Organization Mission

The core mission of UNICEF is to advocate for the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the Organization does—through its programmes, advocacy, and operations. The equity strategy, which focuses on the most disadvantaged and marginalized children and families, translates this commitment to child rights into action.

For UNICEF, equity means that all children have the opportunity to survive, thrive, and reach their full potential—without discrimination, bias, or favoritism. Whenever a child faces unequal chances in life—whether socially, politically, economically, or civically—their rights are being violated.

There is growing evidence that investing in the health, education, and protection of the most disadvantaged members of society—not only helps more children realize their potential, but also contributes to sustained growth and national stability. This is why a focus on equity is so critical.

It accelerates progress toward the realization of the human rights of all children, which is UNICEF’s universal mandate as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, while also supporting the equitable development of nations.

Context

Violence against children (VAC) is a serious violation of children’s rights, which also impacts negatively on social, economic, health and behavioural outcomes Violence against children takes many forms. It can be physical, emotional or sexual. It happens in all countries and any setting – in a child”s home, community, school and online. In some parts of the world, violent discipline is socially accepted and common. And for many girls and boys, violence comes at the hands of the people they trust – their parents or caregivers, teachers, peers and neighbours. Childhood survivors of violence are more likely to mature into adolescents and adult perpetrators and/or victims of violence, thereby perpetuating the inter-generational cycle of violence.

In Madagascar, violence against children takes many different forms, and many children face multiple forms of violence and protection risks throughout the course of their childhood. In Madagascar, 39% of women and 11% of men aged 20-24 were married or in union before the age of 18. 47% of children aged 5-17 years old are engaged in labour, including worst forms of child labour, 11.5% of girls aged 15-19 are victims of sexual violence and 86% of children aged 1-14 have already experienced violent forms of discipline.

Although some components of Madagascar”s child protection system are in place, it remains fragmented and weak. Fragmented and compartmentalised approaches to preventing and responding to violence adopted by different actors have meant that many children have fallen through the cracks of the system. Many partners contribute to the availability of services but use different approaches and tools. Although some standards and tools developed by the government are available, they are not implemented, applied or widely known. It is therefore necessary to continue the shift from a issue-based approach to a systems strengthening approach in order to support government to define, establish and strengthen a comprehensive child protection system at national and sub-national levels that protects children from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, linking with justice, police, health, education and other sectors.

UNICEF Madagascar’s country programme cycle started in 2024 until 2028. The child protection outcome of the country programme focuses on defining, putting in place and strengthening a comprehensive and functional national and sub-national child protection system that prevents violence against children including gender-based violence and delivers quality and equitable response services to survivors and victims. As part of its Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, UNICEF continues to provide critical life-saving child protection services to emergency affected children in Madagascar to ensure their protection from all forms of violence.

Key Responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of Child Protection Specialist, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

1. Support the child protection programme development and planning, specifically in the area of child protection prevention service provision.
• Contribute to the situation analysis around violence against children for the development, design and management of programme activities related to mainstreaming prevention service provision.
• Support the programme sections in implementing child protection risk mitigation and prevention interventions across UNICEF’s core programmatic programmes in nutrition, health, WASH and social protection
• Contribute to the development of UNICEF Madagascar’s child protection preven-tion intervention goals, objectives, strategies, and planning through research, analysis and reporting of child protection, specifically on prevention of all forms of VAC and including the needs of children effected by emergencies, including droughts, floods and cyclones.
• Assist in technical and operational support by executing a variety of technical, pro-gramme, operational, and administrative transactions, preparing related materials and documentations, to support programme planning and monitoring and evaluating of results.
• Support the programme documentations, materials and data to facilitate the programme review for child protection regularly.
2. Programme management, monitoring and delivery of results on child protection prevention against programme targets and indicators.
• Work closely and collaboratively with colleagues and partners to discuss implementation issues, provide solutions, recommendations. Keep records of reports and assessments on violence against children for easy reference and to capture and institutionalize lessons learned around prevention of all forms of violence.
• Participate in monitoring and evaluation exercises, programme reviews and sectoral reviews with partners to assess programmes on child protection, and to report on required action/interventions at the higher level of programme management.
• Support in the monitoring and reporting on the use of child protection prevention programme resources, verifying compliance with approved allocations, organizational rules, regulations, procedures and donor commitments.
• Assist in the preparation of regular and mandated sectoral programme reports for management, donors and partners to keep them informed of child protection pre-vention programme interventions.

