Health Specialist - Adolescent Health, P-4

Health Specialist - Adolescent Health, P-4, Fixed Term Position, #00133499, Global Programme Division, Health-MNCAH, Nairobi - Kenya COE.

UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund

Nairobi

International

P-4, International Professional - Internationally recruited position level

Speaks Chinese, Arabic, English, French, Russian, Spanish

Application deadline: November 17, 2026 (27 days)

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Summary by Impactpool

Join UNICEF's Global Programme Division as a Health Specialist (Adolescent Health) to advance adolescent health and well-being worldwide. You will provide strategic leadership and technical expertise to strengthen health systems and services, influence global policy, and support countries in designing evidence-based programmes. Collaborating with governments and partners, you will drive innovation and resource mobilization to improve equitable access to quality health services for adolescents. This role is pivotal in shaping the global agenda for adolescent health and ensuring sustainable outcomes.

Candidate Requirements:

Advanced degree in public health or related field

Minimum 8 years of experience in adolescent health or related fields

Strategic thinking skills

Strong partnership-building skills

Communication skills for advocacy and technical writing

Proficient in English

Experience in managing adolescent health programmes

Experience in health systems strengthening

Experience in managing multi-country grants

Join UNICEF's Global Programme Division as a Health Specialist (Adolescent Health) and play a pivotal role in advancing adolescent health and well-being worldwide. Based in Nairobi within UNICEF's Centre of Excellence, you will provide strategic leadership and technical expertise to strengthen adolescent-responsive health systems and services, influence global policy and guidance, and support countries in designing and scaling evidence-based programmes. Working closely with governments, development partners, UNICEF Regional and Country Offices, you will drive innovation, capacity development, knowledge generation, partnerships, and resource mobilization to improve equitable access to quality health services for adolescents and contribute to sustainable results at global, regional and country levels.

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. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled 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 Opportunity

The Global Programme Division (GPD) plays a central role in driving programme excellence across UNICEF by providing strategic leadership, policy direction, technical expertise, and evidence-based solutions that advance results for children globally. Within GPD, the Centres of Excellence (CoEs) provide high-quality, demand-driven technical assistance to Country and Regional Offices, governments, and partners, linking global policy with country implementation and delivering support across policy reform, institutional strengthening, workforce development, and resilient programme delivery.

As part of the Child and Adolescent Health Unit in the Nairobi-based Centre of Excellence, this position contributes to UNICEF's efforts to strengthen adolescent health and well-being worldwide. Guided by UNICEF's Strategic Plan 2026-2029, the role supports countries in addressing persistent health challenges, including inequitable access to quality services, fragile health systems, workforce shortages, and the growing impact of humanitarian crises and climate-related shocks. Working across global, regional and country levels, the incumbent helps advance adolescent-responsive health systems and services through policy reform, institutional capacity strengthening, evidence generation, quality improvement, and multisectoral programming that promotes sustainable and equitable outcomes for adolescents

How can you make a difference?

As Health Specialist (Adolescent Health), you will provide strategic leadership, technical expertise, and programmatic guidance to advance adolescent health and well-being as a core component of UNICEF's global health agenda. Working closely with governments, development partners, UNICEF Regional Offices and Country Offices, you will support the design, implementation, monitoring and scale-up of evidence-based programmes that strengthen adolescent-responsive health systems and services.

You will contribute to the development of global frameworks, technical guidance, quality standards and programmatic tools, while promoting integrated and multisectoral approaches across adolescent health priorities, including sexual and reproductive health, mental health and psychosocial well-being, substance use prevention, and the prevention and management of communicable and non-communicable diseases

Join UNICEF's Global Programme Division and help shape the global agenda for adolescent health and well-being. As a Health Specialist (Adolescent Health), you will provide strategic leadership, technical expertise and programmatic guidance to strengthen adolescent-responsive health systems and services across countries. Working with governments, development partners, UNICEF Regional and Country Offices, you will support the development, implementation and scale-up of evidence-based programmes that advance equitable and sustainable outcomes for adolescents.

