Emergency Specialist (Preparedness), P-3, Office of Emergency Programmes (EMOPS) Istanbul, Türkiye, #130994, [Temporary Appointment, 364 days]

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.

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For every child, Protection

As Emergencies become more frequent, expectations for UNICEF to deliver on the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Actions (CCCs) in a timely and effective manner increase. Emergency preparedness significantly enhances UNICEF’s ability to meet these expectations and save time and resources in the response.

In this context, the Risk Analysis and Preparedness Section (RAPS) in EMOPS provides strategic and technical leadership on emergency preparedness, risk analysis and anticipatory action; leading a change process to embed these themes more firmly throughout UNICEF and the programme planning cycle. RAPS has introduced a more systemic approach on Emergency Preparedness through an online emergency platform (EPP) that makes preparedness mandatory, supports linking humanitarian and development and risk-informed programming, and ensures that all COs, ROs, and HQ are ready to meet the Core Commitment for Children (CCCs) in an emergency.

UNICEF's Emergency Preparedness Platform (EPP) serves as the central online tool utilized by over 130 offices worldwide. Its primary role is facilitating preparedness planning and monitoring, thus fostering enhanced readiness for emergency response efforts. EPP guides UNICEF offices through a structured and standardized preparedness planning process, encompassing risk analysis, scenario definitions, and identifying necessary actions to prepare for an effective humanitarian response.

Building on the successes of previous versions, the EPP 3.0 version aims to enable more efficient and accurate preparedness planning and monitoring, improved preparedness for response, enhanced collaboration and communication among team members, greater flexibility and accessibility for users, and the ability to analyze and utilize data for quick decision making.

The Emergency Preparedness Specialist will during 60 to 50% of his/her time support EPP 3.0 platform development as Product Owner. He/she will represent RAPS and be accountable for the backlog and for the fluid liaison with ICTD and development teams on a daily/hourly basis​.

During the remaining 40 to 50% of his/her time, the Emergency Preparedness Specialist will support the work of the preparedness unit in ensuring notably the effective implementation of technical assistance related to preparedness in ROs and COs. Spearheading capacity-building initiatives for governments in priority countries, focusing on government preparedness/DRR together with Program Group and ROs will also be a priority working direction for the incumbent of the position.

How can you make a difference? 

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

 1) 60/50 % time supporting EPP 3.0 platform development as Product Owner

1. Consultations

• Continue engagement with the EPP super users in the Peer Reviewer Group (PrG): set up the PrG Teams channel; support EPP PM organizing one highly interactive working session every two months.
• Continue engagement with PG Humanitarian Action Focal Points of each sector and cross-sector thematic areas to finalize pre-identification of emergency response and preparedness activities by sector/hazard.
• Support the change management process and roll out process including communication/adoption plan operationalization, along with subsequent feedback inclusion and iteration with ICTD.

b. Technical content

• Finalize development of remaining EPP 3.0 Features (Product Backlog Items in Azure DevOps platform) with ICTD Development Team via attending daily sprint meetings with Designer and Developers.
• Validate the completion of each Product Backlog Items
• Jointly with the ICTD lead, determine the tasks to be implemented by the development team each iteration.
• CO Preparedness Scoring: Support operationalization of the drafted Preparedness scoring mock-up and related fo