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.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built, we offer our staff diverse opportunities for personal and professional development that will help them develop a fulfilling career while delivering on a rewarding mission. We pride ourselves on a culture that helps staff thrive, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

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For every child, Commitment

In Nigeria, UNICEF works in a complex humanitarian and development setting to fulfill and protect children's rights in partnership with the government, civil society, children, and families.  UNICEF Nigeria is one of the largest UNICEF Country Offices globally - click the link to learn more about UNICEF in Nigeria: https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/

How can you make a difference?

Background:

UNICEF’s core mission is to advocate for the rights of every child, with a focus on equity and reaching the most disadvantaged children and families. This commitment is aligned with UNICEF’s equity strategy, which emphasizes ensuring that every child has the opportunity to survive, develop, and reach their full potential without discrimination. For UNICEF, equity means that all children have an opportunity to survive, develop and reach their full potential, without discrimination, bias or favoritism. There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education and social protection of a society’s most disadvantaged citizens — addressing inequity — not only will give all children the opportunity to fulfill their potential but also will lead to sustained growth and stability of countries towards realizing the human rights of all children, which is the universal mandate of UNICEF, as outlined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

In Nigeria, the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing insecurity has exposed and exacerbated systemic weaknesses within the social protection systems, highlighting the critical need for strengthened social protection mechanisms. The Government of Nigeria, guided by the National Social Protection Policy (NSPP revised 2023) and the Medium Term National Development Plan (2021 – 2025), is committed to advancing social protection for all. However, challenges such as low expenditure, weak institutional capacities and coordination framework, and complex administrative mechanisms persist.

UNICEF is committed to supporting the Government of Nigeria in addressing these challenges through system strengthening, shock-responsive social protection, and resource mobilization, with a focus on improving the coverage and impact of social protection programs for children. Hence, UNICEF and ILO have developed a Join program with EU financial assistance  to support “Sustainable Social Protection System in Nigeria”. This joint program focuses on Federal and four states namely Abia, Benue, Oyo and Sokoto.

Purpose of the Assignment:

Under the general supervision of the Social Protection Specialist in Abuja, the Social Protection officer is accountable for providing technical support and assistance in the implementation of the Joint program. The position located in Sokoto field office, will support social protection programming and related advocacy to deliver concrete and sustainable results across the four states (Abia, Benue, Oyo and Sokoto). This includes programmes aimed at (a) strengthening functional State Social Register including expansion to integrate more poor and vulnerable people; (b) improving capacity of staff and policy makers on social protection; (c) strengthen state social protection policy and legal framework with the development of a social protection policy and bill, aimed at realizing the rights to social protection for consideration by the National and State Assembly; (c) enhance Social Protection Management Information System that is interoperable at the vertical, horizontal level and across social sector with focus on health and education. This position encompasses both direct programme work with government and civil society partners as well as linkages and support to teams working on social protection.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. Strengthening social protection coverage and impact for children

• Supports strengthening of integrated social protection systems, providing technical support to partners to improve expansion of social registry and design of child grants and improve linkages with social services health insurance, public works, and social care services.
• Supports the development of social protection policies, legislation, and programmes with attention to increasing coverage of and impact on children, with special attention the most marginalized.  Identifies, generates and presents evidence to support this goal in collaboration with partners.
• Supports improved monitoring and research around social protection impact on child outcomes, and use of data and research findings for strengthening programme results.

2. Improving use of public financial resources for social protection for children:

• Supports the identification of policy options for improved domestic financing of child-sensitive social protection interventions.
• Undertakes social protection budget analysis to inform UNICEF’s advocacy and technical assistance to Ministries of Finance, planning commissions and social sector ministries to improve equitable allocations for essential services for children.   

 3. Strengthening capacity of local governments to plan, budget, consult on and monitor child-focused social services.

• Where national decentralization processes are taking place, collaborates with central and local authorities to improve planning, budgeting, implementation, consultation and social protection accountability processes so that decisions and child-focused service delivery more closely respond to the needs of local communities.
• Collaborates with the central and local authorities to strengthen capacity on quality data collection, analysis, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring of social protection services, with emphasis on community participation and accountability.

4. UNICEF Programme Management:

• Helps manage and coordinate technical support around social protection, public finance and governance ensuring it is well planned, monitored, and implemented in a timely fashion so as to adequately support scale-up and delivery. Ensures risk analysis and risk mitigation are embedded into overall management of the support, in close consultation with UNICEF programme sections, Cooperating Partners, and governments.
• contributes to effective and efficient planning, management, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the country programme. Ensures that the social protection project enhances policy dialogue, planning, supervision, technical advice, management, training, research and support; and that the monitoring and evaluation component strengthens monitoring and evaluation of the social sectors and provides support to sectoral and decentralized information systems.

5. Monitoring and Reporting:

• Provide technical support and guidance to UNICEF teams and government counterparts on data management best practices.
• Regularly monitor program consistency and data quality to ensure compliance with project management standards.
• Prepare and present data-driven reports to support project reporting
• Provide timely and accurate data insights to inform the design, implementation, and evaluation of social protection initiatives.

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here:  Terms of Reference for NOB Social Protection Officer.pdf

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

Minimum requirements:

Education: An advanced university degree (master’s or higher) in Social Sciences, Administration, Public Policy, or a related field.

Experience: A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in design, program management, system strengthening, data management and analysis, and capacity building within social protection or related fields, preferably with experience in a humanitarian context. Experience working on social protection is considered as a strong asset.

 Technical Skills:

• Proficiency in social protection system design and programme implementation
• Experience with data management and analysis for social protection
• Capacity building skills related to social protection
• Knowledge of the social protection landscape in Nigeria is highly desirable.

Language Requirements:

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language 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…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships (2)

(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness (2)

(3) Drive to achieve results for impact (2)

(4) Innovates and embraces change (2)

(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)

(6) Thinks and acts strategically (2)

(7) Works collaboratively with others (2)

(8) Nurtures, Leads and Manages People (2)

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

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.

We offer a wide range of measures to include a more diverse workforce, such as paid parental leave, time off for breastfeeding purposes, and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF strongly encourages the use of flexible working arrangements.

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. UNICEF is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will 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.

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance.  Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments may also be subject to inoculation (vaccination) requirements, including against SARS-CoV-2 (Covid). Should you be selected for a position with UNICEF, you either must be inoculated as required or receive a medical exemption from the relevant department of the UN. Otherwise, the selection will be canceled.

Remarks:

As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.

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, if a visa or 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.

Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found here.