Key areas of responsibility include:

Capacity Development & Institutional Strengthening

Quality Improvement at Scale

Policy Reform & Systems Transformation

Evidence, Data & Knowledge for Action

Equitable Access

Programme Management & Results Monitoring

Strategic Partnerships, Resource Mobilization and Grant Management

Global Advocacy, Knowledge Leadership and Cross-Sectoral Collaboration

Through this role, you will help strengthen national policies and service delivery platforms, support global guidance and quality standards, foster innovation and learning across countries, and contribute to UNICEF's leadership in advancing adolescent health and well-being worldwide.

If you would like to know more about this position, please review the complete Job Description here:

Classified Job Descriptions - Health Specialist_Adolescent Health (Revised)_00133499 (1).pdf

To qualify an advocate for every child you will have…

Minimum requirements:

Education:

An advanced university degree in public health, global health, adolescent health, health systems and services, epidemiology, health policy and management, medicine

Experience

A minimum of eight (8) years of progressively responsible professional experience in adolescent health, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (MNCAH), health systems strengthening, primary health care, public health, or related fields is required.

Knowledge and Skills

• strategic thinking
• ability to develop and operationalize frameworks and guidance
• strong partnership-building and coordination skills across sectors and institutions
• communication skills for advocacy, technical writing, and presentation
• Language Requirements:
• Knowledge of English language at a Proficient level is required.
• Desirables:
• Language:
• Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) or a local language.
• Demonstrated experience in the design, implementation, management and monitoring of adolescent health programmes, including one or more of the following areas:
• Sexual and reproductive health,
• mental health and psychosocial support,
• school health,
• communicable/non-communicable diseases,
• substance use prevention.
• Proven experience providing technical and strategic support to governments, UN agencies, development partners and country programmes, including policy development, programme planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and knowledge generation.
• Demonstrated experience supporting health systems strengthening and service delivery across primary health care, school, community and digital platforms.
• Demonstrated experience managing multi-country grants, programme budgets and donor-funded initiatives, including strategic planning, resource allocation, financial oversight, performance monitoring, donor reporting and partnership management.
• Experience supervising professional staff, consultants and/or multidisciplinary teams.
• Experience supporting programmes in low- and middle-income countries, including humanitarian and fragile settings.
• For every Child, you demonstrate...
• UNICEF's Core Values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust and Accountability and Sustainability (CRITAS) underpin everything we do and how we do it. Get acquainted with Our Values Charter:
• UNICEF Values
• UNICEF competencies required for this post are…
• (1) Builds and maintains partnerships
• (2) Demonstrates self-awareness and ethical awareness
• (3) Drive to achieve results for impact
• (4) Innovates and embraces change
• (5) Manages ambiguity and complexity
• (6) Thinks and acts strategically
• (7) Works collaboratively with others
• (8) Nurtures, leads and manages people
• Familiarize yourself with
• our competency framework
• and its different levels.
• UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does and is mandated to support the realization of the rights of every child, including those most disadvantaged, and our global workforce must reflect the diversity of those children. The UNICEF family is committed to include everyone, irrespective of their race/ethnicity, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, socio-economic background, minority, or any other status.
• UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence. We offer a wide range of benefits to our staff, including paid parental leave, breastfeeding breaks and reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities. UNICEF provides reasonable accommodation throughout the recruitment process. If you require any accommodation, please submit your request through the accessibility email button on the UNICEF Careers webpage
• Accessibility | UNICEF
• . Should you be shortlisted, please get in touch with the recruiter directly to share further details, enabling us to make the necessary arrangements in advance.
