Social Policy Specialist (Shock-Responsive Social Protection) - Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago

About the role

The UNICEF Caribbean Multi-Country Office (MCO) is recruiting two Social Policy Specialists (Shock-Responsive Social Protection) under a fixed-term appointment, one based in Barbados and one in Trinidad and Tobago. The MCO covers twelve English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean countries and strengthens inclusive, shock-responsive social protection systems that protect children and households before, during and after crises. The Barbados post reports to the Assistant Representative for Child Poverty Reduction and Resilience Strengthening.

Key responsibilities

• Provide technical support to the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of shock-responsive social protection policy and programming, from strategic planning to delivery of results.
• Support public policies that reduce child poverty and vulnerability to shocks, and improve the coverage, responsiveness and impact of social protection systems on children.
• Support the transparency, adequacy, equity and efficiency of public investments and financial management for shock-responsive social protection.
• Support governance, decentralization and accountability measures that increase public participation and the quality, equity and resilience of social services.
• Work directly with governments and civil society partners, and support teams on education, health, child protection, water and sanitation, HIV, climate change, disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness.
• Support the development of social protection floors and scalable models such as Cash Plus programmes, and strengthen social registries, beneficiary identification and payment systems.