To ensure that UNICEF Country Offices and the Regional Office in WCA have timely, accurate and disaggregated knowledge on the situation of children, including emerging issues, and a clear understanding on progress and ways to accelerate it towards the achievement of continental, regional and national development objectives for children (SDGs, CRC/ACRWC, national development plans, etc.).
This post is therefore critical in ensuring the timely availability of analysis needed to support the RO representation, advocacy and communication work and to increase UNICEF influence (i.e. thought leadership) on continental, regional and national decision-making processes related to children (child-related policies, budgets and strategies, etc.).
Guided by UNICEF’s 2026-2029 Strategic Plan, the Africa Strategy and its data offer, WCA’s Regional Data Strategy, as well as GOESE priority areas (Global Office of Evidence, Strategy and Effectiveness), including priority area 6 on Africa, the incumbent will work with the RO sections and all 24 Country Offices to align the regional work to GOESE 6 priority areas and deliver state-of-the-art monitoring work.

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:
• Responsible for developing a well-prioritized, resourced and integrated monitoring plan that covers all the monitoring levels (SDG, child rights, program, implementation in development and crisis contexts). This is to be developed in collaboration with GOESE, EMOPS and COEs. Responsible for ensuring the alignment of CO-level monitoring work with that monitoring plan
• Responsible for updating and adjusting this plan as needed to ensure appropriate monitoring of the situation of children (current and emerging issues, impacts of demographics on current progress, effects of shocks on the situation of children, etc). This is to be done in collaboration with GOESE, EMOPS and COEs.
• Responsible for ensuring monitoring work is effectively translated into actionable evidence that can inform decision making processes about UNICEF interventions as well as national programs, policies and budget for children. This is to be done in collaboration with advocacy, partnership and communication colleagues for greater influence on partners.
• Responsible for providing technical guidance to support national monitoring system strengthening in all sectors (CRC/ACRWC mechanism, EMIS, NIPN, DHIS2, CPMIS+, etc.). This is to be done working with COEs, EMOPS, GOESE and through continental and regional initiatives (Africa Expert Group on Child-related statistics, UN SG Power of data initiatives, etc.).

A / Provide monitoring technical support to the RO and the COs to respond to their evolving needs and foster adaptive planning.
• Lead the internal efforts to strengthen RO and CO capacity for monitoring by maximizing HQ initiatives to simplify monitoring work (automation, digitalization, stabilized set of indicators, corporate tools, etc.) and build capacity (PPPX, agora trainings, etc.)
• Integrate all levels of monitoring (humanitarian performance monitoring, child rights monitoring, implementation monitoring, program results monitoring and outcome-level/systemic change monitoring) into a strategic comprehensive and adaptive regional monitoring framework, aligned to the Global Monitoring Framework of the UNICEF Strategic Plan, and working in close collaboration with COEs, EMOPS and GOESE
• Provide technical leadership and quality assurance on program performance monitoring across WCAR, ensuring timely tracking of key indicators, coherence with HQ guidance, and integration of development and humanitarian monitoring systems. This includes the monitoring of progress on RO key recommendations and corrective actions.
• Ensure managerial oversight and enforcement of UNICEF standards related to Responsible Data for Children, Ethical Guidelines, Data Protection Policy and Data Quality Framework, including quality assurance of methods, validation of analytical outputs, and risk mitigation for the use of sensitive child related data across RO and CO monitoring and analytics work.
• Foster cross-sectoral monitoring work through the inclusion of principles and norms (child rights, SDG, Leave no-one behind, etc.) as well as cross-cutting strategies (SBC, Gender, adolescent girls, etc.) into monitoring work to produce contextualized analysis of progress (linkages between programmatic shifts and strategies with observed progress trends, cross-sectoral analysis, regional comparative analysis, identification of national or regional strategies for progress acceleration, etc.).
• Support the generation and use of analytical products (e.g., briefs, dashboards, data stories) that translate data into actionable insights for advocacy, planning, and public policy on child rights.
• Provide managerial leadership and strategic direction for the integration of advanced analytics and innovation (including predictive analytics and responsible use of AI enabled tools), guiding and ensuring relevance for early warning, adaptive planning and decision making.
• Lead RO efforts to strengthen linkages between the monitoring function and other functions such as planning, Knowledge Management, Information Management, and evaluation functions within the RO, and across countries in the WCA region.
• Promote systematic use of monitoring evidence to inform strategic planning, programmatic adjustments and policy dialogue at regional and country levels, strengthening evidence-informed decision-making across the WCA region.
• Foster knowledge sharing across countries and regions and participation actively in global communities of practice internal and external to the organization (e.g. SIGNAL, HPM, others as applicable).
• Act as the Regional Office Focal Point for all global and regional monitoring and data initiatives (UN SG High level initiative on Power of Data, inter-agency OIBC1 data, etc.)
• Serve as the Regional Office subject-matter expert for Country Office recruitments related to monitoring, statistics and data positions, providing technical input to TORs, supporting assessment processes as required, and ensuring alignment with regional standards, reform priorities and evolving skill requirements.

