Interim Senior Youth Advocacy Advisor

This role leads the UN Team’s youth participation strategy for Plan International, focusing on advocacy and strategic direction for youth participation in UN processes and the Global Youth Ambassadors initiative. The position involves managing advocacy activities, stakeholder engagement, safeguarding, and budget management to advance youth participation and gender equality within the UN system.

Responsibilities

• Lead UN Team’s portfolio of work on youth participation/LEAD and strategise for maximum impact on this agenda
• Develop and implement organisational approach to the UN Youth Office, ensuring strong relationships and coordination internally
• Oversee UN team’s work to facilitate access for young people, especially girls and young women, to key decision-making spaces within the UN, ensuring safeguarding standards and promoting diversity and inclusion
• Advocate to gain political support to institutionalise meaningful participation of girls and young women in UN decision-making processes in Geneva and New York
• Ensure high level engagement and representation at the UN and with Permanent Missions on youth participation issues
• Strengthen enabling environment for girls’ and young women’s participation by influencing relevant policy processes/documents from international human rights bodies with gender-transformative, age-responsive and intersectional language
• Advise UN Team on youth participation in decision-making
• Lead on safeguarding children and young people in Geneva and provide safeguarding support for events in New York, managing safeguarding policies and procedures for youth participation at the UN
• Oversee production of high-quality research and resources such as policy briefs and talking points on girls’ and young women’s participation for advocacy use
• Effectively manage the Global Youth Ambassadors initiative, including budget and expenses, coordination of Geneva-based partners, and timely execution of deliverables
• Ensure coordination between UN Team’s youth participation work and Plan International’s broader youth participation efforts across country offices, regional hubs and global hub
• Improve visibility, credibility and information-sharing of the UN liaison offices with external and internal audiences, supported by communications
• Ensure full embedding of Plan International’s global policies for Safeguarding Children and Young People and Gender Equality and Inclusion in accordance with policy principles and requirements

Requirements

• Completion of a Master’s degree programme in human rights, political science, gender studies, international law, international development or any other specific field relevant to Plan International’s work or relevant experience
• Strong understanding of the UN system and its human rights mechanisms in particular, including how these can advance national level advocacy
• Proven ability to analyse complex political issues and to devise sophisticated strategies and innovative approaches for achieving policy change
• Proven experience and knowledge of gender equality, women’s, children’s and girls’ rights, feminist principles, and familiarity with the Sustainable Development Agenda
• Previous experience with conducting multilateral advocacy
• Able to influence human rights system through strengthening language and use of mechanisms
• Strong knowledge of current political trends and events affecting children’s and girls’ rights
• Ability to communicate complex issues in an accessible and simple manner
• Excellent writing skills – especially for policy-related documents
• Good understanding of youth activism, advocacy and young feminist organizing
• Excellent level of oral and written English
• Experience in management of staff including supervision and support
• Outstanding organisational, and project and time management skills
• Skilled and confident user of Microsoft Office applications (including Excel)
• Experience in conducting workshops and trainings (desirable)
• Previous experience working directly with young people (desirable)
• Good oral and written French and/or Spanish (desirable)
• Competent with office software packages, including PowerPoint, adobe suite, excel, basic design software (desirable)
• Experience in overseeing translation work (desirable)

Skills

• Human Rights Advocacy
• UN System Knowledge
• Political Analysis
• Policy Change Strategies
• Gender Equality Expertise
• Multilateral Negotiation & Policy Advocacy
• UN Human Rights Mechanisms
• Children's Rights Advocacy
• Youth Activism
• Feminist Principles
• Policy Writing
• Staff Management
• Project Management
• Time Management
• Microsoft Office Suite
• Excel
• Workshop Facilitation
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Budget Management
• Translation Oversight

Languages

English