Emergency Specialist

The Emergency Specialist provides strategic and technical leadership to support emergency preparedness, response, humanitarian access, localization, and child rights in emergencies across the West and Central Africa Region. The role supports Country Offices in risk analysis, preparedness planning, emergency response design and implementation, humanitarian coordination, resource mobilization, and advocacy.

Responsibilities

• Support Country Offices in developing, reviewing and updating risk analyses, contingency plans, preparedness measures and Emergency Preparedness Platform (EPP) actions.
• Monitor emerging humanitarian risks and trends across countries of coverage and provide strategic recommendations to strengthen preparedness and anticipatory action.
• Support the formulation and implementation of emergency preparedness and response plans, ensuring coherence with regional priorities, Core Commitments for Children (CCCs), and humanitarian principles.
• Monitor progress and provide technical guidance to Country Offices on preparedness and response actions.
• Provide policy and programme advice to Country Offices and Regional Management on emergency preparedness, humanitarian response, risk-informed programming, humanitarian-development-peace nexus approaches and operational readiness.
• Lead the collection, analysis and dissemination of emergency information, situation monitoring, humanitarian trends and risk analysis from countries of coverage.
• Contribute to regional situation analyses, management updates, briefing notes and decision-making processes.
• Design and coordinate emergency preparedness and response trainings, simulations, workshops, communities of practice and capacity development initiatives for UNICEF personnel and partners across the region.
• Support Country Offices and Regional Management in the coordination of emergency response efforts, surge planning, activation procedures and implementation of humanitarian interventions.
• Participate in rapid assessments, response missions and emergency deployments as required.
• Provide technical support to Country Offices in needs assessments, response planning, prioritization and monitoring of humanitarian interventions, ensuring programmes address the needs of vulnerable children, adolescents, women and communities.
• Support Country Offices and senior management in emergency operations oversight, programme management, reporting, resource allocation and performance monitoring to ensure effective and accountable humanitarian action.
• Serve as the Regional Focal Point for Humanitarian Access and Localization, providing strategic guidance, oversight and technical support to Country Offices for development, rollout, monitoring and institutionalization of country-level Humanitarian Access and Localization Strategies and Action Plans.
• Support the preparation of humanitarian appeals, donor proposals, briefing packages, updates and reports.
• Contribute to resource mobilization efforts and donor engagement related to emergency preparedness, response, resilience and recovery programming.
• Maintain strategic coordination and collaboration with UN agencies, NGOs, donors, regional organizations and other stakeholders to strengthen preparedness, humanitarian response and recovery efforts across the region.
• Represent UNICEF in humanitarian coordination forums, regional working groups, inter-agency mechanisms and strategic discussions related to emergency preparedness, response, access, localization and recovery.
• Keep Regional Management informed of key humanitarian developments, risks, opportunities and policy discussions.
• Support the planning and facilitation of Regional Crisis Management Team (RCMT), Emergency Technical Team (ETT), Task Forces and other emergency coordination mechanisms, including preparation of briefing materials, action trackers and follow-up actions.

Requirements

• Advanced University degree in one of the following fields: social sciences, public administration, law, public health, nutrition, international relations, business administration or other related disciplines. Preferably a combination of management, administration, and relevant technical fields.
• Minimum eight years of progressively responsible professional work experience at the national and international levels in programme/project development, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and administration.
• Skills in capacity building, resource mobilization, risk analysis, information management, humanitarian coordination.
• Fluency in English and French is required.
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, Russian or Spanish) or a local language is desirable.
• Developing country experience is desirable.
• Emergency response management training is desirable.
• Surge deployment experience is desirable.
• Emergency preparedness experience is desirable.
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts.
• Specialized training/experience in emergency response management is highly desirable.

Skills

• Program Development
• Project Planning
• Project Implementation
• Project Monitoring
• Project Evaluation
• Project Administration
• Capacity Building
• Resource Mobilization
• Risk Analysis
• Information Management
• Humanitarian Coordination
• Emergency Response
• Emergency Preparedness
• Surge Deployment
• Humanitarian Access
• Localization
• Child Rights in Emergencies

Languages

English, French