3. Technical and operational support for the implementation of the child protection programme, focused on child protection systems strengthening through strengthening the prevention component by integrating prevention of VAC component into all sector programming and implementation both in development and humanitarian contexts.
• Participate in regular programme field visits and surveys and exchange information with partners/stakeholders to assess progress and provide technical support. Con-tribute to ideas to resolve issues and/or refer to relevant officials for resolution. Re-port on critical issues, bottlenecks and potential problems for timely action to achieve results.

4. Networking and partnership building for prevention of violence against children
• Assist in building and sustaining effective close working partnerships with government counterparts and national stakeholders through active sharing of information and knowledge to facilitate programme implementation and build to achieve and sustain results on child protection in the area of prevention service provision.
• Research information on potential donors and prepare resource mobilization materials and briefs for fundraising and partnership development purposes in the area of child protection system strengthening, including specifically child protection pre-vention service provision.
• Draft communication and information materials for UNICEF Madagascar Country Office programme advocacy to promote awareness, establish partnership/alliances and support fundraising for child protection programmes.

5. Innovation, knowledge management and capacity building for child protection
• Identify, capture, synthesize, and share lessons learned for knowledge development and to build the capacity of stakeholders on child protection and prevention of violence.
• Apply innovative approaches and promote good practices to support the implementation and delivery of concrete and sustainable programme results to prevent violence against children.
• Research and report on best practices for development planning of knowledge products and systems on child protection system strengthening including in the area of prevention service provision, in development and humanitarian contexts.
• Participate as a resource person in capacity building initiatives to enhance the competencies of UNICEF Madagascar partners on child protection.

Required Skills and Experience

Demonstrated interest or experience in:
• Child protection and prevention of violence against children, including gender-based violence
• Social development planning and management in child protection related areas
• Prevention of all forms of violence against children, gender-based violence and child marriage
• Implementing evidence-based social and behaviour change approaches and/or inte-gration of protection prevention and risk mitigation across other social sectors is (con-sidered as an advantage).
• Programme development in child protection related areas in a UN system agency or organization (considered as an asset).
• Experience in a development or humanitarian contexts (an added advantage).
Experience working in a developing country is considered as an asset.

Core Competencies

Accountability,
Adaptability and Flexibility,
Commitment and Motivation,
Commitment to Continuours Learning,
Communication,
Empowering Others,
Ethics and Values,
Integrity,
Judgement and Decision-making,
Planning and Organizing,
Professionalism,
Respect for Diversity,
Working in Teams.

Living Conditions

The Child Protection Officer will be based in Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar that is located at nearly 1,300 metres above sea level with a pleasant climate, moderately humid and with temperatures that range between 15 and 30 degrees Celsius. It is a family duty station that presents relatively good living conditions, and with most of the economic and social amenities also available at very affordable cost. Most commodities are available in a range of big supermarkets and a wide variety of local markets that offer plenty of available fresh food stuffs of all kinds, and there are many restaurants for every taste and pocket in Antananarivo. There are different telecommunication systems (mobile telephone networks), easy access to internet and modern banking facilities. However, as a developing country, Madagascar has developing infrastructure with common challenges like power cuts and water rationing. The UNICEF Office is located within the UN compound which is shared with the Resident Coordinator Office, UNDP, UNFPA, WHO, ILO, UNOP, IOM, UN Clinic and UNDSS.

Link to calculate allowances and benefits: https//app.unv.org.calculator
Link to consult the conditions of service for United Nations Volunteers : https://app.unv.org/explore