$ads={1}Job Description Developed in tandem with UNICEF's new Gender Policy and Gender Action Plan (GAP), The UNICEF Strategic Plan for 2022-25 emphasizes structural and norms change to transform the underlying drivers of gender inequality and reflects an intersectional approach to the compounding social exclusion and marginalization related to factors like poverty, racism, disability and migration. With this new, transformative approach, UNICEF is strengthening the mainstreaming of gender equality throughout our programming and systems, while increasing investment in gender-related data. Over the past years, global immunization coverage continued to backslide leaving 25 million children under-vaccinated. Among them, 2.4 million in Latin America and the Caribbean, 75% of which never received any sort of vaccines.
This is the largest decline in child immunization coverage since the 1990s and a growing child health emergency. The pandemic presented opportunities for UNICEF to renew its focus on the gender dimensions of immunization and the impact on women and families, especially children who have not received any basic, routine vaccines (the 'zero-dose' children). The UNICEF Immunization Roadmap 2018–2030, as well as related programming tools and guidance, articulates transformative approaches that target the barriers to access and use of services and the underlying power dynamics within households. Children who are deprived of immunization and their families frequently face multiple vulnerabilities and obstacles, and prevailing gender norms often hinder their ability to access a wide range of services.
To increase immunization coverage, and to sustainably reach "zero-dose" children for childhood vaccines and most disadvantaged groups for new vaccines, it is necessary to understand and address the many ways in which gender interacts with additional socioeconomic, geographic, and cultural factors to influence access, uptake and sustainable delivery of vaccines, in the broader context of health systems and specifically primary health care. As a leader in immunization, there is a pressing need for UNICEF to galvanize a movement, coordinate its effort and deploy its full capacity to fulfill its mandate of leaving no one behind. Ensuring that immunization services reach all children, adolescents and women equitably, including those in the poorest and most disadvantaged communities, remains the primary focus for UNICEF support. UNICEF is committed to taking the opportunities created by new efforts to increase the uptake of immunization across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to advance the integration of intentional Gender Equality initiatives across its health systems strengthening and immunization efforts, in particular those being delivered through a large-scale 2023-2024 multi-country immunization programme.
Purpose of the Job: In alignment with the UNICEF GAP, the role of the Gender Specialist (Immunization) is primarily technical and programmatic. The Specialist provides authoritative technical guidance/operational support throughout all stages of programming to facilitate the management and delivery of transformative results contributing to gender equality in the health and nutrition sector with a specific focus on immunization. Key functions, accountabilities and related duties and tasks: Providing technical assistance to LAC country offices (COs) to increase their capacity to support the design and delivery of gender-responsive and transformative immunization programmes through a primary health care approach: Ensure that COs engaged in the multi-country immunization programme have integrated tailored and relevant gender responsive and/or transformative interventions in their programme design. In collaboration with Social and Behavior Change (SBC) colleagues, support COs in conducting comprehensive gender analysis and/or integrating gender as part of existing equity and situation analysis to ensure gender barriers to immunization and primary health care are clearly identified and contextualized, including in humanitarian response and migration settings.
In collaboration with colleagues across various sectors and cross-sectoral teams identify the areas of focus for gender equitable approaches with the greatest potential for impact and scale, in alignment with zero dose, covid vaccination, HPV vaccination and new vaccine objectives. Build the capacity of country gender officers/specialists and focal persons to advocate for and technically support gender integration into national health planning processes, health system strengthening initiatives, and other planning or funding proposals including vaccine strategies, campaigns, and new vaccine introductions. Develop and facilitate capacity building resources and training opportunities targeting UNICEF CO gender, SBC, health and immunization staff for the intentional and effective integration of gender transformative interventions in their initiatives and programmes. In the context of health systems strengthening, support COs to identify opportunities to increase the capacity of the community health workforce with a focus on policy and programme support for female health workers.
