Organization: UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund
Location: Gaziantep
Grade: Mid level – NO-C, National Professional Officer – Locally recruited position
Occupational Groups:
Development Cooperation and Sustainable Development Goals
Statistics
Humanitarian Aid and Coordination
Education, Learning and Training
Information Technology and Computer Science
Documentation and Information Management
Closing Date: 2024-05-16
UNICEF MENARO is looking to hire an Information Management Specialist (Education Cluster) to be based in its Gaziantep outpost and service northwest Syria.
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.
Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.
For every child, Hope
Humanitarian action is of fundamental importance to UNICEF and encompasses interventions aimed at saving lives, alleviating suffering, maintaining human dignity, and protecting the rights of affected populations wherever there are humanitarian needs, as well as interventions addressing underlying risks and causes of vulnerability to disasters, fragility, and conflict. UNICEF’s humanitarian action is guided by the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action (CCCs) which set organizational, programmatic, and operational commitments and benchmarks against which UNICEF holds itself accountable for the coverage, quality and equity of its humanitarian action and advocacy and which are mandatory for all UNICEF personnel.
Furthermore, UNICEF is committed to support humanitarian coordination through the cluster approach. Introduced as part of the humanitarian reform, the cluster approach, aims at ensuring clear leadership, predictability, and accountability in international responses to humanitarian emergencies by clarifying the division of labor among organizations and better defining their roles and responsibilities within the different sectors involved in the response. As a member of the IASC, UNICEF work along with national and local stakeholders (including national and local authorities, CSOs, and communities) to support humanitarian coordination and to improve the collective impact of humanitarian response. Whether the cluster approach is activated or not, UNICEF plays a key role in both global and country-level interagency coordination for its areas of programmatic responsibility. As Cluster Lead Agency (CLA) for Nutrition, WASH, Education (co-led), and Child Protection Area of Responsibility (AoR) within the Protection Cluster, UNICEF is committed to fulfil the core functions defined by the IASC when the clusters are activated or when UNICEF is asked to support sectoral coordination.
A well-run Cluster Working Group coordination team, including Information Management (IM), is a formal deliverable of the Cluster Lead Agency and forms a part of the agency’s work. The IM Specialist (Education Cluster) is a core member of the Cluster Working Group coordination team.
Purpose of the job:
Under the overall direction and guidance of the Education Specialist (Programme Cluster), P-4, the IM Specialist (Education Cluster) will provide leadership for the IM function of the Cluster Working Group. They are responsible for ensuring IM processes effectively contribute to a well-coordinated, strategic, adequate, coherent, and effective response by participants in the Cluster Working Group that is accountable to those who are affected by the emergency. In their effort to enable an efficient and effective response to the humanitarian crisis, the IM Specialist (Education Cluster) is responsible for leading and managing the collection, analysis and sharing of information that is essential for the Cluster Working Group participants to make informed, evidence-based, strategic decisions.
How can you make a difference?
The post holder is responsible for managing and coordinating the information management (IM) function to enable the effective functioning of the Cluster Working Group, and the achievement of the core cluster functions, throughout the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HPC) in order to facilitate a timely and effective Cluster Working Group response.
The postholder’s main tasks and responsibilities will include but not be limited to:
Coordination and representation
As a member of the coordination team, contribute to the effective roll out and monitoring of the core cluster functions (as outlined by the IASC Reference Module) and to the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HNO, HRP and CCPM),
Represent the Cluster Working Group IM function at all levels and coordinate with others within the function to ensure effective communication, reporting and engagement,
Supervise an IM staff member if appropriate,
Actively engage with other IMs through relevant IMWGs, including participating in and representing the Cluster Working Group in the inter-cluster information management working group (IMWG),
Promote harmonized and coordinated approaches to IM across partners, AoRs/ Clusters Working Groups and OCHA.
IM function management
Create and implement an IM strategy, a data collection and an analysis plan that consider the information needs of stakeholders and are compliant with standards and protocols for ethical data and information management,
Implement or support regular secondary data reviews and primary data collection including designing questionnaires using appropriate tools,
Conduct data processing including organizing, cleaning, triangulating, evaluating and validating the data,
Analyse data to meet identified information needs of Cluster Working Group members and other stakeholders,
Create accurate, quality and timely information products that are in line with agreed style guides,
Disseminate data and information products through appropriate channels,
Maintain and ensure the accessibility of a common and shared secure storage system,
Gather feedback on IM products and use to make improvements.
Needs assessment and analysis
Working collaboratively with other members of the Cluster Working Group, contribute to the planning and implementation of education needs assessment and analysis, including joint assessments and analysis, at national and sub-national level,
Work with Cluster Working Group participants to identify information gaps, agree and implement ways to bridge those gaps by providing technical support to partners. This includes the collection of information on response modalities and cross-cutting issues such as economic needs, markets, price monitoring, disability, protection and gender issues to support a comprehensive understanding of issues affecting education and to ensure the use of all programme delivery modalities (in-kind, cash, voucher and services) as appropriate and feasible,
Analyse needs assessment data to provide required information for the HNO including estimating People in Need (PIN),
Compare and align joint needs analysis findings with other AoRs/ Clusters Working Groups and participate in developing reports.
