Consultancy: Senior Policy Consultant - Climate Resilience for Children - Req. #583787

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Vacancy Announcement: Consultant

Consultancy Title: Senior Policy Consultant - Climate Resilience for Children

Section/Division/Duty Station: Climate Resilience Center of Excellence, Global Programme Division, NYHQ

Duration: October 27, 2025 to December 31, 2026

Home/ Office Based: NYHQ/ Remote 

BACKGROUND

Purpose of Activity/Assignment: 

Climate change, disasters and environmental degradation threaten children’s rights and well-being, undermining progress in child survival and development. It is imperative that countries adopt climate-focused policies and financing strategies that ensure climate-resilient, low-carbon social services to help children and families adapt to increasingly severe impacts.

Aligned with UNICEF’s Strategic Plan and Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (SCAP), UNICEF advances policy to embed child rights across Paris Agreement instruments (NDCs, NAPs, sector plans) and UNFCCC guidance, linking climate policy commitments to country-level systems and risk-informed, shock-responsive services for children.

As UNICEF drives practical, measurable policy change in climate action, a senior consultant is needed to provide expert analysis and input to sustain multilateral climate policy engagement at high technical quality, under the supervision of the Global Technical Director of UNICEFs Center of Excellence (CoE) for Climate Resilience for Children. 

Scope of Work:

As a recognized climate policy expert, the senior consultant will support the Global Technical Director in the climate resilience CoE in leading UNICEF’s policy engagement, strengthening its offer and influence in shaping national to global climate frameworks, providing technical advice and guidance to the CoE, regional and Country Offices, enhancing internal and external engagement, and UNICEF’s UNFCCC and institutional partnerships on climate change policy.

Provide strategic policy leadership and technical guidance on climate-related priorities

- Provide technical guidance to integrate children and essential services in national climate instruments (NDCs, NAPs, DRR strategies), aligned with SCAP and Strategic Plan.

- Analyze UNICEF programming and evidence to inform child-responsive climate policy formulation and implementation.

- Develop policy positions, guidance and tools to support climate-focused policy engagement across sectors and levels.

- Strengthen UNICEF’s capacity to influence global climate processes, including UNFCCC negotiations.

- Advance evidence-based, cross-sectoral policy integration within UNICEF and with key partners

- Support regional and country offices via COEs to enhance policy relevance and impact, providing technical backstopping and capacity development.

- Consolidate and communicate evidence on climate policy implementation, identifying opportunities for scale.

- Facilitate knowledge exchange to enhance institutional coherence and policy-to-programme pathways.

- Support UNICEF’s UNFCCC engagement and institutional partnerships with the UNFCCC secretariat and relevant bodies.

- Contribute to UNICEF engagement in emerging global mechanisms (e.g. Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, Santiago Network), in coordination with relevant teams.

- Prepare technical briefs, submissions and materials for negotiations.

- Support coherence with other multilateral frameworks (e.g SDGs, Sendai Framework) and UNICEF’s global climate agenda. 

Terms of Reference / Deliverables

Provide strategic policy leadership and technical guidance on climate-related priorities   

- 1 x 2-page UNICEF climate change policy priorities for 2026 and 1 x internal slide de