CEED Risk Reduction Officer

Mission and objectives

The UNICEF Office for the Eastern Caribbean Area works across 12 countries and territories: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and Turks and Caicos Islands. The Office is based in Bridgetown Barbados, without-posted personnel in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Castries, St Lucia. UNICEF works with governments and other partners to ensure that countries fulfill their commitments made in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that every child can grow and develop to reach their full potential.

Context

UNICEF Eastern Caribbean Area (ECA) has a programming focus on the climate and environment crisis and aims to ensure that vulnerable communities are reached. The UN Volunteer will provide critical support in accelerating results in UNICEF ECA's 2025 Annual Work Plan (AWP), with a key focus on youth engagement, disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate resilience.

In particular, the UN Volunteer will support Governments in the Eastern Caribbean to mainstream child- sensitive climate and DRR evidence into national and subnational policies/plans and make the implementation of those policies and plans more effective for children and youth. The UN Volunteer will contribute towards bridging the development/humanitarian nexus with a specify focus on DRR, climate and environment action, and resilience.

The UN Volunteer will therefore support UNICEF's interventions in Climate, Environment, Energy and DRR (CEED) in Small Island Developing States (SIDS), by providing critical support to strengthen community resilience and ensure greater awareness on climate action and the safe and healthy future of children in the Eastern Caribbean. Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction Children and adolescents are subject to risks of environmental, social and health impacts due to climate change (https://www.unicef.org/reports/climate-crisis-child-rights-crisis).

A systematic and rapid scale-up of climate-resilient services and investments for children, adolescents, women and other members of affected communities are urgently needed to mitigate such risks.

As part of the UNICEF Strategic Plan (2022-2025) and UNICEF Sustainability and Climate Change Action Plan (For Every Child, A Liveable Planet for Every Child) [2023-2030] three objectives have been identified for our work on climate, that are rooted in UNICEF's comparative advantages:

• PROTECT the lives, health and well-being of children and the resilience of their communities by adapting essential social services to a changing climate, more frequent disasters and a degrading environment.

• EMPOWER every child through their life course with the developmental opportunities, education and skills to be a champion for the environment.

• REDUCE the emissions and environmental footprint within UNICEF, support its global network of partners to do the same, and advocate for the fulfilment of ambitious inter- national sustainability and climate change agreements. In addition, to accelerate progress on climate resilience and adaptation, we must ensure that multiple sectors contribute to broader outcomes including through UNICEF's Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Programme Specialist (Disaster Risk Reduction & Climate Change), and in alignment with UNICEF ECA's 2025 Annual Work Plan (AWP) activities, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks, but not limited to: Climate, Energy, Environment and DRR Programming:

• Coordinate the integration of child- and youth-sensitive approaches into national climate and DRR policies, including technical contributions to revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and support NDC implementation in selected countries across the Eastern Caribbean.

• Coordinate UNICEF ECA's work on climate finance pathways, including the development of a UNICEF-branded Climate Finance Mapping toolkit to support governments in identifying and accessing child-sensitive financing opportunities (e.g., Green Climate Fund, Adaptation Fund etc.).

• Coordinate a regional climate trends and socio-economic impact study, focused on identifying data gaps, costed interventions, and national investment readiness to inform future resource mobilization and programming strategies for NDC implementation.

• Strengthen the linkages between climate risk and social protection systems, including support for interministerial dialogues in the Eastern Caribbean.

• Facilitate the finalization and national application of the Children's Climate Risk Index and Disaster Risk Model (CCRI—DRM) (Version 1.2) in Saint Kitts and Nevis, ensuring technical validation, cross-sector engagement, and integration into national and sub-national planning.

• Facilitate ongoing collaboration with Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) to integrate CCRI—DRM into the Caribbean Community Risk Information Tool (CCRIT), embedding a child-focused lens into community risk assessments and supporting the implementation in at least two (2) ECA countries.

• Provide technical support to climate-resilient school infrastructure and planning under the Caribbean Safe School Initiative (CSSI), including risk mapping, education sector capacity-building, and promotion of green school practices.

• Coordinate UNICEF's engagement on youth climate participation, including support to COP30, the rollout of Youth Engagement Climate Strategies (YESCA), facilitation of simulation-based workshops and conferences (e.g., “Youth at the Table"), and oversight of digital platforms (U-Report, Climate Fundoo, Green YOMA).

• Contribute to flagship and pilot programmes such as Green Rising, Joint-SDG Fund Projects, climate-resilient WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) and education infrastructure, and the EU-CARES rollout across the ECA region.

• Contribute to reporting on 2022-2025 Strategic Plan and support the strategic planning for UNICEF ECA's 2026—2029 programme cycle, ensuring the integration of climate and resilience across priority sectors and country planning documents.