Partnerships Specialist, P-3, TA

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.

UNICEF’s Private Fundraising and Partnerships (PFP) Division works to deliver income, influence, and brand recognition for UNICEF globally.  Within PFP, The Global Foundations team is located within the UNICEF’s Private Fundraising and Partnerships (PFP) division and works across the UNICEF family of country offices and national committees to maximize engagements and stewardship with foundations for UNICEF. UNICEF seeks to work in partnership with the world’s leading and emerging foundations on causes of mutual importance, to achieve sustainable change at scale for every child. The organization’s vision is to harness the potential of the foundation community to increase financial investments for children, exchange knowledge around joint areas of technical expertise, engage their voices in advocating for children’s rights, and leverage social sector financing for children.

Qatar and Gulf Area Office (GAO) has a growing number of Foundation Partnerships and needs strategic and tactical oversight by the PFP Global Foundation team. Partners like Education Above All (EAA), Silatech, and MBRGI are making notable contributions to UNICEF’s goals in the areas of education, climate, adolescents, and employment programme. To support this growing range of partnerships, a dedicated resource is needed to oversee the strategic operationalization of the partnerships across several country offices, ensuring high-quality proposals, reports, and engagements with these high-value partners both at the local and global levels.  At the same time, the Foundations team is working on a new strategy and approach, which sets up strong coordination between programme and partnership colleagues for key Foundation partners, who work together across the life of a partnership to deliver well.

For every child, a Champion

Reporting of the Partnerships Manager, the incumbent will be responsible for continuing to drive the Foundation's strategy 2022 – 2025 for the Qatar and GAO and supporting the growth of high-level partnerships and ambitious new approaches and opportunities with foundations. The incumbent will lead the Education Above All (EAA) portfolio specifically along with other Qatar and Gulf-based partnerships. The incumbent will be responsible for strategic oversight of ongoing grants, the submission of quality reports, financial oversight, and income tracking, overseeing monitoring and planning for projects, guide the development of new proposals, support on communication and organization of field visits, and lead on legal agreements from PFP. The role will also involve supporting growth activities such as new business development and renewals as necessary. Also, driving the capacity building of the country offices working closely with focal points in Qatar, GAO, and the respective Regional Offices.  The incumbent will also have responsibilities in the wider team to support work in implementing the strategy and approach more globally, with a focus on knowledge management support and other tasks as required.

How can you make a difference?

1. New Business development coordination:

• Lead on coordination on the development of new proposals and renewal discussions and provide strategic support to Qatar, GAO, ROS, and country offices on development and submission and lead on the currently active pipeline of 48 million USD Qatar and GAO and on any future proposals, in coordination with the respective regional offices, PFP, PG Education team, DPAM and others as relevant.

2. Oversight on quality assurance of proposals and reports and Financial monitoring of the active grants in Qatar and GAO:

• Provide strategic oversight on quality assurance of proposals, reports, and communications materials in coordination with Qatar and GAO. Liaise with Qatar and GAO office colleagues on report feedback and support country offices in the effective resolution of the feedback and timely closure of the narrative and financial reports. Keep track of incoming payments for all the active grants in coordination with the PFP finance team. Follow-up with the partner on pending payments and share necessary information with PFP finance and the country office and the country offices on receipt of the information on the transfer of payments from EAA/EAC.

3. Capacity building:

• Coordinate with the respective regional offices for capacity building of country offices on proposal development, reporting and comms.

4. Field visits and inception visits/calls:

• Liaise with Qatar and GAO on the development of the yearly field visit calendar. Support Qatar and GAO to plan and execute field visits for existing grants and inception visits for new grants in coordination with the communication lead of the partnership, PFP, and regional offices.

5. Support partnership communication activities:

• Work closely with the partnership communication lead, PFP, and the regional office in the Implementation of the partnership communication plan at the country office level and the global level. Provide inputs to the quarterly newsletter, Briefing Notes or other partnership engagement documentation. Contribute to internal communication stories.

6. Lead on administrative aspects of the partnerships:

• Prepare quarterly updates on ongoing programmes and pipelines. Manage the partner page on intranet and UNISON- updating and sharing with relevant internal audiences.

7. Support new models of collaboration

• Based on the Foundation team's strategic goals to engage in innovative financing and new programmatic initiatives with UNICEF and undertake new partnership management activities as required, including knowledge management.

DELIVERABLES:

• Effective implementation of the above tasks will support the acceleration of UNICEF’s engagement with Qatar and GAO high value foundation partnerships, and others as needed, and in turn, will contribute toward UNICEF’s ambition of increasing financial contributions from foundations to $350 million annually by 2025.

Estimated Duration of the contract

• 364 days

Reporting To:

• Partnerships Specialist.

Working Place:

• Geneva, Switzerland is the official duty station.  

To qualify as a champion for every child you will have...

Education:

• An advanced university degree in one of the following fields is required: international development, public administration, business management, communication, or another relevant field.
• Alternative, a first-level University Degree in a relevant field combined with (2) additional years of qualifying professional experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Experience:

• A minimum of 5 years of progressively responsible professional experience at the national and/or international level in a combination of the following: experience of working with the private foundations and/or other public or private grant-making bodies or organizations, partnerships development, programming, communications, project management, proposal development and reporting is required.
• UN/UNICEF experience is an asset.

Language requirements:

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

• 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) are required.

During the recruitment process, we test candidates following the competency framework. Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels: competency framework here.

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 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 promote the protection and safeguarding of all children. 

Remarks:

UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station, which will be facilitated by UNICEF, is required for IP positions. Appointments are also 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 cancelled.

UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. 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.

Government employees that are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government 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.

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.