Mentorship Programme Consultant, Consultancy Agreement, Beirut, Lebanon

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Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, learning

UNICEF Lebanon applied the Youth Development Programme to turnaround current youth apathy and disengagement in social life and decision-making and unleash a force that will bring about positive change within their lives in Lebanon, where almost 20 per cent of the population is under the age of 24 with an estimate of 520,000 viewed as vulnerable, including Lebanese, refugees, and youth with disabilities. Women-men unemployment difference is reflected at all age levels with women experiencing double, and sometimes triple, the unemployment rates of men.  Youth unemployment continues to be the top challenge for youth from all nationalities in the. Despite high enrollment rates in formal education, labor market skills mismatch affects 50 per cent of both skilled and unskilled youth who struggle to transition out of school and find employment in the crowded labor market, the ‘’Waithood’’ can last on an average of 10 to 16 months for youth to find their first job. A large percentage of female youth do not enter the labor force or exit very early and become economically inactive.

Today, young people in Lebanon, especially the most vulnerable, have limited access to opportunities to learn skills, engage in their community and improve their chances of becoming gainfully employed. Mentorship can have profound positive effects on young people’s academic and professional performance and on their self-confidence and mental health. Therefore, mentorship goes beyond providing support to overcome personal challenges, to empowering leaders and enabling youth to take charge of their future.

Against this backdrop, UNICEF Lebanon has been focusing on the development and empowerment of adolescents and youth through multiple pathways to skills building, learning and engagement to support their positive transition to adulthood and employment. UNICEF, private sector, and the civil society are providing a cross-cutting initiative to support the Youth Programme’s overall goal of empowering economically active and resilient youth by providing marginalized youth with sources of inspiration, motivation, and guidance through mentorship.

UNICEF’s Mentorship Programme aims to inspire, empower, and guide over 50,000 youth to invest in themselves and their future, make sound personal and business decisions, and become change makers in their communities. Mentorship will provide an important layer of support to at-risk youth as they pursue vocational and entrepreneurship training and serve as a safety net as they transition to work or entrepreneurship. 

Although youth targeted through UNICEF’s programmes have varying needs depending on where they are in their academic and professional path, the benefit of mentorship is that it can be tailored to address the needs of youth wherever they are in this journey. Consequently, UNICEF’s mentorship program will initially focus on delivering 4 types of mentorships: personal development mentorship, career development mentorship, business mentorship, and inspirational events.

The programme intends to be tailored according to the needs of vulnerable youth, depending on where they are on their academic or professional journey, and aims to provide a menu of mentorship services for youth to access.  

By building the capacity of local organisations to deliver mentorship in tandem with other services, sustainability shall be built into the model. Finally, the programme engages the local private sector as mentors, providing greater opportunities for youth and contributing to social cohesion. 

The programme targets female and male youth across Lebanon between the ages of 15 and 24 years old (and beyond) from all nationalities with a particular focus on the most vulnerable, those in the greatest danger of being left behind, including girls, young people with disabilities, young people on the move, refugees, and those from varied socioeconomic backgrounds. UNICEF aims to promote the equal rights of women and girls and to support their full participation in the political, social and economic development of their communities. This should be evident in all programme model that recognizes that gender equity will be a foremost objective, while also recognizing the specific and sensitive needs of each gender.

The Mentorship Programme Package and Implementation Manual is meant for UNICEF training partners representatives who will be directly responsible for facilitating mentoring programs, communicating with stakeholders, teaching mentoring concepts, facilitating live events, and measuring program performance. 

The consultant will build on existing mentorship programme packages, enhance the content and delivery, while focusing on building the capacity of UNICEF implementing partners to ensure long term sustainability of delivering mentorship services for young people. Work assignments expected to be implemented by the individual consultant:

• Assess previous and current delivery of the UNICEF mentorship programme and identify gaps and needs.
• Review already developed mentorship content and toolkits and identify gaps.
• Develop content where gaps are identified.
• Ideation and co-creation with partners and youth to tackle the gaps and design of sustainable facilitation of mentorship services.
• Develop a sustainability plan of the mentorship programme delivered by UNICEF Youth implementing partners.
• Capacity building and ToT for Youth partners delivering mentorship components for young people.
• Roll out Sustainability Plan with UNICEF partners.
• M&E, quality assurance and social impact measurement to ensure effective and efficient programme implementation.

How can you make a difference?

The consultant is expected to deliver the below tasks and the payment will be processed monthly upon receiving a monthly report (integrating UNICEF’s feedback and comments).

Tasks/Milestone 1:

• Assess previous and current delivery of the UNICEF mentorship programme and identify gaps and needs.
• Review already developed mentorship content and toolkits and identify gaps.
• Develop content where gaps are identified.

Deliverables/Outputs:

• Assessment and review of mentorship programme and content
• Content development

Tasks/Milestone 2:

• Ideation and co-creation with partners and youth to tackle the gaps and design of sustainable facilitation of mentorship services.
• Develop a sustainability plan of the mentorship programme delivered by UNICEF Youth implementing partners.

Deliverables/Outputs:

• Facilitate co-creation workshops with partners and youth.
• Develop sustainability plan for the mentorship programme.

Tasks/Milestone 3:

• Capacity building and ToTs for Youth partners delivering mentorship components for young people.
• Roll out Sustainability Plan with UNICEF partners.

Tasks/Milestone 4:

• M&E, quality assurance and social impact assessment tools employed to ensure effective and efficient programme implementation.
• Present all documents to YAD section.

Deliverables/Outputs:

• Session on M&E, quality assurance and social impact assessment tools with partners.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have…

• Bachelor’s degree in Social science, business, international development related field.
• Minimum 3 years of experience in delivering mentorship programmes, including in development contexts.

Knowledge/Expertise/Skills required:

• Has experience in youth and adolescent programming.
• Has previous experience working with UN agencies or NGOs.
• Demonstrate excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.
• Good writing, data processing, analytical and synthesis skills.
• Fluency in English, and in Arabic.
• Ability to interact successfully with individuals of different cultural
• backgrounds and beliefs.
• Has at least 2 years of firsthand work experience in mentorship programming and capacity building.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA).

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process. Individuals engaged under a consultancy or individual contract will not be considered “staff members” under the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations and UNICEF’s policies and procedures and will not be entitled to benefits provided therein (such as leave entitlements and medical insurance coverage). Their conditions of service will be governed by their contract and the General Conditions of Contracts for the Services of Consultants and Individual Contractors. Consultants and individual contractors are responsible for determining their tax liabilities and for the payment of any taxes and/or duties, in accordance with local or other applicable laws.