WHO, USAID and the RMNCAH taskforce for review and comments. Address comments received and shared final drafts with Federal Ministry of Health for validation and finalization.

7. Support the in-person/virtual dissemination of national child survival operational plan to key stakeholders in Somalia.

8. Conduct CSA policy dialogue with policy makers and donor community in Somalia

METHODOLOGY:

The selected consultant will closely collaborate with the national consultant and will work under the direct supervision of the Health Manager- MNCH, Family Health director, Head of Child Health in the Federal Ministry of Somalia (FGS) with technical oversight support of the Chief of Health (UNICEF) and the Director of Policy and Planning, and in close collaboration with other UNICEF sections and Field offices staff. The other sectors (from UNICEF and ministries of health at national and sub-national levels) such as nutrition, education and WASH will be closely involved to enhance multi-sectoral coordination. The consultant will coordinate with the existing RMNCAH technical working group for the purpose of bringing stakeholders together to consult and discuss the inputs for the development of the national Child survival operational action plan.

This assignment will require travel to Somalia to conduct consultations and review the development of the action plans with relevant stakeholders including government institutions (Ministries of Health, Representation of health worker at primary health care level), NGO partners, community structures, professional associations, various UN agencies, WB and FCDO will be held in Mogadishu and at state level. In instances where some key partners cannot attend the meeting in person, the consultant will reach out to them virtually. Feedback sessions will be set-up with various stakeholders, with debriefs in Somalia in the consultation forums at key steps in the process to build consensus and valid the findings. Most of the in-country travels to engage the states will be done by the national consultant in collaboration with UNICEF and other partners.

The methodology will consist of:

I. Working together with a national consultant for in country support and state level engagement

o A local consult with vast experience on the Somalia context will be recruited to support the engagement and consultations in country.

o Local consultant will be providing the needed documents and support with analysis and development of the operational plans especially at state level drawing from the national operational plan.

o Support FMOH and State MOH to convene regular RMNCAH taskforce meetings in consultation with the lead international consultant.

II. Consultation with existing RMNCAH TWG led by FMOH in collaboration with USAID, UN agencies and other implementing partners and stakeholders.

o Using the existing TWG/taskforces lead by FMOH, the consultants will conduct key informant interviews with key Ministry of Health staff, related Ministries, UN Organisations, international and local NGOs, and identified community leaders in order to draw down on their expectations and the gaps they have found in the existing strategies and areas which need to be further developed. 

o Meet with experts in social behaviour change, Nutrition, Social Policy, Gender, education, and WASH sectors to draw down on their expertise and inform the development of the child survival operational plan.

o Gather feedback from different communities that are served to understand their needs, this can be done through focus group discussions.

o Feedback to consultation forums on the priority areas coming out from the data collected from the field. Regular meetings to ensure that the work is going according to plan and use the forums as a sounding board for fostering shared vision and an inclusive plan.

III. Undertake a desk review to identify glaring gaps in the existing strategies to inform CSA plan:

o Gather baseline/background information: examine the relevant background literature about child health in Somalia and conduct a desk review including risk analysis of the current initiatives and mapping of the existing efforts and documentation of the best practices employed by the actors on ground for evidenced based decision making.

o Careful understanding of the current child health bottlenecks and strategic priorities in the existing national documents and any other relevant reviews, assessment and evaluations done by national or international organizations in Somalia and similar contexts.

o Review of the national strategic plan for the country and the health strategic plan as relates to the child health and any policies in nutrition, WASH and social behaviour change, in particular the provisions of the Child health component of RMNCAH which will enlighten this process.

o Study and examine the Somalia Essential Package of Health Services (EPHS 2020), the Harmonised Health Facility Assessment HHFA 2023, SDHS (2020) and other data sources to analyse various information sources to identify gaps and strategic priorities to improve childhood survival rates.

IV. Reporting and Production of final national child survival Operational plan with a Monitoring, Learning and evaluation framework This should include:

o Draft the national child survival Operational plan to inform the 7 sub-national state level child survival action plans under the guidance of the government counterparts and in consultation with the TWG and/or stakeholders and a summary draft report to summarise the process.

o Disseminate the findings and actively seek comments from the stakeholders.

o Consolidate and share the final national child survival operational plan with Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation framework for the Ministry’s validation.

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

• An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in public health, or another relevant subject
• Work experience: At least 15 years of relevant work experience at national and/or international level in planning and programming in primary health care and child health and child survival action plan development as well development of M&E framework/ advocacy plans development.
• Professional experience in a managerial or technical expert position in child health /child survival or primary health care
• Work experience in low- and middle-income countries
• Competencies/Knowledge:
  • Strong advocacy, communication and partnership building skills.
  • Excellent communicator of verbal and written concepts to an international audience
  • High level of academic technical writing expertise
  • Knowledge of the environment in which UNICEF operates (i.e., global health sector)
• Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset. 
• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset. 

For every Child, you demonstrate… 

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, Accountability, and Sustainability (CRITAS). 

 To view our competency framework, please visit  here. 

 UNICEF is here to serve the world’s most disadvantaged children and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, or any other personal characteristic.

UNICEF offers reasonable accommodation for consultants/individual contractors 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 selection process and afterwards in your assignment. 

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. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check. 

Remarks:  

All applicants must submit an all-inclusive financial proposal.  Applications submitted without a financial proposal will not be considered.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. 

Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws. 

The selected candidate is solely responsible to ensure that the visa (applicable) and health insurance required to perform the duties of the contract are valid for the entire period of the contract. Selected candidates 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 assignment. It does not apply to consultants 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 consultancy contracts.