• UNICEF does not hire candidates who are married to children (persons under 18). UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, fraud, corruption and other forms of serious misconduct.UNICEF is committed to promoting the protection and safeguarding of all children. All selected candidates will undergo rigorous reference, safeguarding and background verification checks. These checks may include verification of academic credentials and employment history, screening against relevant United Nations misconduct databases, and requests for misconduct disclosures from current and former employers, professional associations, other relevant organizations and participating organizations under inter-agency safeguarding initiatives, including the Misconduct Disclosure Scheme (MDS), where applicable.Appointment, selection and continued engagement are subject to the satisfactory completion of all required checks. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information and consent to enable UNICEF to undertake these checks.Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check, and selected candidates with disabilities may be requested to submit supporting documentation in relation to their disability confidentially.
• UNICEF appointments are subject to medical clearance. Issuance of a visa by the host country of the duty station is required for IP positions and will be facilitated by UNICEF. Appointments are conditional on the selected candidates willingness to comply with current or future vaccination requirements, should UNICEF mandate it for personnel. Failure to comply with such requirements, where applicable and without a duly approved medical exemption from the relevant UN authority, will result in the cancellation of the selection or may lead to other administrative measures, including separation from service.
• Remarks:
• As per Article 101, paragraph 3, of the Charter of the United Nations, the paramount consideration in the employment of the staff is the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity.
• UNICEF is committed to fostering an inclusive, representative, and welcoming workforce. For this position, eligible and suitable candidates are encouraged to apply.
• Government employees who are considered for employment with UNICEF are normally required to resign from their government positions before taking up an assignment with UNICEF. UNICEF reserves the right to withdraw an offer of appointment, without compensation, if a visa or medical clearance is not obtained, or necessary inoculation requirements are not met, within a reasonable period for any reason.
• UNICEF does not charge a processing fee at any stage of its recruitment, selection, and hiring processes (i.e., application stage, interview stage, validation stage, or appointment and training). UNICEF will not ask for applicants' bank account information.
• In this role, you will collaborate with colleagues across multiple locations. For effective collaboration, we encourage flexible working hours that accommodate different time zones while prioritizing staff wellbeing.
• Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.
• Humanitarian action is a cross-cutting priority within UNICEF's Strategic Plan. UNICEF is committed to stay and deliver in humanitarian contexts. Therefore, all staff, at all levels across all functional areas, can be called upon to be deployed to support humanitarian response, contributing to both strengthening resilience of communities and capacity of national authorities.
• All UNICEF positions are advertised, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. An internal candidate performing at the level of the post in the relevant functional area, or an internal/external candidate in the corresponding Talent Group, may be selected, if suitable for the post, without assessment of other candidates.
• Additional information about working for UNICEF can be found
• here
• .
• At Impactpool we do our best to provide you the most accurate info, but closing dates may be wrong on our site. Please check on the recruiting organization's page for the exact info. Candidates are responsible for complying with deadlines and are encouraged to submit applications well ahead.
• Before applying, please make sure that you have read the requirements for the position and that you qualify. Applications from non-qualifying applicants will most likely be discarded by the recruiting manager.
• Summary by Impactpool
• Join UNICEF's Global Programme Division as a Health Specialist (Adolescent Health) to advance adolescent health and well-being worldwide. You will provide strategic leadership and technical expertise to strengthen health systems and services, influence global policy, and support countries in designing evidence-based programmes. Collaborating with governments and partners, you will drive innovation and resource mobilization to improve equitable access to quality health services for adolescents. This role is pivotal in shaping the global agenda for adolescent health and ensuring sustainable outcomes.
• Candidate Requirements:
• Advanced degree in public health or related field
• Minimum 8 years of experience in adolescent health or related fields
• Strategic thinking skills
• Strong partnership-building skills
• Communication skills for advocacy and technical writing
• Proficient in English
• Experience in managing adolescent health programmes
• Experience in health systems strengthening
• Experience in managing multi-country grants
• Fellowship
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• Health Specialist - Adolescent Health, P-4, Fixed Term Position, #00133499, Global Programme Division, Health-MNCAH, Nairobi - Kenya COE.
• UNICEF - United Nations Children’s Fund
• Nairobi
• International
• P-4, International Professional - Internationally recruited position level
• Speaks Chinese, Arabic, English, French, Russian, Spanish
• Apply