Mission and objectivesUNICEF has a mandate to uphold the rights of all children. We work to ensure every child is protected, healthy and educated, focusing on the children left behind by wider economic and social progress.
ContextEurope and Central Asia has surpassed global progress on child mortality, more than halving the deaths of children under five and infants since 1990. And as progress for the poorest households has accelerated, the health gap between the richest and poorest has narrowed. However, persistent inequities reflect a continued failure to invest effectively in child-centred health systems for all. Problems missed at an early age can be far more difficult and expensive to address later in life. Across the region, more than half of the children who die before their fifth birthday die in their first month of life, often due to conditions that are readily preventable or treatable at low cost through, for example, access to good obstetric, ante-natal and post-natal care, routine immunization and exclusive breastfeeding. The impact of emergencies on children's health and nutrition can be extreme. Children on the move, such as those caught in Europeโs refugee and migrant crisis, for example, often lack adequate clothing, food, shelter or warmth. Access to health services, including immunization, has often been inadequate on their journey, coupled with a lack of safe water and sanitation, heightening their vulnerability. The region is also experiencing vaccine โhesitancyโ often fueled by misinformation, which puts children at risk of contracting, and even dying from, infectious diseases, including polio and measles. UNICEF addresses the misinformation while supporting governments in strengthening routine immunization. UNICEF draws on robust evidence and its own experience to achieve concrete action for the health and nutrition of children across the region. We demonstrate that investing in the early years is one of the smartest investments a country can make to break the cycle of poverty, address inequality, boost productivity, and reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases and poor mental health. We are seeking a volunteer to support the UNICEF ECAR Health team to enhance available evidence on the status of child health and on the provision of essential services to children in the region and to improve internal and external communications and partnerships and, by extension, the visibility of the health and nutrition work in the Europe and Central Asia region. This task will entail different aspects of knowledge management, advocacy and communications to help translate complex subjects into digestible and impactful formats for a variety of media (e.g., print, broadcast, online) and audiences (e.g., UNICEF staff, policymakers, influencers, general public). The task supports the development of products and activities that will promote awareness and understanding of the impacts of different health initiatives on children and their families and help to deepen collaboration with stakeholders in support of resource mobilization and policy influencing. The expected key results from this assignment will include the following impacts: โข Increased understanding (internal, partners, policymakers and the general public) of the impacts of different interventions on the health and nutrition outcomes for children and their families, and of the role of health systems strengthening in delivering successfully these impacts. โข Increased visibility of UNICEF ECARโs work on health systems impacting children and their families in the ECA region.
Task DescriptionContribute to the content and design of a set of Country Profiles, and a set of best practice / success stories which use simple and practical visualization, graphics and or photos of health and nutrition related concepts, such as public finance for health, health system strengthening and levels of coverage of essential services, to be used in communication and advocacy. Solicit information and drafts from the Country Offices to review, write, and submit to the editor and the designer. Ensure that the profiles and stories are available on the internal and external websites, through collaboration with the ECARO Communications team.
Competencies and values
Living conditions and remarks