Programme Specialist - Children's Food Practices and Youth Engagement

The Programme Specialist provides strategic leadership and technical direction for UNICEF’s Food Systems for Children agenda, focusing on social and behaviour change, youth engagement, and advocacy to improve child and adolescent nutrition outcomes. The role leads global initiatives such as First Foods Africa and Fix My Food, supports country offices, and promotes knowledge generation and organizational learning.

Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership and technical direction for UNICEF’s Food Systems for Children agenda focusing on social and behaviour change, social marketing, youth engagement and advocacy.
• Lead UNICEF’s global efforts to strengthen food-related practices, behaviours and social norms influencing child and adolescent nutrition outcomes.
• Serve as UNICEF’s focal point for food practices, youth engagement and social and behaviour change within the Food Systems for Children agenda.
• Lead major global initiatives including First Foods Africa and Fix My Food ensuring technical quality, consistency, cross-regional coordination, knowledge generation and organizational learning.
• Support country offices in generating evidence, strengthening capacity, implementing social marketing and behaviour change approaches, and engaging young people as agents of change.
• Provide leadership and technical expertise in social and behaviour change for nutrition programmes and respond to technical assistance requests from country offices.
• Develop guidance, tools and learning resources.
• Coordinate youth engagement and advocacy initiatives.
• Support partnerships, donor engagement and resource mobilization.
• Strengthen UNICEF’s leadership on social and behaviour change for nutrition programmes and food systems transformation.

Requirements

• Master or equivalent (Advanced University Degree) in Social Science, Behavioural Science, Nutrition and Dietetics, Anthropology, Psychology, sociology, marketing and any other related fields.
• At least 8 years of relevant work experience at national and international levels in social and behaviour change, social marketing, nutrition and food systems programming.
• Experience designing and implementing demand-generation and social marketing initiatives to increase adoption of nutritious foods and healthy practices.
• Demonstrated experience in nutrition-related product positioning, consumer behaviour, and behavioural science applications.
• Proven experience working across food systems and engaging governments, civil society, and private-sector stakeholders.
• Experience leading youth engagement and advocacy initiatives.
• Strong partnership-building and donor relationship management experience.
• Fluency in English is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is desirable.
• A PhD in a relevant discipline is an asset.
• Experience with UNICEF programmes in nutrition and child development, UNICEF’s Strategic Plan, Nutrition Strategy and Food Systems for Children agenda is desirable.
• Experience in resource mobilisation, donor stewardship and management of large multi-country initiatives is highly desirable.
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts is desirable.

Skills

• Social and Behavior Change
• Social Marketing Approaches
• Nutrition Programming
• Food Systems Programming
• Demand Generation Marketing
• Brand Positioning
• Consumer Behaviour
• Behavioural Science Applications
• Government Engagement
• Civil Society Engagement
• Private Sector Engagement
• Youth Engagement
• Advocacy Activities
• Partnership Building
• Donor Relationship Management
• Resource Mobilization
• Donor Stewardship
• Multi-country Initiative Management
• UNICEF Nutrition Programmes
• Child Development Programmes

Languages

English