Details

Mission and objectives

UNICEF works to protect the rights of children and adolescents. UNICEF's programme focuses on the needs of the most vulnerable children in the areas of education, child protection, health care, social policy, adolescents and youth, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Context

The UN Secretary-General has made non-discrimination a key part of his agenda and wider UN reform, and the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy (UNDIS) has put workplace disability inclusion at the forefront.

Centered on efforts to realize the rights of all children, UNICEF's 2026-2029 Strategic Plan (SP) complements and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda by committing to improve the life of disadvantaged children and adolescents today and enhance prospects for their well-being tomorrow. Multiple references to disability inclusion and intersectionality are made throughout the SP, and disability is mainstreamed across all Goal Areas. In 2023, the UNICEF Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (DIPAS), https://www.unicef.org/unicef-disability-inclusion-policy-and-strategy-dipas-2022-2030, which includes both programmatic and operational/management targets and priorities. All this demonstrates UNICEF's renewed commitment to promote inclusion and accessibility throughout the organization, across all functional areas.

While UNICEF has made considerable progress to strengthen disability inclusion both in programming and operations, the commitments to the new Strategic Plan and DIPAS require an intentional and sustainable effort to further advance disability inclusion as part of our collective work.

This UNV assignment is part of UNICEF’s strategy to become a more disability inclusive workplace and an employer of choice for people with disabilities. The UN Volunteer will support the coordination and technical support for the implementation of the operational and management commitments of the UNICEF Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (DIPAS) https://www.unicef.org/unicef-disability-inclusion-policy-and-strategy-dipas-2022-2030. Under the supervision of the Disability Inclusion Project Manager, and in collaboration with the wider Organisational Culture team and the Disability team in Global Programme Division (GPD), the UN Volunteer will need to work with numerous stakeholders in that have responsibility for operationalising the institutional aspirations of the DIPAS. This will require supporting the provision of regular disability inclusion technical advice to headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional and Country Offices, and contributing to an intersectional approach to non-discrimination lead by the Organisational Culture team in the Division of People and Culture (DPC).

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Disability Inclusion Project Manager (Organisational Culture Team, Division of People & Culture), the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

Coordination and Integration of Disability Inclusive Workplace Commitments Across UNICEF’s:

Policy and Strategy Implementation and Reporting
• Support the implementation and reporting of the management and operational commitments of the Disability Inclusion Policy and Strategy (DIPAS) 2022-2030, using an intersectional approach.
• Support the Organizational Culture team (DPC) and the Disability team (GPD) with efforts to meet UNDIS requirements linked to indicators (https://www.un.org/en/content/disabilitystrategy/assets/documentation/UN_Disability_Inclusion_Strategy_Entity_Technical_Notes.pdf) 6 (accessibility), 7 (reasonable accommodation), 13 (employment), 14 (capacity building) and 15 (communication), as needed, and other activities to increase mainstreaming of disability inclusive workplace approaches into UNICEF’s work.
• Support and contribute to annual UNDIS and DIPAS reporting across the organisation. Especially indicators that the Organizational Culture team are responsible for collating, i.e., UNDIS indicator 7 (reasonable accommodation) and 13 (employment), and DIPAS targets linked to 7% representation of employees with disabilities in the workforce by 2030.
• Coordinate intersectional work on remedial actions stemming from the annual UNICEF UNDIS Report, the bi-annual Global Staff Survey (GSS), the annual Pulse Survey, the Core Standard Indicators (CSIs), Staff Separation Report, the Recommendations for Action on Anti-Racism and Discrimination, recommendations from the Evaluation of the Reasonable Accommodation Fund and organizational culture related recommendations from the Evaluation of the Division of HR.

Accessibility and Inclusion
• Support the development and dissemination of guidelines on accessibility and inclusion, such as the Reasonable Accommodation, Managers Guide to Nurturing Neurodivergence in an Inclusive Workplace and updated UNICEF Procedure on Disability Inclusive Communications and Advocacy.
• Support the coordination of the Global Accessibility Helpdesks (Digital and Physical branches) and global accessibility capacity building webinars.
• Support UNICEF’s Digital Impact Division’s (DID) actions to remediate accessibility and inclusion issues in UNICEF’s digital platforms.
• Support UNICEF’s Supply Division’s (SD) actions to make procurement procedures and supply purchases more disability inclusive.
• Support UNICEF’s Division of Financial and Administrative Management (DFAM) actions on implementing accessibility initiatives in UNICEF premises globally.
• Provide ongoing technical advice to headquarters, Centre of Excellence, regional, and country office-level activities on accessibility of premises, security considerations, and overall disability inclusion elements in operations.
• Support the coordination of capacity building activities on disability inclusion for all employees in headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional, and Country offices.
• Support the continual updating, knowledge management and communication systems, including design and development of the Organizational Culture team’s SharePoint site and collaboration sites; including the dedicated Disability Inclusive Workplaces content.

Employment
• Support the development of tailored resources on recruitment, onboarding, and workplace disability inclusion for headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional, and Country offices.
• Support UNICEF’s Division of People and Culture (DPC) actions to make the employee life cycle from recruitment to separation more disability inclusive.
• Support the design, coordination and piloting of new initiatives that strengthen capacity on disability inclusion in the workplace in headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional, and Country offices, i.e., Disability Inclusive Workplace Focal Points etc.
• Support UNICEF’s initiatives to increase hire employees with disabilities.
• Provide onboarding support for offices hiring employees with disabilities.
• Support the continuous updating of various guides on disability inclusive employment and socialization with headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional, and Country Offices.
• Support the Integrated Talent Management team and People and Culture practitioners in headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional, and Country offices with targeted or mainstreamed initiatives for creating pipelines for employees with disabilities, including the UN Volunteers with disabilities programme and more.
• Provide Support to UN inter-agency collaborations on Disability Inclusive Workplaces, i.e., High Level Management Committee (HLMC) Subgroup on Disability Inclusive Human Resources.

Reasonable Accommodation
• Support the management of reasonable accommodation (RA) requests (via Service Gateway), queries (via the RA email inbox), and facilitation of the RA Committee and RA Advisory Panel.
• Support implementation of the reasonable accommodation evaluation management response recommendations for action and the updating of the EISI (evaluation management) platform to capture progress.
• Support the continuous updating of the Reasonable Accommodation Guide, SharePoint and Careers page and socialization with headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional, and Country offices.
• Support the design and coordination of capacity building activities on reasonable for all headquarters, Centres of Excellence, global divisions, Regional and Country offices.

Employee Engagement and Wellbeing
• Support regular liaison with Employee Resource Groups and implement actions to increase the wellbeing and engagement of employees with disabilities and employees with dependents with disabilities with senior leadership.
• Support the development of tools to measure the engagement of and proportion of employees with disabilities in the workforce more accurately in global staff surveys and so on.

Non-discrimination and Intersectional Approaches
• Actively support and contribute to the Organizational Culture team’s Culture Pathways During the Future Focus Initiative and Whole of Diversity approach with an intersectional focus on disability inclusion.
• Provide input and support to other activities carried out by the Organizational Culture team, particularly on social and behavioural change, communications, policy, performance management, learning, recruitment, and staff wellbeing.
• Keep abreast, research, benchmark, and implement best and cutting-edge practices in disability inclusive workplace management and contribute to the development of innovative global policies and initiatives.

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