Health Specialist Adolescent Health Vacancy-Job Ref: JKKEUNICEF/2010/202639

Health Specialist Adolescent Health Vacancy-Job Ref: JKKEUNICEF/2010/202639

Nairobi (Kenya)

Job Description
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 Opportunity

The Global Programme Division (GPD) plays a central role in driving programme excellence across UNICEF by providing strategic leadership, policy direction, technical expertise, and evidence-based solutions that advance results for children globally. Within GPD, the Centres of Excellence (CoEs) provide high-quality, demand-driven technical assistance to Country and Regional Offices, governments, and partners, linking global policy with country implementation and delivering support across policy reform, institutional strengthening, workforce development, and resilient programme delivery.

As part of the Child and Adolescent Health Unit in the Nairobi-based Centre of Excellence, this position contributes to UNICEF’s efforts to strengthen adolescent health and well-being worldwide. Guided by UNICEF’s Strategic Plan 2026-2029, the role supports countries in addressing persistent health challenges, including inequitable access to quality services, fragile health systems, workforce shortages, and the growing impact of humanitarian crises and climate-related shocks. Working across global, regional and country levels, the incumbent helps advance adolescent-responsive health systems and services through policy reform, institutional capacity strengthening, evidence generation, quality improvement, and multisectoral programming that promotes sustainable and equitable outcomes for adolescents

How can you make a difference?

As Health Specialist (Adolescent Health), you will provide strategic leadership, technical expertise, and programmatic guidance to advance adolescent health and well-being as a core component of UNICEF’s global health agenda. Working closely with governments, development partners, UNICEF Regional Offices and Country Offices, you will support the design, implementation, monitoring and scale-up of evidence-based programmes that strengthen adolescent-responsive health systems and services.

You will contribute to the development of global frameworks, technical guidance, quality standards and programmatic tools, while promoting integrated and multisectoral approaches across adolescent health priorities, including sexual and reproductive health, mental health and psychosocial well-being, substance use prevention, and the prevention and management of communicable and non-communicable diseases

Join UNICEF’s Global Programme Division and help shape the global agenda for adolescent health and well-being. As a Health Specialist (Adolescent Health), you will provide strategic leadership, technical expertise and programmatic guidance to strengthen adolescent-responsive health systems and services across countries. Working with governments, development partners, UNICEF Regional and Country Offices, you will support the development, implementation and scale-up of evidence-based programmes that advance equitable and sustainable outcomes for adolescents.

Key areas of responsibility include:

Capacity Development & Institutional Strengthening
Quality Improvement at Scale
Policy Reform & Systems Transformation
Evidence, Data & Knowledge for Action
Equitable Access
Programme Management & Results Monitoring
Strategic Partnerships, Resource Mobilization and Grant Management
Global Advocacy, Knowledge Leadership and Cross-Sectoral Collaboration
Through this role, you will help strengthen national policies and service delivery platforms, support global guidance and quality standards, foster innovation and learning across countries, and contribute to UNICEF’s leadership in advancing adolescent health and well-being worldwide.

To qualify an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum requirements:

Education: An advanced university degree in public health, global health, adolescent health, health systems and services, epidemiology, health policy and management, medicine
Work Experience: A minimum of eight (8) years of progressively responsible professional experience in adolescent health, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (MNCAH), health systems strengthening, primary health care, public health, or related fields is required.

Skills:
strategic thinking
ability to develop and operationalize frameworks and guidance
strong partnership-building and coordination skills across sectors and institutions
communication skills for advocacy, technical writing, and presentation
Language Requirements: Knowledge of English language at a Proficient level is required.

Desirables:

Language: Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language.
Demonstrated experience in the design, implementation, management and monitoring of adolescent health programmes, including one or more of the following areas:
Sexual and reproductive health,
mental health and psychosocial support,
school health,
communicable/non-communicable diseases,
substance use prevention.

Proven experience providing technical and strategic support to governments, UN agencies, development partners and country programmes, including policy development, programme planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and knowledge generation.
Demonstrated experience supporting health systems strengthening and service delivery across primary health care, school, community and digital platforms.
Demonstrated experience managing multi-country grants, programme budgets and donor-funded initiatives, including strategic planning, resource allocation, financial oversight, performance monitoring, donor reporting and partnership management.
Experience supervising professional staff, consultants and/or multidisciplinary teams.
Experience supporting programmes in low- and middle-income countries, including humanitarian and fragile settings.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF’s Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter: UNICEF Values

UNICEF competencies required for this post are…

(1) Builds and maintains partnerships
(2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
(3) Drive to achieve results for impact
(4) Innovates and embraces change
(5) Manages ambiguity and complexity
(6) Thinks and acts strategically
(7) Works collaboratively with others
(8) Nurtures, leads and manages people

Familiarize yourself with our competency framework and its different levels.

Please click on the button below to Apply.