Child Protection Specialist

La misión fundamental de UNICEF es promover los derechos de todos los niños y niñas, en todas partes, en todo lo que la organización hace en los programas, en la promoción y en las operaciones. La equidad, haciendo hincapié en los niños, las niñas, adolescentes y las familias más desfavorecidos y excluidos, traduce este compromiso con los derechos de los niños en acciones. Para UNICEF, la equidad significa que todos los niños y niñas tienen la oportunidad de sobrevivir, desarrollarse y alcanzar su máximo potencial, sin discriminación, prejuicios o favoritismo. En la medida en que cualquier niño o niña experimenta una desigualdad de oportunidades en su vida en las dimensiones sociales, políticas, económicas, cívicas y culturales, sus derechos son violados. Cada vez hay más pruebas de que invertir en la salud, la educación y la protección de los ciudadanos más desfavorecidos de una sociedad, abordando la inequidad, no sólo dará a todos los niños y niñas la oportunidad de desarrollar su potencial, sino que también conducirá al crecimiento sostenido y la estabilidad de los países. Es por eso que el enfoque en la equidad es tan vital. Acelera el progreso hacia la realización de los derechos humanos de todos los niños y niñas, que es el mandato universal del UNICEF, como se describe en la Convención sobre los Derechos del Niño, al tiempo que apoya el desarrollo equitativo de las naciones.

UNICEF promotes the rights and welfare of all children and adolescents in everything we do. Together with our allies, we work in 190 countries and territories to transform this commitment into practical actions that benefit all children, especially focusing our efforts on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded, worldwide. UNICEF works to put the rights and well-being of the most disadvantaged children at the heart of the social, political, and economic agenda, in line with our equity focus, working across our organization and with our partners in government, civil society and the private sector to support shifts in public policy, fuel social engagement, and increase investment for children.

The UNICEF Latin America and Caribbean Regional Office (LACRO) is based in in Panama, operating in 36 territories, including 24 country offices. The LACRO Child Protection Section supports UNICEF country offices to protect all children from violence, abuse and exploitation in all contexts and including those who are on the move, in alternative care and in contact with the law. The Child Protection Section co-leads the flagship result for all countries in the region to eradicate violence against children, and a priority result to respond to children on the move.

UNICEF has a vision to be an organization that puts data, monitoring and knowledge management to work to achieve results for children and fulfil their rights, and the strengthening of knowledge management systems, monitoring and use of data are key enablers to achieve this vision.

The UNICEF LACRO Child Protection section currently has several knowledge management products, specifically an internal and external website, ebulletin, document library, learning webinars, and face to face meetings. Based on demand from the country offices, the section has developed and implemented a knowledge management strategy that specifically aims to ensure that UNICEF staff (and partners) have access to the latest information in a timely manner to better inform their programmes.

The Knowledge Management (KM) strategy indicates continuing support for the maintenance of the document library, maintenance and adjustments as needed to the website, as well as continuing and improving existing products and promote innovations models to learn and share knowledge. While the strategy is comprehensive, the effort for implementation needs to continue to be ‘light’. To get to this point, it is necessary to have a consultant design, operationalize, test, adapt and establish the structure.

UNICEF as an organizatio,n currently has a range of monitoring systems and tools, including programme monitoring tools and systems to track progress against core standard indicators (CSIs), and indicators within country programmes, country programme documents (CPDs) in The Results Assessment Module (RAM). Within UNICEF’s Strategic Plan (2022- 2025), Goal Area 3 includes specific outcomes and result areas related to Child Protection, with global, regional and country progress measured towards these outcomes through Strategic Plan indicators. This progress is monitored annually, in LAC and globally, and involves support to country offices (COs) in terms of quality assurance, as well as eventual analysis and use. UNICEF LACRO Child Protection can draw on support from LACRO Planning and Monitoring as well as the HQ Planning and Evidence Building unit.

Under the direct supervision of Child Protection Regional Adviser, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

• Maintain knowledge management products, including a monthly e-Bulletin, document library on Sharepoint, support to webinars, and maintenance of the internal and external websites
• Support the LACRO child protection section in facilitating knowledge gathering, exchange and use across areas of child protection, and across sectors on themes of violence against children, child marriage, systems strengthening, justice for children, migration and humanitarian action.
• Support the regional office and country office teams to strengthen monitoring of child protection results and outcomes, including violence against children (VAC), child marriage, Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPHA), children on the move and Justice. This may include compilation and analysis of a range of datasets from various sources, including but not limited to programme monitoring data (CSIs, RAM) and survey data Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey/ Demographic and Health Surveys (MICS/DHS).
• Support regional and country office teams with quality assurance of country office monitoring and reporting through webinars, indicator guidance and training
• Where useful, generation of and support to data visualizations (infographics, dashboards in PowerBI), in collaboration with LACRO Planning and Monitoring where relevant
• Support the LACRO child protection section in facilitating knowledge gathering, exchange and use across areas of child protection, and across sectors on themes of violence against children, child marriage, systems strengthening, justice for children and migration


Results/Expected Outputs

1. LACRO Child Protection’s knowledge management strategy in place and in line with the technical requests of the LAC UNICEF country offices, considering a light, effective and easy to manage knowledge management system that reinforces LACRO's technical leadership role in child protection in the region.
2. An internal platform established to strengthen data collection, monitoring and reporting related to child protection, with an emphasis on violence against children and migration, CPHA, consisting of regular learning opportunities (webinars) for COs and products.
3. Regular production of useful analysis of monitoring data for Regional Office (RO) and Country Office (CO) teams.