Consultant for Advocacy Capacity

If you are a committed, creative professional and are passionate about making a lasting difference for children, the world’s leading children’s rights organization would like to hear from you. For over 70 years, UNICEF has been working on the ground in 190 countries and territories to promote children’s survival, protection and development. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. UNICEF has over 12,000 staff in more than 145 countries.

Background:

Purpose of Activity  Assignment:

Since 2016, Safe Online has led efforts to combat online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (CSEA), investing overUS$100 million invested in +100 projects across +100 countries. It’s the only global investment vehicle dedicated to child online safety through evidence-based solutions, cutting-edge technologies, and cross-sectoral systems. Advocacy and Collective Action is one of Safe Online strategic goals along with Investing for Impact, Evidence and Knowledge and Measuring Change. Building on the successful mobilisation at the Global Ministerial Conference on Violence against Children in Colombia in November 2024, Safe Online is engaging with strategic partners in a new Advocacy for Financing effort to drive a global movement and secure attention and funding towards tackling online CSEA and ensuring children’s digital safety globally. 

A key activity is strengthening grantees’ advocacy capacity and fostering a culture of learning and joint action. Based on a recent capacity needs assessment, Safe Online seeks to engage a consultant to support with the design and delivery of activities aiming at strengthening grantees’ capacity on advocacy, empowering them to jointly drive the global movement for digital safety and the well-being of children. Through a practical, outcome-driven approach, grantees will gain access to tailored tools, resources, and engagement opportunities that amplify their advocacy impact. This effort will empower grantees to drive systemic, forward-looking solutions and secure financial commitments that advance digital safety and protect children from online CSEA.

The objective is to strengthen grantees’ capacity to advocate effectively for:

• Policy change, systemic solutions, and adequate financial commitments to address online CSEA in the context of other digital harms.
• Greater visibility of online CSEA and child online safety across global, regional, and national platforms and related agendas, including the financial and private sectors.
• Responsible language and data use, and increased attention to financing and innovation to address evolving digital risks with adaptive, cost-effective solutions.
• Strategic partnerships and collective action to drive advocacy impact.

Scope of Work:

The scope of work includes, but is not limited to, the following key outputs:

Advocacy capacity building framework and plan:

• Develop a comprehensive Advocacy Capacity Building Framework and Plan informed by the latest approaches and best practices considering grantees’ needs and Safe Online’s mission.
• Identify key advocacy priorities, stakeholders, and engagement strategies to enhance grantees’ advocacy effectiveness and impact.
• As relevant to the plan implementation, support with facilitating engagement of programmatic experts, key advocates, policymakers, private sector.

Tailored capacity building and skills development:

• Assist to organize and facilitate workshops, webinars, and peer-learning sessions for selected groups of grantees (e.g. new, experienced advocates) to support with identifying barriers, develop tactics and solutions, and design or improve advocacy strategies.
• Provide tailored technical support to a selected group of grantees, including methods to identify target stakeholders, advocacy messages, and entry points for influencing decisions.
• Compile an evidence-based advocacy toolkit featuring practical guidelines, instruments, and customizable resources, tailored to the diverse needs of Safe Online grantees. This would include practical resources to equip grantees with targeted strategies to advocate for financial commitments from priority funding streams. Explore options for a user-friendly, interactive, and sustainable format to enhance accessibility, engagement, and long-term usability.

Advocacy for financing:

• Support the development and implementation of the Safe Online Advocacy for Financing plan and related convenings and events as applicable – e.g. G20 South Africa Nov 2025.
• Assist to integrate advocacy for financing concepts within the grantees’ advocacy capacity building activities and resources – including the new advocacy narrative and other resources produced as part of the advocacy for financing plan.

Strengthening collective action and partnerships:

• Support to create spaces for learning, knowledge sharing and regular engagement across the portfolio of grantees, and strategic partners as relevant, to facilitate collaboration and a unified advocacy voice.
• Support the establishment of knowledge, collaborative networks around key advocacy areas of interest to the grantees including a dynamic, user-friendly knowledge-sharing tool to facilitate real-time engagement, insights exchange, and active coordination on advocacy opportunities.
• Identify, map and facilitate advocacy connections and opportunities for grantees (well-established or new advocates) to connect with key actors and align advocacy efforts.

Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning:

• Establish key indicators to measure the impact of advocacy capacity-building efforts.
• Gather feedback from grantees and adapt strategies accordingly.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/580408