Education Specialist (Emergencies), P-4, TA, 364 Days
Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a UNICEF Hosted Fund, is looking for an experienced Education Specialist (Emergencies) to join its Programme Delivery and Quality Team in Geneva, Switzerland. Supporting the Chief of Education, the postholder will oversee ECW's portfolio of country investments and ensure alignment with ECW's strategic approach, programme priorities, and standardised programme delivery and quality assurance approaches. The role ensures effective design, implementation, monitoring, and strategic oversight of ECW's country-level investments, promoting coherence across country portfolios, governance processes, and technical operations, and contributes to ECW's mission to deliver quality education in emergencies and protracted crises.
Key functions and accountabilities:
- Portfolio oversight and strategic alignment
- Portfolio management, programme design and coherence
- Lead on the Quality Assurance framework and process
- Country engagement and programme monitoring for quality learning
- Governance and coordination at programme level
- External representation, sector leadership and partnerships
Minimum requirements:
- Education: Master's or equivalent (advanced university degree) in Education, International Development, or a related field.
- Work experience: Minimum eight (8) years of education in emergencies (EiE)/protracted crisis experience with significant field-based programme management and monitoring and evaluation experience; experience managing donor-funded multi-country EiE portfolios and grant management cycles; experience across several ECW-supported contexts, specifically East Africa and/or the Middle East; experience with global education coordination platforms and policy engagement; knowledge of ECW funding modalities, partnership architecture and governance processes.
- Skills: strong communication, negotiation and stakeholder engagement; leadership and change management; Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL); external representation and advocacy; cross-sectoral collaboration; experience in complex humanitarian and crisis-affected contexts.
- Language: Fluency in English is required.
Desirable: Professional working proficiency in Arabic and/or French; knowledge of another official UN language (Chinese, Russian, Spanish) or a local language; experience in MEAL systems and programme quality assurance; change management experience; stakeholder representation with governments, donors, UN agencies and global education platforms; education programme leadership in humanitarian and development contexts; inter-agency coordination and multi-stakeholder partnerships.
Contract type: Temporary Appointment (364 days). Advertised 02 Oct 2026.
Deadline: 16 Oct 2026 W. Europe Daylight Time
HOW TO APPLY:
Apply online via the UNICEF careers portal (PageUp): https://secure.dc7.pageuppeople.com/apply/671/gateway/default.aspx?c=apply&lJobID=596072&lJobSourceTypeID=796&sLanguage=en-us