Adolescent Girls Evidence and Practice Consultant, GPD, Gender Equality, 15.5 months, CoE, Nairobi, Kenya (remote), #592736 at UNICEF

Purpose of Assignment:

• The GPD Gender Equality team provides strategic leadership and guidance on UGEAP 2026-29, working closely with our network of staff to support UNICEF to deliver on its commitments in the UGEAP and Strategic Plan 2026-2029 – including targeting commitments to adolescent girls in each sectoral area and through multisectoral, at-scale programming for adolescent girls.
• The gender team oversees global initiatives including and supporting a large portfolio country programmes, under the POWER4Girls umbrella initiative, working to promote adolescent girls’ wellbeing, empowerment and leadership through multisectoral models, particularly on skills, protection and health. Our priority in 2026-2029 is to focus on scaling up and sustainable financing of the ‘best buys’ in proven policy solutions and programme solutions that advance UNICEF’s targets for tangible changes in adolescent girls’ lives .
• A key aspect of this is to be able to measure changes in adolescent girls leadership, agency and decision making more concretely.

In alignment with UNICEF’s Gender Equality Action Plan, UNICEF’s Adolescent Girls’ Programme Strategy, and UNICEF’s Strategic Plan ‘adolescent girls accelerator’ commitments, UNICEF is seeking a consultant to support the adolescent girls’ agenda. Specifically, this consultancy will focus on:

• Need and deliverable based support on research and evidence synthesis of UNICEF adolescent girls programming and research
• Identify knowledge and evidence gaps across adolescent girls priority areas to guide UNICEF research priorities
• Work with a core team on support to COs for research, evidence methodology testing, review and quality oversight
• On demand technical support to COs identified by ROs/HQ rolling out any evidence or measurement product related to adolescent girls.
• 2 working briefs on ‘what works’ on topics related to adolescent girls.
• Technical support to new workstream on adolescent boys and advice on U report poll design
• Guidance and support on any other evidence pieces related to work on gender equality in adolescence.

Minimum requirements: Qualifications/Experience/ Knowledge/Expertise/Skills

• Education:

• Advance University degree (Masters) in the social sciences (i.e. sociology, demography, psychology, political science, social policy or economics), public health, public policy, public administration, international development, or in an area relevant to UNICEF’s sectoral work (e.g. Health, Nutrition, WASH, Education, Child Protection, Social Inclusion, HIV/AIDs, etc.).
• Academic credentials in gender and/or adolescence.

• Work Experience:

• Minimum eight years of relevant professional experience and demonstrated track record of having undertaken and led substantive programming and research on gender/adolescent girls and development in key issue areas that are the focus of UNICEF’s Gender Action Plan 2026-2029.
• Experience of practice-based research
• Experience of capacity building and technical support to teams in carrying out evidence pieces

• Skills:

• Strong experience in designing research and evidence practices and rolling out surveys
• Proven experience drafting quality research outputs for different stakeholders and audiences is required.
• Experience working in a development setting, managing programmes and / or research is required.
• Demonstrated excellence in writing and verbal communication;

Language Requirements:

• Excellent English oral and written skills; proficiency in another UN language (Spanish, French or Arabic) desirable.

Desirables:

• Experience with qualitative and/or quant data collection methods and analysis techniques highly desirable.
• Relevant experience in a UN system agency or organization is considered as an asset.
• Familiarity/ background with emergency contexts is considered as an asset.
• Experience with proposal writing is considered as an asset