Social Policy Specialist (Policy and Finance)

UNICEF Caribbean Multi-Country Office (MCO) – Social Policy Specialist (Policy and Finance)

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For every child, the right to strength

UNICEF’s Caribbean Multi-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.

with each post linked to a defined strand of fiscal and social policy, shock-responsive social protection, climate/DRR, or emergencies.

How can you make a difference?

The MCO is establishing two complementary Social Policy Specialist (Policy and Finance) positions, one based in Jamaica and one in Guyana, both with a mandate to support all 12 Caribbean MCO countries at regional and national levels. The positions will provide policy advice and technical assistance to strengthen evidence-based, child-sensitive social policies, legislation, strategies, and programmes that reduce child poverty, expand inclusive social protection, and enhance resilience to shocks. They will support the social and economic situation analysis of children, offer policy options, translate evidence into policies, and strengthen institutional accountability. Alongside this policy role, the positions will strengthen public finance for children, supporting governments to mobilize, allocate and monitor sufficient, equitable, efficient, effective, transparent, and sustainable public resources for child rights and essential social services. In line with UNICEF’s Public Finance for Children approach and relevant public financial management frameworks, the posts will promote child-sensitive and climate- and shock-responsive budgeting through macro-fiscal and fiscal-space analysis; budget and expenditure analysis; programme costing and financing strategies; budget classification, tagging and tracking; performance-informed budgeting; strengthened transparency, accountability and participation, including the meaningful engagement of children and adolescents; and stronger linkages between national development plans, medium-term fiscal and expenditure frameworks, sector plans and annual budgets.

The Jamaica-based position, located at the MCO headquarters and a key CARICOM hub, will emphasize regional policy influence, public finance advocacy and engagement with CARICOM institutions, IFIs, development partners and the private sector to shape social and fiscal policies, harmonize approaches and leverage financing for children at scale. The Guyana-based position will also serve the full MCO, using close engagement with Guyana’s significant social protection and public investment reforms amid oil-driven economic transformation as a source of practical experience, evidence, and lessons for adaptation across Caribbean countries. Together, the positions will support stronger coordination across social protection and other social services, advise on domestic resource mobilization and sustainable financing for social protection and social services; identify and support access to appropriate innovative financing opportunities, including blended and climate finance where appropriate; and strengthen child-sensitive disaster risk financing by linking risk assessments, contingency financing, budget reserves, insurance and other risk-transfer instruments with shock-responsive social protection and continuity of essential services. By connecting regional policy dialogue with country implementation and cross-country learning, the posts will help ensure that social and fiscal policies and public and complementary financing are aligned with child rights, poverty reduction, resilience, and measurable results for children throughout the Caribbean.

Under the supervision of the Assistant Representative for Child Poverty Reduction and Resilience Strengthening in Barbados, the incumbent provides technical leadership and support across the 12-country MCO for the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of social policy, social protection policy and public finance for children programmes and related advocacy, from strategic planning and policy formulation through to implementation and the achievement of sustainable results. This includes strengthening: (a) evidence-based, child-sensitive public policies, legi