Social & Behavior Change Specialist, (P-3), FT, #137764 Gaza, State of Palestine, MENA

About the role

Contract type: Fixed Term Appointment. Duty Station: Gaza. Level: P-3. Location: State of Palestine (SoP). 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. The State of Palestine is one of UNICEF's most complex operating environments, encompassing humanitarian response, recovery, resilience, and development programming across Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. In Gaza, children and families continue to face the effects of conflict, displacement, damaged infrastructure, constrained access to essential services, and significant protection risks. UNICEF works with government counterparts, communities, civil society organizations, UN partners, and donors to deliver lifesaving assistance, restore and strengthen essential systems, and support longer-term recovery and resilience. Operating in a highly dynamic and challenging environment, UNICEF is committed to ensuring that children and families have access to critical services, protection, and opportunities to survive, develop, and thrive.

Responsibilities

As Social & Behavior Change Specialist, you will provide strategic and technical leadership, guidance and support for the design, implementation, coordination and monitoring of evidence-based social and behaviour change strategies across UNICEF programmes in Gaza. Working in a complex humanitarian and recovery context, you will lead efforts to strengthen community engagement, risk communication, accountability to affected populations, social mobilization and behavioural insights to support programme results for children and families. Through close collaboration with programme sections, government counterparts, civil society organizations, communities, and humanitarian and development partners, you will promote meaningful participation, trusted communication and positive social and behavioural outcomes that contribute to the protection, survival, development and well-being of children and women in Gaza.

• Generate & Use Evidence: Generate and utilize research, data, and evidence to inform the design, measurement, and monitoring of SBC programs and outcomes in both development and emergency contexts and to build the evidence base for SBC.
• Design, plan and implement: Design, plan and implement SBC activities that are backed by social and behavioural evidence and strong engagement and participation mechanisms in both development and humanitarian contexts.
• Advocate & Build Partnerships: Support operationalization of SBC by advocating for SBC, mobilizing resources, coordinating across stakeholders, sectors and teams, and partnership building.
• Build Capacities: Promote continuous learning, strengthening, and scaling up in SBC for both development and humanitarian contexts through capacity building for UNICEF staff and partners.