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
If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading child rights organization would like to hear from you.
UNICEF is mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. Guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it strives to establish children’s rights as enduring ethical principles and international standards of behavior and action towards children. In South Africa, UNICEF remains steadfast in its commitment to supporting the Government of South Africa in ensuring that every child survives and thrives.
For every child, a voice
Purpose for the job:
Under the direct supervision of the PM&E Specialist, The U-Report and Social Innovation Officer is responsible for scaling up U-Report and make it meaningfully used for programming children by UNICEF, Government and implementing partners. The incumbent will support and strengthen internal capacity to deploy and implement social innovation tools for UNICEF programming and engage with key tech and innovation partners. The incumbent will work with programme sections to develop and deploy demand-driven U-Report use cases that address development challenges and accelerate results for children. The incumbent will be tasked to support the integration of social innovation approaches into traditional UNICEF programming, especially for adolescent and young people, under the Generation Unlimited partnership.
Summary of key functions/accountabilities:
- Scale up U-Report in the country
- Support the roll-out of social innovations tools and approaches
- Capacity Building
- Partnership, Coordination and Collaboration and Resource Mobilization
- Knowledge Management
Responsibilities include:
Scale up U-Report in the country
- Increase the number of U-Reporters, taking into account gender and geographical distributions.
- Deploy other add-on applications to U-Report, including Bot and CasePro.
- Co-create and co-implement demand-driven use cases for U-Report.
- Integrate the design approach to U-Report scale-up to ensure that U-Report meets the real needs of the end users.
Support the roll-out of social innovations tools and approaches
- Support human/user-centered design methods to enable user-acceptance testing, evaluation, documentation and analysis.
- Support the coordination for testing and development of social innovation tools and processes that strengthen and improve UNICEF’s programming and results for children.
- Ensure cross-sectoral learning and fertilization among social innovation initiatives.
- Lead social innovations for programming for adolescents and youths.
Capacity Building
- Support UNICEF staff and consultants by providing up-to-date tools, knowledge and capacity in deploying U-Report and social innovation tools.
- Provide government authorities with technical support and guidance to plan and organize training programmes for the purpose of capacity-building and programme sustainability for U-Report and social innovation.
- Undertake field visits to monitor and assess programme implementation and decide on required corrective action, including in emergencies.
- Building on the existing SACO T4D strategy for 2019-2023, support the development of SACO innovation strategy that covers both T4D (including U-Report) and social innovation initiatives.
Partnership, Coordination and Collaboration and Resource Mobilization
- Foster and develop partner networks with local innovators, civil society, academia and private sector to build and provide a space to nurture and test innovative approaches.
- Proactively scout for new and innovative ideas, opportunities and partnerships to deliver better results.
- Support proposal and partnership development efforts in collaboration with programme teams, the partnership managers and RO.
- Identify opportunities for resource mobilization and new partnerships with telecom operators, SMS aggregators, NGOs and UN agencies.
Knowledge Management
- Identify, capture, synthesize and share lessons learned on U-Report and social innovations with members of UNICEF SACO T4D coordination team.
- Contribute and share to country-wide, regional and global innovation networks and activities.
- Ensure documentation and clear monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for innovation projects including baseline data collection, ongoing monitoring, as well as first phase data collection and analysis.
QUALIFICATION and COMPETENCIES:
Education Requirement:
A university degree in one of the following fields is required: Information and Computer Science, International Development, Community Development or a related field Social Sciences.
Work Experience Requirement:
- A minimum of two (2) years of professional experience in managing U-Report.
- Experience with RapidPro, ODK and other global public good technologies, and deploying, maintaining and rolling out these technologies is desirable.
- Knowledge on human-centered design thinking approaches, information systems is required.
- Proven capacity to work with and lead collaborative teams across different sections and with different technical skills.
- Proven ability to manage relationships with partners, including government ministries, youth coalitions, universities, intellectual leaders, UN organizations, NGOs and the private sector.
- Strong writing and communication skills and the aptitude to handle competing messages and priorities with multiple audiences.
- Background experience with the UN, especially UNICEF, is an asset.
Language Proficiency:
Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language or local language of the duty station is considered as an asset.
Competencies and level of proficiency required:
Core Values
- Care; Respect; Integrity; Trust; Accountability
Core competencies
- Communication (II); Working with People (I); Drive for Results (I)
Functional Competencies
- Formulating strategies and concepts (I)
- Analyzing (II)
- Applying technical expertise (II)
- Learning and researching (II)
- Planning and organizing (II)
To view our competency framework, please click here.
Interested and qualified candidates are requested to submit their application to the following link: https://www.unicef.org/about/employ/?job=528412 by 23rd December,2019
This notice will also appear on http://www.unicef.org/about/employ/, http://www.unicef.org/southafrica, UN Job List, UN Jobs.
We invite you to watch a short video on the system on how to apply:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePgDIQ9RVYs&feature=youtu.be
If you have not been contacted within two months of the closing date, please accept that your application was unsuccessful.
Regret emails will only be sent to interviewed candidates.
UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce and encourages qualified female and male candidates from South African nationals, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of our organization.
UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse, and on any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.
More Information
- Job City Pretoria
