Adolescent and Youth Engagement Specialist

Organizational Context

UNICEF operates in challenging global environments to support disadvantaged children and adolescents, protecting their rights and helping them reach their full potential. In Senegal, with a young population and improving development indicators, UNICEF prioritizes the participation of young people, especially adolescent girls, to accelerate progress and achieve results. The UNICEF office in Senegal seeks a specialist to enhance strategies and interventions for, with, and by youth.

Job Purpose

The Adolescent and Youth Engagement Specialist will support UNICEF Senegal's efforts to foster the participation of young people, particularly adolescent girls, as key agents of change. This role is crucial for accelerating progress and delivering results in a country with a significant youth demographic. The specialist will contribute to designing and implementing strategies and interventions that empower youth, leverage innovation, and mainstream gender-transformative approaches. The objective is to strengthen youth engagement in program design, delivery, and monitoring, ensuring their voices are heard and their potential is realized.

Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Social Behavior Change (SBC) Officer, the UN Volunteer will support the design and development of SBC strategies and gender-transformative interventions that engage adolescents and young people as change makers through participation platforms. Key duties include strengthening adolescent and youth participation in programme design, delivery, and monitoring; developing strategies to engage youth by leveraging technology and innovation; and mainstreaming gender-transformative approaches across all programming. The role involves designing and implementing a U-Reporter engagement and community mobilization strategy, monitoring roadmaps for the Dakar Declaration, and generating evidence-based recommendations for policy and practice improvement. Support will also be provided to the Gender Task Force and ongoing gender initiatives, including documentation and sharing of lessons learned and best practices.

Work Experience

A minimum of 3 years of relevant experience in adolescent, youth, and gender programming is required. The candidate should possess excellent oral and writing skills, strong analytical, communication, and facilitation skills, and the ability to work inclusively and collaboratively with multiple partners.

Skills

Core competencies include accountability, adaptability, flexibility, creativity, judgment, decision-making, planning, organizing, professionalism, and self-management. Technical expertise areas include crisis and emergency response, human resources, and information technology. Fluency in French and working knowledge of English are also required.

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