Current vacancies

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence. At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, Nutrition

Under the overall supervision of the Head of Field Operations, Emergencies and Disaster Risk Reduction, the Cluster Nutrition Specialist (SectorCrd), with technical guidance from the Head of Health and Nutrition, promotes the Cluster's objectives by coordinating national actors to ensure that they comply with the minimum agreed commitments and with the inter-cluster coordination bodies established by the Country Humanitarian Team and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

How can you make a difference? 

Supporting quality service delivery:

• Establish and maintain an appropriate humanitarian coordination mechanism.
• Convene and facilitate meetings of the cluster (and/or joint meetings with another cluster). Ensure that cluster meetings are well-managed and action-oriented, with decisions communicated to relevant cluster partners and stakeholders. Ensure that meetings are managed in line with the Principles of Partnership.
• Facilitate an agreement on an efficient division of labor and the assignment of responsibilities among cluster partners, which takes into account their comparative advantages and complementarities. Designate focal points or working groups for specific issues where necessary.
• Coordinate and provide relevant inputs to the development and revision of Flash Appeals and Humanitarian Response Plans. As part of this process, ensure that gaps and duplications are identified and addressed appropriately.
• Ensure that all partners adhere to existing standards and guidelines.
• Ensure that inter-cluster priorities and cross-cutting issues, including gender, PSEA, AAP, and HIV; are fully integrated into the nutrition cluster strategy and nutrition cluster partner projects, in line with IASC guidance and international best practices, with a specific focus on ensuring cross-cutting issues are addressed in nutrition survey plans, methodologies, etc
• Strengthen inter-cluster coordination at national, particularly with Food Security & Livelihoods, WASH, Health and Education Clusters and Child protection area of responsibility (CP AOR) to facilitate a comprehensive approach to addressing the issue of nutrition in Venezuela by regularly liaising with IM focal points and liase with MEAL office to inform nutrition situation analysis.
• Supervise and guide the work of the Information Management Officer to maintain a functional Nutrition Cluster information management system, which includes Monthly Partner Reporting, Nutrition Partner database, 5W Matrixes, Capacity Mapping database, Repository of Nutrition Surveys, Cluster Website, dashboards, and knowledge management products.
• Produce and share monthly Cluster nutrition monitoring reports to provide OCHA with precise and valuable information for tracking the advancement of the cluster strategy and the implementation of the national humanitarian response plan.
• Interact and share information where possible with other clusters (including through inter-cluster coordination), humanitarian actors, government counterparts, and relevant authorities to facilitate operational planning, engagement, and active contribution from operational partners.
• Facilitate the enhancement of coordination capabilities among national authorities by collaborating with pertinent government counterparts to either reinforce or supplement existing coordination mechanisms.
• Promote flexibility within the cluster to respond to changes in the operating environment, evolving requirements, capacities, and participation.
• Provide a platform to ensure that the agreed strategic priorities drive service delivery.

Strengthen national and local capacity

• Encourage participation of local and national actors in the Cluster activities and strategic decision-making, removing barriers to access.
• Contribute to the development of a capacity assessment and capacity strengthening strategy for the Cluster members and oversee implementation and harmonization of initiatives.

 Informing strategic decision-making of the HC/HCT for the humanitarian response:

• Contribute to the design and update of multisectoral situation analysis, including the formulation of needs assessments and gap analysis (across other sectors and within the sector) to ensure timely, comprehensive, and current data on maternal and child nutrition are available to guide policy, humanitarian plans, design, and management of nutrition programs/projects. Keep abreast of development trends to enhance program management, efficiency and delivery.
• Analyze address (emerging) gaps, obstacles, duplication, and cross-cutting issues.
• Establish prioritization, grounded in response analysis.