Strategic response planning
Design and implement partner presence mapping,
Contribute to the strategic planning, response prioritization and development of the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) or other response plans as relevant, including the formulation of objectives, indicators and targets, prioritizing response modalities and activities, identifying and quantifying inputs and the curation of data.
Resource mobilization
Monitor and analyse the Cluster Working Group’s financial situation and support financial tracking on the Financial Tracking Service (FTS),
Support and advocate with AoR/ Cluster Working Group partners for financial reporting on the Financial Tracking Service (FTS),
Support evidence-based advocacy and resource mobilization by providing accurate, relevant and timely data, information and information products.
Implementation and monitoring
Develop, implement and maintain a Cluster Working Group monitoring plan and associated databases, including a response monitoring (3/4/5Ws) database,
Ensure the Cluster Working Group monitoring plan, and 3/4/5Ws include programme delivery modalities (in-kind, cash, voucher and services),
Support Cluster Working Group members to contribute timely and quality periodic monitoring reports on Cluster Working Group and OCHA platforms,
Support monitoring in the areas of information flows, dissemination, processing, analysis and dissemination,
Conduct quantitative and qualitative gap and coverage analysis to identify gaps, overlaps and coverage of the Cluster Working Group humanitarian response,
Monitor adherence to relevant sector quality standards, regulations and codes.
Operational peer review and evaluation
Lead the annual Cluster Coordination Performance Monitoring (CCPM) exercise and annual review,
Contribute to sectoral and broader humanitarian evaluations.
Accountability to affected people
Be accountable to affected populations by maintaining an effective feedback mechanism and handling complaints appropriately, by ensuring data about the most vulnerable is systematically collected and analysed,
Ensure the inclusion of cross cutting issues (age, child protection, disability, gender, gender-based violence (GBV) mitigation and response and HIV & AIDS) in Cluster Working Group data collection, analysis and dissemination,
Adhere to child safeguarding and PSEA policies including procedures for challenging and reporting incidents and ensure other members of the IM team comply.
Strengthen national and local capacity
Take steps to strengthen local and national leadership and capacity by encouraging participation of local and national actors in the IM activities of the Cluster Working Group and providing support to partners to overcome technical and operational challenges in participating in IM activities,
Design and implement an IM capacity assessment and capacity development plan for Cluster Working Group partners.
Impact of Results
The IM Specialist (Education Cluster) manages and coordinates the IM function within the Cluster Working Group, providing better visibility and clarity on needs and gaps, enabling evidence-based and targeted decision-making, fundraising and advocacy, and contributing to an effective Cluster Working Group. As an essential part of the coordination function, effective IM contributes to the predictability and accountability of humanitarian action, in line with the aims of the cluster approach and IASC principles, and ensures that the humanitarian response is well-coordinated, strategic, adequate, coherent, effective and builds the resilience of the affected population. This also contributes to maintaining and enhancing the credibility and ability of UNICEF to fulfil its commitments as Cluster Lead Agency, in line with the CCCs.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
The following minimum requirements:
• Education: An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: Information Management or Information Systems, GIS Information Technologies, Computer Science, Statistics, Social Sciences or another subject area relevant to Information Management or to the Cluster Working Group.
Formal training in AoR/ Cluster Working Group Information Management is considered an advantage.
• Work Experience: A minimum of 5 years of professional experience in information management, data management, geographical information systems, assessments, situation analysis and/or PM&E with the UN and/or NGO is required.
Experience demonstrating very strong information management skills in a professional context is essential for this post.
Experience in a humanitarian context is an asset.
Experience working in the humanitarian coordination system is considered an asset.
Extensive work experience outside the humanitarian sector which is relevant to this post may be considered in lieu of humanitarian experience. Such experience should elicit demonstrated ability to adapt to change, working under pressure & unusual circumstances such as missing data/gaps.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in English and the official UN language of the duty station are required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is considered 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…
Core Competencies for Staff without Supervisory Responsibilities
Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (1)
Works Collaboratively with Others (1)
Builds and Maintains Partnerships (1)
Innovates and Embraces Change (1)
Thinks and Acts Strategically (1)
Drives to Achieve Impactful Results (1)
Manages Ambiguity and Complexity (1)
IM Competencies
Applies Humanitarian Principles, Standards and Guidelines (2)
Applies Key EiE Concepts and Tools (2)
Manages Education Programmes (2)
Operates Safely and Securely (2)
Demonstrates Commitment to a Coordinated Response (2)
Promotes Cooperation and Collaboration (2)
Demonstrates Accountability (2)
Promotes Inclusion (2)
Provides Reliable Support to the Cluster (2)
Collects, Collates and Analyses Relevant Data (2)
Handles and Stores Data Efficiently and Sensitively (2)
Communicates and Disseminates Information (2)
Monitors the Response (2)
Strengthens National Capacity to Respond and Lead (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 benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks, 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.
Candidates applying for positions in the NO category must possess the nationality of the country of the duty station, with the exception of internal candidates who are legally permitted to work for UNICEF in the country independently of UNICEF appointment.
UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. 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.
UNICEF’s active commitment to diversity and inclusion is critical to deliver the best results for children. For this position, eligible and suitable [Insert candidates from targeted underrepresented groups] are encouraged to apply.
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.