Adviser Adolescent Participation Skills and Employability

The Regional Adviser provides senior thought and programmatic leadership through evidenced-based advocacy to accelerate progress on adolescent skills development, participation, employability, empowerment and participation across South Asia. The post will play a critical role in providing strategic advice and oversight to Country Offices at all stages of the programme cycle around Adolescent Participation, Skills and Employability and will be key to responding to global imperatives and the rollout of UNICEF’s Global Strategic Plan and advancing ROSA’s Areas for Acceleration that focus on Adolescents. The Regional Advisor provides senior-level technical assistance and capacity building to countries in designing and implementing activities related to assessing, monitoring and improving adolescent and youth skill development, employability, empowerment and participation with a focus on equity and gender. 

Working closely with key stakeholders, including the private sector to identify and support scaling-up multiple pathways for adolescents and young people to receive skills training and increase their preparedness for the 21st century labour market is critical to this role. There is a strong impetus and opportunities to engage with governments, CSOs and the private sector to drive the ethos of Generation Unlimited (Gen-U) across the region and achieve scalable results with and for adolescents and young people. Partnering with regional institutions, country and regional stakeholders and leaders to advance the agency of young people and bolster investments in adolescents and young people will also be an important component of this post. The Regional Advisor Adolescents (Participation, Skills and Employability) reports to the Deputy Regional Director.

Key functions, accountabilities and related duties/tasks will include but not limited to: 

• Providing technical assistance, quality assurance and oversight to country offices in areas of adolescent development and participation, skills and employability.
• Leading strategic representation and partnerships on adolescent development, participation, skills employability, and representing UNICEF in Issue-Based Coalitions as required.
• Providing knowledge leadership to improve regional approaches and strategies to assure development and update of assessments and analyses of the lives, concerns and priorities of adolescents and young people in the countries of the region.

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

Minimum requirements:

Education: 

• An Advanced University degree with relevant specialization in Social Sciences, Economics, International Development, Adolescent Participation, skills and /or employability.

Work Experience: 

• A minimum 10 years of relevant professional work experience in a development context.
• Experience working with and for adolescents and young people is required.
• Results-driven with experience in leading the development and implementation of programmatic interventions, and advocacy strategies, with clear theories of change, with specific, measurable and time-bound objectives and performance indicators.
• Experience with programme planning, management and research in adolescent participation and youth engagement, skills development and employability at the international level, some of which preferably in a developing country.
• Demonstrated experience in the design and management of projects, including budget management and monitoring and evaluation of results.
• Experience in building and maintaining a network of stakeholders, and in working with coalitions, particularly the private sector

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/579818