Technical and operational support for prioritization and planning:

• Ensure that the cluster covers all identified and evolving sectoral needs of the affected population, not only those related to the specific mandate of individual cluster members, including that of the Cluster Lead Agency(ies).
• Support joint field missions, needs assessments, and analysis among cluster partners, and participate in joint inter-cluster needs assessment exercises as appropriate, to ensure that identified needs, gaps, and priorities are evidence-based in any emergency context.
• Facilitate the development of an overall strategy that complements government policies and plans, and a response plan for the cluster, with linkages between disaster risk reduction, relief, resilience building, and development.
• Ensure that the cluster response plan is updated regularly according to evolving needs and that it establishes indicators by which the cluster’s performance can be measured.
• Ensure that cluster strategies are adequately reflected in overall country strategies, such as the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), as well as in potential Flash Appeals.
• In terms of inter-cluster coordination, identify issues of mutual interest and information that (i) should be proactively shared with other clusters, and (ii) should be acquired from other clusters to ensure a more effective overall response.
• Participate in emergency preparedness initiatives, program development, and contingency planning, and/or respond to emergencies in the country or where designated.
• Support Sub-national Interagency Local Coordination Forums and nutrition partners in prioritized states to participate in nutrition needs assessments and response planning.
• Coordinate all planned nutrition assessments by maintaining a database of all scheduled assessments and surveys.
• Coordinate and collaborate with other sectors to ensure that nutrition assessments are conducted using standardized tools and methods.
• Coordinate with cluster partners and the Information Management Officer (IMO) to ensure that partners’ survey/assessment plans and methodologies align with cluster priorities and standards, identify existing gaps, and propose corrective actions.

Resource Mobilization

• Clarify funding requirements, prioritization, and cluster contributions to HC's overall humanitarian funding considerations (FHV, CERF, etc.).
• Following thorough and transparent consultation within the cluster, provide leadership and strategic direction in the assessment and prioritization of project proposals and standard funding criteria for inclusion in Consolidated Appeals, Flash Appeals, CERF and FHV requests and other inter-agency funding appeals; ensure that agreed cluster strategies and priorities are adequately reflected in appeal documents. Ensure the implementation of the gender marker in appeals.
• In line with any agreed guidance for inter-agency funding appeals, establish mechanisms for accountable and transparent financial resource allocation within the cluster. Where possible, work at the inter-cluster level to promote coherence amongst clusters.
• Ensure adequate Nutrition resource mobilization and advocacy, as well as equitable allocation for the effective functioning of the Cluster and its response. Clarify funding requirements, prioritization, and cluster contributions to HC’s overall humanitarian funding considerations.

Knowledge management, Information management, Monitoring and evaluating performance:

• Ensure regular monitoring of nutrition in emergencies activities and coordination in relation to the strategy, agreed-upon results, and cluster indicators, including operational-level activities (quality, coverage, continuity, and cost), as well as cluster coordination activities.
• Maintain communication with cluster partners, receiving technical support from the Information Management Officer (IMO) and the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) section officer, to identify quality gaps in regular reporting to the cluster.
• Ensure that updated and relevant cluster-specific information is included in general inter-cluster reporting, including common web platforms, Situation Reports, and other reporting mechanisms.
• Supervise and guide the work of the Information Management Officer to maintain a functional Nutrition Information Management system, which includes monthly and weekly partner reporting, a nutrition partner database, 5W matrices, a capacity mapping database, a repository of nutrition surveys, the Nutrition Cluster website, as well as quarterly responses.
• Facilitate agreement within the cluster on the monitoring activities to be undertaken to review the impact of the sector’s humanitarian response and ensure their implementation.
• Regularly review the functioning of the cluster and foster an environment conducive to raising and addressing concerns.
• Help facilitate real-time evaluations when relevant.
• Submit regular cluster reports to OCHA and UNICEF in accordance with reporting requirements (monthly or quarterly).
• Coordinate, oversee, and support the collection, analysis, and dissemination of data on nutrition needs and capacities through coordinated assessments and secondary data reviews.
• Monitor the performance of core cluster functions and collaborate with partners to establish a robust cluster monitoring system.
• Recommend corrective actions when necessary to ensure a more effective and quality nutrition response.
• Support the documentation and sharing of best practices, lessons learned, and technical products among partners.
• Support the analysis of existing nutrition data and studies to inform nutrition programming and capacity-building priorities.
• Identify knowledge gaps and support initiatives to address them according to the experience and capacities of the nutrition structure

Networking and partnership building.

