Health Specialist - Adolescent Health

The Health Specialist (Adolescent Health) provides strategic leadership, technical expertise, and programmatic guidance to advance adolescent health and well-being globally. The role supports countries in strengthening adolescent-responsive health systems and services through policy reform, capacity building, evidence generation, and multisectoral programming.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership, technical expertise, and programmatic guidance to advance adolescent health and well-being globally.
• Support the design, implementation, monitoring and scale-up of evidence-based programmes that strengthen adolescent-responsive health systems and services.
• Contribute to the development of global frameworks, technical guidance, quality standards and programmatic tools.
• Promote integrated and multisectoral approaches across adolescent health priorities including sexual and reproductive health, mental health and psychosocial well-being, substance use prevention, and prevention and management of communicable and non-communicable diseases.
• Strengthen national policies and service delivery platforms.
• Support global guidance and quality standards.
• Foster innovation and learning across countries.
• Contribute to UNICEF's leadership in advancing adolescent health and well-being worldwide.
• Capacity Development & Institutional Strengthening.
• Quality Improvement at Scale.
• Policy Reform & Systems Transformation.
• Evidence, Data & Knowledge for Action.
• Equitable Access.
• Programme Management & Results Monitoring.
• Strategic Partnerships, Resource Mobilization and Grant Management.
• Global Advocacy, Knowledge Leadership and Cross-Sectoral Collaboration.

Requirements

• An advanced university degree in public health, global health, adolescent health, health systems and services, epidemiology, health policy and management, medicine.
• A minimum of eight (8) years of progressively responsible professional experience in adolescent health, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (MNCAH), health systems strengthening, primary health care, public health, or related fields is required.
• Strategic thinking skills.
• Ability to develop and operationalize frameworks and guidance.
• Strong partnership-building and coordination skills across sectors and institutions.
• Communication skills for advocacy, technical writing, and presentation.
• Knowledge of English language at a Proficient level is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in the design, implementation, management and monitoring of adolescent health programmes, including sexual and reproductive health, mental health and psychosocial support, school health, communicable/non-communicable diseases, substance use prevention.
• Proven experience providing technical and strategic support to governments, UN agencies, development partners and country programmes, including policy development, programme planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and knowledge generation.
• Demonstrated experience supporting health systems strengthening and service delivery across primary health care, school, community and digital platforms.
• Demonstrated experience managing multi-country grants, programme budgets and donor-funded initiatives, including strategic planning, resource allocation, financial oversight, performance monitoring, donor reporting and partnership management.
• Experience supervising professional staff, consultants and/or multidisciplinary teams.
• Experience supporting programmes in low- and middle-income countries, including humanitarian and fragile settings.

Skills

• Adolescent Health
• Maternal Newborn Child Adolescent Health
• Public Health Systems Strengthening
• Primary Health Care
• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Health Policy Development
• Programme Planning
• Programme Implementation
• Programme Monitoring and Evaluation
• Technical Writing
• Advocacy
• Partnership Building
• Inter-sectoral Coordination
• Strategic Planning
• Resource Allocation
• Financial Oversight
• Donor Reporting
• Grant Management
• Supervision of Administrative Staff
• Capacity Building
• Evidence Generation
• Policy Reform Leadership
• Mental Health and Psychosocial Support
• Sexual and Reproductive Health
• School Health Programmes
• Infectious Disease Prevention
• Noncommunicable Disease Prevention
• Substance Use Prevention
• Digital Health Platforms

Languages

English