Vacancies

VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT
Issued on: 18 April 2017

BACKGROUND
Since Habitat II, UN-Habitat has been committed to promoting the participation of young people as partners in implementing the Habitat Agenda and the achievement of the MDGs. At the 20th Governing Council in 2005, the Strategy for Enhanced Engagement with Youth was adopted and has provided a framework for designing and implementing a Youth Empowerment Programme (YEP) through subsequent years. Through the support from the Government of Norway and the institutional commitment of UN-HABITAT, a number of member states have expressed interest and continued support for the youth program.

The issues facing urban youth globally have been virtually unknown and misunderstood until championed by UN-HABITAT. This has presented a significant challenge to UN-HABITAT and to the development of programmes globally. In spite of this, these programmes have advanced UN-HABITAT’s programmatic and normative goals through creation of pilot projects that have both improved the lives of thousands of poor urban youth, while at the same time being best practices that local and national governments have begun to adopt.

For example, the UN-Habitat Urban Youth Fund launched in 2008, has attracted interest from a number of UN agencies, international institutions and youth-focused programmes that wish to explore partnership relations with the fund. Stemming from this has been the establishment of a Global Youth Help Desk, an interactive portal that engages youth, youth-led agencies, and researcher and policy makers in a dialogue on youth in urban development.  Parallel to this the Urban Youth Research Network has enabled consolidation in knowledge management and dissemination of urban youth issues.

Building on the   on the successes achieved thus far and taking into account the recommendations of the Urban Youth Programme external evaluation which identified the urgent need to expand staffing in the youth program, with a specific focus on managing and further developing the research program, developing and managing a monitoring and evaluation activities, and supporting the implementation of the youth fund, the Youth Advisory Board and the activities leading up to Habitat III.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Provide support to the Youth Advisory Board by coordinating their meetings to centrally meet UN-Habitat’s mission.
• Support the Youth Advisory Board in providing progress and annual reports on their activities.
• Provide support on social media by managing UN-Habitat Youth accounts in Face Book, Twitter, Snap Chat and Instagram.
• Assist in sending out the monthly UN-Habitat Youth newsletters to the subscribers and manage the account
• Facilitate the editing and publishing of youth related stories on unhabitat.org web blog.
• Facilitate the publishing of UN-Habitat Youth articles on the United Nations Youth Flash newsletters.
• Provide research support in the Youth and Livelihood unit’s programmes such as the Urban Youth Fund programme.
• Provide support to the Unit Leader when called upon. 

OUTPUTS
The Consultant is required to prepare a final report and outputs on the status of the Youth Advisory Board activities, Youth Programme social media accounts, Youth newsletters and research.

EDUCATION
• University Degree in International relations, urban studies, public administration, or other related social sciences.is required

WORK EXPERIENCE

• A minimum of 1  year of progressively responsible experience involving youth and Community development programmes  Knowledge of databases 
• Strong interpersonal skills and the experience in working in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic environment with sensitivity and respect for diversity
• Capacity to work with minimal supervision
• UN experiences an advantage.

LANGUAGE SKILLS
English and French are the two working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the post advertised, fluency in oral and written English is required. Knowledge of a second official UN language is an advantage.  

REMUNERATION
Payments will be based on deliverables over the consultancy period. There are set remuneration rates for consultancies. The rate is determined by functions performed and experience of the consultant. The fees will be paid as per agreement.