• Establish and maintain close and effective working partnerships with government counterparts in the nutrition sector, national stakeholders, and global partners/allies/donors/academia through active networking, advocacy, and effective communication to strengthen capacities and exchange knowledge/expertise that facilitate the achievement of program objectives and promote social justice and equity in the rights of mothers, newborns, and children.
• Explore and identify new partners to engage in nutrition in emergencies and facilitate their active participation at the national and/or sub-national levels, focusing on those with the capacity to conduct rapid assessments, nutrition surveys, analysis, and other relevant activities.
• Maintain regular communication with sub-national coordination mechanisms to identify progress, gaps, bottlenecks, and challenges in the implementation of nutrition surveys, assessments, and analyses, and propose corrective actions.
• Facilitate discussions and agreements on the use of common, preferably national, standards and tools among cluster partners to promote awareness and adherence to relevant policy guidelines, codes of conduct, and examples of good practices among all cluster partners, considering the potential need for local adaptation in terms of language and content.
• Ensure, to the extent possible, that cluster partners use common standards and tools for information collection/sharing and data management, including in needs assessments and monitoring (while respecting principles of confidentiality and protection concerns).

Support robust and evidence-based advocacy:

• Together with cluster partners, identify core advocacy concerns for the sector and contribute key messages to the broader advocacy initiatives of the HC, the Cluster Lead Agency, and other relevant actors. Where appropriate, develop a joint cluster/ inter-cluster advocacy initiative to raise the profile and needs of the cluster among in-country humanitarian donors. Encourage all cluster partners to incorporate common or sector-wide issues, concerns, and messages into their communication activities.
• Udertake advocacy activities on behalf of cluster participants and the affected population.

Emergency Preparedness

• Emergency Response Preparedness (ERP) in accordance with the Venezuelan coordination structure.
• Contingency planning/preparedness for recurrent disasters whenever feasible and relevant.
• Lead early warning, contingency planning, and emergency preparedness efforts for the cluster.

Accountability to affected populations:

• Collaborate and/or consult with sectoral areas to ensure Accountability to Affected Populations in each core function of the cluster.
• Build capacities in Accountability to Affected Populations.
• Support the integration of Accountability to Affected Populations mechanisms in the cluster response.
• Be accountable to the affected population by establishing inclusive and consultative feedback mechanisms and encouraging the participation of the population in the response.
• Encourage partners to demonstrate a positive and systematic approach to inclusion and diversity.

Cross-cutting themes

• Promote a people-centered approach, including the Centrality of Protection, Child safeguarding and PSEA policies, and GBV Risk Mitigation. disability, gender, gender-based violence (GBV) mitigation and response and HIV & AIDS, Humanitarian-Peace-Development Nexus, Indigenous Communities and afro-descendants, humanitarian cash transfers) in Cluster activities throughout the HPC, promote child-inclusive responses within the whole humanitarian architecture.

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

Minimum requirements:

• An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in nutrition, public health, nutritional epidemiology, global/international health and nutrition, health/nutrition research, policy and/or management, health sciences, nutritional epidemiology, or another health-related science field. *A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
• A minimum of 5 years of relevant professional experience at the national and/or international levels in humanitarian response, programme/project development, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, or administration is required.
• Fieldwork experience is required.
• Experience in emergency planning is highly desirable.
• Experience in a UN organization or similar is an asset.
• Proven ability to coordinate across multiple stakeholders is required.
• Familiarity with children's rights and gender in the context of emergencies is desirable.
• Excellent analytical and writing skills, advocacy, and presentational skills.
• Fluency in Spanish and English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian) or a local language is an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate...

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

The UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

• Builds and maintains partnerships
• Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
• Drive to achieve results for impact
• Innovates and embraces change
• Manages ambiguity and complexity
• Thinks and acts strategically
• Works collaboratively with others 
• Nurtures, leads and manages people 

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic background, and persons with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which, in interaction with various barriers, may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. In its Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy 2022-2030, UNICEF has committed to increase the number of employees with disabilities by 2030. 

UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). 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 based on gender, nationality, age, race, sexual orientation, religious or ethnic background or disabilities. UNICEF is committed to promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks, and will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles. 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, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially. UNICEF only considers higher educational qualifications obtained from an institution accredited/recognized in the World Higher Education Database (WHED) http://www.whed.net/”, a list updated by the International Association of Universities (IAU) / United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 

Remarks:

Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason. UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants’ bank account information.

All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.