Emergency Specialist, NOC, FT, #138493

Emergency Specialist, NOC, FT, #138493

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Contract type

• Fixed Term Appointment

Locations

Latin America and Caribbean Region

• Jamaica

Functional Area

Emergency

• Emergency

Position level

• NO-3

Emergency Specialist, NOC, FT, #138493, Kingston, Jamaica, Multi-Country Office for the Caribbean

Job no: 595263

Contract type: Fixed Term Appointment

Duty Station: Kingston

Level: NO-3

Location: Jamaica

Categories: Emergency

UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories to save children’s lives, defend their rights, and help them fulfill their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built: we offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

For every child, the right to safety

UNICEF’s Caribbean Mult-Country Office (MCO) serves twelve English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. As part of UNICEF's Future Focus Initiative, the Caribbean MCO brings together policy influence, technical expertise and strategic partnerships to advance results for children across the region through one integrated programme, one management structure and a shared pool of resources. The Multi-Country Programme 2027-2031 focuses on three shared outcomes: equitable access to primary health care, learning and skills; protection of children from all forms of violence; and child poverty reduction and resilience strengthening.

Children across the Caribbean face interconnected challenges including learning losses, mental health concerns, violence, child poverty and increasing exposure to climate-related disasters. Despite many countries being classified as upper-middle or high income, significant inequalities persist, particularly for vulnerable children, adolescents, indigenous communities and those living in remote areas. Small island developing states also face fiscal constraints and heightened vulnerability to economic and climate shocks, requiring stronger regional cooperation and system-based solutions.

The Caribbean MCO’s management strategy is governed by four principles that together translate the new business model into concrete ways of working:

• Impact-driven: technical expertise is organized in shared multi-country working groups rather than replicated in each country, with enabling functions aligned around UNICEF’s strongest comparative advantages.
• Effective and agile: parallel country ecosystems are replaced by harmonized systems and flexible cross-country staffing, keeping management lean and decisions close to implementation.
• Grounded: regional scale is balanced with national depth through country-specific workplans, Heads of Office in each duty station, and matrix management that anchors authority and accountability at country level.
• People-centered: structural and managerial choices are guided by staff wellbeing, transparency and inclusion, with clear role definitions, meaningful consultation, and continuous investment in learning and development.

The operational expression of this model is the working group model. Rather than replicating similar roles across four separate country offices, technical and operational expertise is organized into 16 thematic and functional working groups, each distributed across different duty stations and each serving the full 12-country MCO — not just its host location. Roles are designed around three organizing principles: shared regional service, meaning every specialist contributes to the wider MCO; complementary expertise, meaning team capabilities reinforce each other rather than repeating the same profile in multiple places; and agile presence, meaning the workforce can be rapidly deployed across countries through travel, surge support or remote modalities in line with evolving needs and priorities. This working group model is the foundation of a fundamentally new way of working for UNICEF in the Caribbean: depth replaces duplication, and shared capacity replaces fragmented country-by-country coverage

How can you make a difference?

The Emergency Specialist, under the supervision of the Assistant Representative in Barbados, will work in close partnership with the Area Representative, the Deputy Representative Programme Coordinator, the Chief of Operations and the People & Culture Specialist on emergency leadership, programme continuity, workforce readiness and institutional resilience, including readiness for WASH-related emergency needs. The Emergency Specialist will ensure effective coordination across programme and operations and will coordinate functional linkages with emergency focal points across locations, embedding emergencypreparedness and response within the MCO's core coordination mechanisms and strategic workstreams to support a coherent and shock-responsive approach across sectors.

In addition, the Emergency Specialist establishes and implements the multi-country office emergency preparedness and response. Responsible for the development, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the emergency interventions to ensure the survival and well-being of children and mothers, and the affected communities in an emergency situation.

Key functions, accountabilities and related duties/tasks:

• Emergency Preparedness
• Emergency Response
• Emergency Project

This position belongs to the Child Poverty Reduction and Resilience Strengthening working group. If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here: NOC Emergency Specialist Jamaica.pdf

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum requirements:

Education: Advanced University degree in one of the following fields: social sciences, public administration, international law, public health, nutrition, international relations, business administration or other related disciplines. Preferably a combination of management, administration, and relevant technical fields.

Work Experience:

• A minimum Five years of progressively responsible professional work experience at the national and international levels in programme/project development, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and administration.
• Humanitarian coordination & interagency systems expertise is highly desirable for this position.
• Field work experience.

Required Skills

• Ability to influence and build partnerships, in close coordination with diverse stakeholders across countries.

• Strong coordination skills are required for this role.

• Ability to coordinate effectively across dispersed locations while maintaining strong relationships with in-country focal points.

• Specific Technical Knowledge Required (for the job)

• UNICEF policies and strategy to address national and international emergency issues, particularly relating to conflicts, natural disasters, and recovery.

• Knowledge of global humanitarian issues, specifically relating to children and women, and the current UNCEF position and approaches.

• Knowledge of UN humanitarian reform principles, international humanitarian laws.

• Knowledge of the principle of gender parity and equality.

• Common Technical Knowledge Required (for the job group)

• The UNICEF mission statement; UNICEF Board policy papers and decisions.

• The Core Commitments for Children in Emergencies.

• The Convention on the Rights of the Child; Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women.

• EMOPS Technical Notes, EMOPS Emergency Field Book.

• UNICEF Program Manuals, policy guidelines, ExDirs, PROs; Country Programme documentation.

• UNICEF personnel, financial, supply and administrative rules, regulations and manuals.

• National development plans and policies; Guidelines and manuals from NGO/donor partners.

• Annual work plan.

• UNDAF; The UN Humanitarian Reform; IASC documents, guidelines and materials on UN Humanitarian Reform and the cluster approach.

• Information & Communications Technology literacy, including skills and knowledge of office system applications, LAN, internet navigation.