Support CO leadership and technical teams to liaise and consult with government and other external partners to develop and reinforce partnerships in gender programming, with a particular focus on collaboration with women and girl-led organizations. Providing technical support to COs and regional teams for the effective and efficient delivery, management and growth of the UNICEF gender and immunization grant portfolio: Coordinate with CO gender and immunization/health specialists and focal points to effectively plan, utilize, monitor and report on the gender components of the LAC multi-country immunization grants, and other health-related funds with significant gender components. Represent the LACRO gender team in the management of the multi-country immunization programme coordination meetings and initiatives, both within UNICEF's regional office and with external partners such as other UN agencies, civil society partners and donors. Ensure Gender Equality is well reflected in all gender and immunization periodic programme reports to donors as per their funding requirements, as well as in UNICEF's internal annual planning and reporting processes.
Support COs to adequately budget for gender transformative initiatives in their immunization and health systems strengthening programmes and oversee the execution of these investments to ensure the timely and efficient financial reporting of these activities to donors as relevant. Plan, execute, monitor and report against the activities and budget allocated to the LACRO gender team for the multi-country gender and immunization programme. Provide technical leadership on the integration of gender into health and immunization programme design and planning, and during regional strategic planning processes such as midterm and annual reviews. Provide technical input for and review of the gender components in new UNICEF health and immunization-related funding proposals and in the design of health projects/programmes so that gender technical components are clearly defined and funded, and gender technical capacities are catered for within these from the onset.
Identify opportunities for and work with relevant regional teams to advance adolescent girl programming in LAC health systems strengthening approaches, including by pro-actively initiating resource mobilization activities to support such efforts. Supporting the documentation, measurement and evidence generation of the results and effectiveness of gender-related health and immunization interventions in LAC: Develop regional learning guidelines, tools, policy briefs and other resources to support UNICEF technical excellence in the integration of gender equality in health and immunization programming. Support countries to document lessons learned and good practices that reduce gender-related barriers on both the demand and supply sides in the context of health systems strengthening. Support CO and LACRO health, immunization, planning and SBC teams to identify, adopt, monitor and report against indicators related to gender-responsive and transformative results in health and immunization programming.
Assist with planning and rollout of interactive webinars and other platforms to share lessons and good practices across UNICEF and partners in the region, thereby building regional, national, and subnational capacities. Support COs to promote and facilitate the adoption of gender-specific indicators by governments at national and sub-national levels and to strengthen national data systems and collection, as well as accountability mechanisms to monitor and evaluate progress on gender results within health systems. Contribute to and support the generation of evidence related to gender results in healthprogramming at country and regional levels, by spearheading and/or technically supporting research and data analysis initiatives in collaboration with other relevant teams across UNICEF and/or other UN agencies. Contributing to the delivery of regional gender equality programmatic and institutional objectives by actively participating in relevant activities undertaken by the LACRO gender team: Participate regularly in regional team meetings, promoting knowledge sharing and seeking synergies within the team to advance gender equality work across regional programmes and initiatives.
Actively contribute to the development of regional gender products and capacity building initiatives, with a particular focus on the intersection with health-related outcomes and adolescent girl programming. Represent the Regional Gender Advisor in relevant internal and external coordination mechanisms and meetings, including in health-related inter-agency platforms and regional networks. Actively contribute to internal annual planning, monitoring and reporting processes, with a focus on health and immunization programming. To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have… An advanced university degree (Master's or higher) in A first University Degree in a relevant field combined with 2 additional years of professional experience may be accepted in lieu of an Advanced University Degree.
A minimum of [insert years] of relevant professional experience in Developing country work experience and/or familiarity with emergency is considered an asset. Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is an asset. Education: An Advanced University Degree (Master´s or equivalent) in gender and development, human rights, public health, sociology, child and adolescent development, or other field directly related to gender equality and public health.
Work Experience: Minimum eight (8) years of professional work experience at the national, of which at least 2 years at international, level in gender equality and public health programming Experience in designing, implementing, managing, and delivering results based programmes on gender and health, especially at regional level. Experience in providing regional technical assistance and designing and delivering capacity building initiatives in gender responsive/transformative programming to country teams and partners. Languages: Fluency in Spanish and English is required. Knowledge of French or Portuguese will be considered an asset.
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