Social Policy Specialist (Khartoum) – UNICEF

Job Description

Job no	591792
Contract type	Fixed Term Appointment
Location	Sudan
Level	NO-3
Categories	Social Policy
Advertised	07 Apr 2026 E. Africa Standard Time
Deadline	16 Apr 2026 E. Africa Standard Time

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 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, passionate culture, along with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, the right to Safety

For 70 years, since 1952, UNICEF has championed the promotion and protection of child rights in Sudan, registering enormous results and changing lives, especially for the most vulnerable children.

Through the systems strengthening approach, UNICEF is working with partners to ensure more children are reached with lifesaving health services, including immunization; more children are enrolling and attending school and fewer children and young people are affected by violence and abuse. 

With increased challenges – from COVID-19 to climate change and political instability – UNICEF strives to reach at-risk children with lifesaving assistance to help them survive and thrive.

How can you make a difference? 

Reporting to the Chief of Social Policy, the Social Policy Specialist (Public Finance for Children) is responsible for providing technical support to the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of all stages of social policy programming and related advocacy from strategic planning and formulation to delivery of concrete and sustainable results. This includes programmes aimed at improving (a) public policies to reduce child poverty; (b) social protection coverage and impact on children; (c) the transparency, adequacy, equity and efficiency of child-focused public investments and financial management; and (d) governance, decentralization and accountability measures to increase public participation and the quality, equity and coverage of social services. This encompasses both direct programme work with government and civil society partners as well as linkages and support to teams working on education, health, child protection, water and sanitation, and social protection.

This position will have a particular focus on public finance for children and undertakes public budget and expenditure analysis to inform UNICEF’s advocacy and technical assistance to Ministries of Finance, planning commissions and social sector ministries to improve equitable allocations for essential services for children, This position is also responsible for building partners’ capacity for improved monitoring and tracking of public expenditure to support transparency, accountability and effective financial flows for essential service delivery, including health, nutrition, WASH, child protection and social protection.

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description  JD Social Policy Specialist Level 3 updatedMay2025.doc

Key functions/accountabilities:

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

1. Improving data on child poverty & vulnerability for increased use for policy and programme action

• Supports the collection, analysis and user-friendly presentation of data on multidimensional and monetary child poverty, including strengthening national capacity to collect routinely, report and use data for policy decision-making.
• Provides timely, regular data-driven analysis for effective prioritization, planning, and development; facilitates results-based management for planning, adjusting, and scaling-up specific social policy initiatives to reduce child poverty.
• Analyzes the macroeconomic context and its impact on social development, emerging issues and social policy concerns, as well as implications for children, and proposes and promotes appropriate responses in respect of such issues and concerns, including government resource allocation policies and the effects of social welfare policies on the rights of children

2. Strengthening social protection coverage and impact for children

• Supports the development of social protection policies, legislation and programmes with attention to increasing coverage of and impact on children, with special attention the most marginalized. Identifies, generates and presents evidence to support this goal in collaboration with partners.
• Promotes strengthening of integrated social protection systems, providing technical support to partners to improve the design of cash transfers and child grants and improve linkages with other social protection interventions such as health insurance, public works and social care services as well as complementary services and intervention related to nutrition, health, education, water and sanitation, child protection and HIV.
• Undertakes improved monitoring and research around social protection impact on child outcomes, and use of data and research findings for strengthening programme results.

3. Improving use of public financial resources for children

• Undertakes budget analysis to inform UNICEF’s advocacy and technical assistance to Ministries of Finance, planning commissions and social sector ministries to improve equitable allocations for essential services for children. Works with sector colleagues to build capacity to undertake costing and co