UNICEF is mandated to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, and the Strategic Plan recognizes the importance of advocacy to deliver against UNICEF’s mission and secure programmatic results for children. Advocacy plays an essential role in supporting and pressing governments and other influential actors to ensure measurable, sustainable change for children, whether through private influencing, mobilizing public support, policy advice, or a holistic blended approach. As highlighted in the Global Communication and Advocacy Strategy, truly global or ‘glocal’ advocacy requires identifying strategic advocacy opportunities at the national, regional, and global levels, and working together to capitalize on these opportunities to advance advocacy goals. We accelerate our impact for children by building, strengthening and leveraging the full advocacy strength of the organization.
The Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative (ACBI) within the Advocacy Section, Division of Global Communications and Advocacy, requires consultancy services to support the strengthening of UNICEF advocacy skills, capacity and knowledge at a global, regional, and country level.
The purpose of the consultancy is to support the Advocacy Capacity Building Initiative (ACBI) to continue to strengthen global advocacy skills, including supporting Country Offices, Regional Offices and National Committees through bespoke advocacy capacity, strategy development and monitoring. The consultant will also be responsible for supporting the design and development of workshops, tools, and templates to strengthen strategic advocacy capacity and advocacy monitoring across various operating contexts.
The purpose of the consultancy is to support the Advocacy Section in:
Development of Advocacy Training Modules, guidance, resources, tools, templates etc:
Develop workshop content and designing sessions to build colleagues’ advocacy capacity and skills on advocacy strategy, implementation, tactics (including use of communication tools for advocacy) and monitoring – specific to varied contexts.
Support the development of advocacy tools and templates, to complement colleagues’ advocacy skills. This includes creating of workshop modules that can be adapted and implemented by UNICEF staff across Regional and Country Offices.
Support stronger integration of advocacy into UNICEF Programme Planning, working with Division of Analytics, Planning and Monitoring, Regional Offices and other key internal stakeholders, including documenting best practice examples from offices, as relevant.
Support the development of easily adaptable tools, templates, resources to strengthen understanding and implementation of the standard advocacy indicators to monitor advocacy standards, practice, tactics etc.
Delivering Global, Regional and National Advocacy Capacity Building Workshops:
Support the strengthening of strategic advocacy knowledge, skills, and confidence at the global, regional and country level.
Facilitate virtual and/or in-person advocacy capacity building workshops in headquarters and selected regions and countries to build advocacy knowledge, skills, and confidence of colleagues across UNICEF.
Provide virtual/in-person bespoke advocacy capacity building and advocacy strategy development support to Country Offices, aligned with broader Advocacy Section priorities.
Support the building of strategic links between global and national advocacy on UNICEF Global Advocacy Priorities/focus areas.
Additional tasks as agreed with supervisor.
Ensure cross-organizational learning through Advocacy Portal Update and Maintenance, Knowledge Management and planning for key advocacy meeting, webinars etc:
Contribute to the maintenance of the Advocacy Portal, based on recommendations of the user testing carried out with Regional and Country office staff, so that it is a go to hub for advocacy resources, templates, and examples staff across the organization. This includes restructuring the website including with a dedicated area to act as a guide for advocacy strategy development.
Develop advocacy practice case studies to enable cross-organizational learning and maintaining the Advocacy Portal with useful advocacy tools, templates, and resources to support advocacy planning and implementation across UNICEF.
Support strengthening of institutional advocacy practice, including through documenting and disseminating advocacy lessons, good practices and organizing speaker series’, spotlight webinars and advocacy awards, among others.
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Bachelor’s degree in Public Policy, Political Science, International Relations, International Development, Public Administration, Business Administration, Economics, or related field.
At least five years’ experience (the consultancy is at the mid-level) in advocacy and campaign strategy development and execution, preferably on both a global and national level.
Experience in developing clear theories of change, with specific, measurable and timebound objectives and performance indicators.
Experience in strategic public engagement activity, based on an understanding of the target audience.
Strong track record in writing engaging campaign narratives and delivering creative campaign tactics.
Demonstrated experience in design and management of projects, including budget management and monitoring of results.
Experience in operating independently at a senior level and in providing expert advice and support on advocacy and campaigns.
Knowledge of international development, humanitarian issues and children’s rights.
Experience working for an advocacy or campaigning organization e.g., international, or national nongovernmental organizations, United Nations or other multilateral organization.
Experience working in a developing and emergency environment is an asset.
Fluency in English (both written and verbal) is required. Other UN languages is an asset.