B / Strengthen national monitoring capacity to influence decision-making processes.
• Increase the external facing role of UNICEF monitoring function by engaging with continental, regional and national partners working in the WCA region on high level initiatives (monitoring of national plans, SDG reporting, VNR, CRC/ACRWC reporting, UN SG High level initiative on Power of Data, human capital development index, etc. ) and UNICEF ones (minimum data package, child-centric surveys, child life course index, etc.).
• Provide strategic oversight and quality assurance for regional implementation of child centric surveys (including MICS) and corporate initiatives such as the minimum data package and child life course index, ensuring alignment with GOESE priorities, clear division of labor, and effective supervision of related coordination undertaken by the Statistics and Monitoring Specialist (NOC).
• Support quality assurance and institutionalization of Situation Analyses (SitAns) across the region, ensuring alignment with national planning cycles, CRC/ACERWC reporting, and inclusive participatory approaches.
• Lead the RO efforts to increase RO and CO capacity for monitoring national outcome-level and systemic-level changes (analysis of UNCEF contribution to outcome-level results, monitoring the outcomes of child-centered policies and budgets, etc.).
• Lead the RO work to link monitoring of development programmes with humanitarian response monitoring (Nexus, resilience, etc.).
• Represent UNICEF in continental, regional and national monitoring platforms and meetings (Africa expert group on child-related statistics, UNECA, ECCA, ECOWAS, ACRWC, etc.).

C / Lead key elements of the regional Data and Analytics work, providing technical guidance to the Data and Analytics Specialist, NOC level.
• Lead full alignment of regional monitoring work with GOESE 6 priority areas of work (including priority area 6 on Africa)
• Provide end-to-end governance of regional monitoring and analytics evidence, ensuring coherence across data sourcing, harmonization, analysis, visualization and dissemination, and that outputs are fit-for-purpose for policy influence and decision-making.
• Lead regional efforts to align child-related data with SDG frameworks and CRC commitments, and to strengthen national data ecosystems by supporting NSO with digital innovation and harmonized indicators and dashboards.
• Working with Global Office of Evidence, Strategy and Effectiveness (GOESE), COEs and EMOPS, lead RO efforts to strengthen national data systems in all sectors (CRC/ACRWC mechanism, EMIS, NIPN, DHIS2, CPMIS+, etc.).
• Provide strong technical guidance for generation and use of analytical products (e.g., briefs, dashboards, data stories) that translate data into actionable insights for advocacy, planning, and public policy on child rights. This includes choice of methodology, review and validation of data and analytics work (survey design, analytical work, etc.)
• Represent WCARO in all continental, regional, and national data platforms and initiatives (Africa Expert Group on child-related statistics, UNECA, ECCAS, ECOWAS, Meetings with Director of Statistics, etc.)
• Supervise the development and updating of regional databases for SDG, CRC/ACRWC, situation and humanitarian performance monitoring.

Minimum requirements:
To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…
Education: Advanced university degree in social sciences, statistics, development or related area.

Work Experience:
• Professional technical knowledge of minimum 8 years monitoring the situation of children, including through data analysis and interpretation, use of statistical inference methods, forecasting, etc.
• Solid understanding of UNICEF sector programs, including their associated strategies, indicators, databases, etc.
• Solid knowledge of CRC, equity, gender and other child-centered indicators (methodology, interpretation, analysis, etc.) and strong familiarity with humanitarian indicators
• Solid command of statistical programming and coding with demonstrated experience with STATA, SPSS, CSPro, R, or Python for data analysis and interpretation
• Familiarity with innovative monitoring methods and tools.
• Experience in Africa or developing countries with similar challenges.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in French and English is required.

Desirables:
• Relevant experience at country level, particularly in development, fragile settings and humanitarian contexts.