Senior Expert, Children’s Environmental Health Consultant
Organizational Context
UNICEF operates in over 190 countries, dedicated to saving children's lives, defending their rights, and helping them reach their full potential. The organization is committed to promoting the rights of every child, viewing it as a calling. UNICEF offers diverse opportunities for professional and personal development, fostering a sense of purpose while serving children and communities globally.
Job Purpose
The purpose of this consultancy is to provide scientific leadership, rigorous quality assurance, and high-level policy engagement to integrate child-specific vulnerabilities into global environmental and climate policies and normative guidance. This role supports UNICEF's Strategic Plan, which prioritizes climate change and environmental degradation. The consultant will advance UNICEF’s Children’s Environmental Health (CEH) agenda globally by ensuring methodological rigor, clinical validity, and primordial prevention framing in UNICEF's key publications and guidance. Additionally, the consultancy aims to drive strategic technical engagement and policy diplomacy across health, environment, and climate sectors, mobilizing global and regional bodies to position child health at the forefront of national policies and international environmental governance.
Responsibilities
Provide senior scientific advisory, technical leadership, and normative quality assurance to advance UNICEF’s Children’s Environmental Health (CEH) agenda globally. Serve as an authoritative scientific arbiter, ensuring gold-standard methodological rigor, clinical validity, and primordial prevention framing across UNICEF's flagship reports, high-level policy briefs, and normative technical guidance packages addressing issues such as toxic chemical exposures, air pollution, climate and disasters, and the built environment. Drive strategic technical engagement and policy diplomacy across health, environment, and climate sectors. Mobilize global and regional clinical bodies, professional pediatric societies, and multilateral partners to position child-specific physiological vulnerabilities at the core of national policies and international environmental governance. Lead high-level technical dialogues and deliver keynote interventions at key global convenings. Bridge scientific evidence with actionable policy to establish CEH as an urgent priority for governments and international financial institutions. Review technical content, strengthen technical collaboration, and expand capacity development initiatives for a global audience.
Work Experience
A minimum of 15 years of professional experience in children’s environmental health, with a strong focus on research, policy, and programme implementation. Demonstrated experience in developing high-quality technical content (e.g., training curricula, published articles, guidance documents, policy briefs). Proven track record of working with international organizations, academic institutions, and government bodies.
Skills
Scientific leadership, Quality assurance, Policy engagement, Pediatric environmental epidemiology, Regulatory policy, Multilateral guidance, Methodological rigor, Clinical validity, Primordial prevention, Technical content development, Communication skills, Interpersonal skills