National Consultant for Child Wellbeing Advocacy

The consultant will develop two advocacy strategies and deliver advocacy products focused on child marriage and nutrition in Lao PDR. The role involves producing operational advocacy strategies aligned with national policies and delivering materials for government and partner audiences in Lao and English.

Responsibilities

• Develop UNICEF Lao PDR's advocacy strategy on ending child, early and forced marriage based on available evidence and aligned with national policies and regional plans.
• Map audiences and advocacy asks across government, donors, media and communities.
• Address known sensitivities and guide communication and engagement activities.
• Draft advocacy products such as ministry-facing budget briefs and briefing materials for coordination meetings.
• Develop UNICEF Lao PDR's nutrition advocacy strategy focused on securing reliable domestic financing for nutrition, covering stunting, wasting, and maternal nutrition.
• Set out financing asks and messaging with key partners.
• Align the nutrition strategy with national nutrition strategies, committees, forums, and relevant decrees and registries.
• Coordinate advocacy to complement other programmes and partners to avoid duplication.
• Draft advocacy products such as briefs on including nutrition services and essential commodities in sectoral budgets.

Requirements

• A Bachelors degree in Communication, public policy, political science, development studies, social sciences, public health, law, or a related field.
• An advanced university degree is desirable.
• A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in advocacy, public policy, government relations or strategic communication, of which at least three years in Lao PDR.
• Demonstrated experience authoring advocacy, policy engagement or influencing strategies for an organisation or programme — not only implementing them.
• Demonstrated experience producing policy briefs, investment cases or budget advocacy materials for government audiences.
• Demonstrated experience designing and delivering orientation or capacity-building sessions for senior government or elected officials.
• Fluency in Lao (native or near-native, written and spoken) and professional working proficiency in English.
• Demonstrated ability to structure an advocacy strategy: to set priorities among competing asks, to identify the decision-maker and decision point for each, and to express the result as a costed action plan rather than a list of activities.
• Working knowledge of Lao PDR governance structures, including the oversight and budget approval role of the National Assembly and the Provincial People’s Assemblies, and of the redistribution of ministerial mandates under the 2025 machinery-of-government reforms.
• Demonstrated ability to convert technical evidence — costing studies, expenditure analysis, political economy analysis — into concise, decision-ready policy asks.
• Orientation and workshop design and facilitation.
• Stakeholder coordination across government, UN agencies and development partners.
• Excellent drafting and editing in Lao and English.
• Advanced university degree (desirable).
• Prior working relationship with NCAWMC, the Lao Women’s Union, the Lao Youth Union or the National Assembly Secretariat (desirable).
• Familiarity with public finance for children (PF4C) approaches (desirable).
• Prior UN or international organisation experience (desirable).
• Working knowledge of the child protection or nutrition sectors (desirable).
• Experience with multi-donor programmes and their visibility and recognition requirements (desirable).

Skills

• Advocacy Strategies
• Policy Advocacy
• Government Relations
• Strategic Communications
• Policy Brief Writing
• Budget Advocacy
• Capacity Building
• Workshop Facilitation
• Stakeholder Coordination
• Drafting and Editing
• Lao Governance Knowledge
• Costing Studies Analysis
• Expenditure Analysis
• Political economy understanding
• Public Finance for Children
• Multi-donor Project Management

Languages

Lao, English