Consultancy for Emergency Preparedness and Response Coordinator (remote for 12 months)

About the Role

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.

At UNICEF, we are committed, passionate, and proud of what we do for as long as we are needed. Promoting the rights of every child is not just a job – it is a calling.

UNICEF is a place where careers are built. We offer our staff diverse opportunities for professional and personal development that will help them reinforce a sense of purpose while serving children and communities across the world. We welcome everyone who wants to belong and grow in a diverse and passionate culture, coupled with an attractive compensation and benefits package.

Visit our website to learn more about what we do at UNICEF.

For every child, the right to advocacy.

UNICEF’s role in an upper-middle-income country. In this context, UNICEF’s added value is not to substitute for the national response but to make sure preparedness and response systems work for children. This means supporting childsensitive contingency planning with government and partners; pre-positioning supplies and partnerships, including with the private sector; maintaining cross-border coordination with neighbouring UNICEF Country Offices; and generating evidence to inform policy. UNICEF must also meet its corporate obligations under the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action (CCCs) and the Emergency Preparedness Platform (EPP), which apply in every country regardless of income level.

Thailand is an upper-middle-income country with a strong national disaster management system led by the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM). The Royal Thai Government leads and largely finances emergency response, and there is no activated cluster system or humanitarian appeal. Yet Thailand faces a growing and compound set of humanitarian risks: conflict along two borders and intensifying climate hazards. Their impact falls hardest on children who are already marginalised, including refugee, migrant and stateless children. Since the February 2021 military takeover in Myanmar, fighting close to the border has repeatedly pushed civilians into Thailand, as during the 2024 clashes around Myawaddy, when thousands crossed into Mae Sot district. These movements add to the long-standing refugee population in the nine temporary shelters along the border, many of them children, and to a migrant population of several million people from Myanmar, Cambodia and Lao PDR whose children face barriers to education, health care, birth registration and protection services. Reduced international funding to services in the temporary shelters since 2025 has increased the risk that children’s needs go unmet. In July and December 2025, armed clashes along the Thai–Cambodia border led to the evacuation of more than 100,000 civilians from Thai border provinces, the closure of hundreds of schools and the sheltering of families, including large numbers of children, in evacuation centres.

Thailand is facing more frequent and severe climate-related emergencies. In 2024, flash floods and landslides in the north following Typhoon Yagi, including in Chiang Rai, were followed a year later by severe flooding in the south border provinces; both disrupted children’s schooling and access to services. Drought, extreme heat and transboundary haze (PM2.5) during the dry season increasingly affect children’s health and learning. The March 2025 earthquake in Myanmar, felt strongly in Bangkok, also exposed the country’s vulnerability to less familiar hazards.

2027 is the first year of the new Country Programme 2027–2031. It is the moment to embed emergency preparedness in the new programme from the start, test new approaches such as volunteer engagement in emergency response in the Southern Border Provinces, and define how UNICEF should position itself in emergencies in an upper-middle-income country.

The purpose of this consultancy is therefore to coordinate UNICEF Thailand’s emergency preparedness and response for 2027: maintaining an up-to-date risk analysis and preparedness plan, ensuring timely and quality situation monitoring and reporting, strengthening cross-border planning with neighbouring UNICEF Country Offices, readying supplies and partners (including with the private sector), building the capacity of staff and partners, piloting and documenting the engagement of community volunteers in emergency response in the Southern Border Provinces, and informing UNICEF’s strategic positioning in emergencies in an upper-middle-income country.

If you would like to know more about this consultancy, please review the complete Terms of Reference here: Download File Consultancy for Emergency Preparedness and Response Coordinator.pdf

Minimum requirements: (Qualifications/Experience/ Knowledge/Expertise/Skills)

• Education: Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in humanitarian action, disaster risk management, international relations, development studies, public health, social sciences or a related field.
• Work Experience: A minimum of 5 years of progressively responsible professional experience in humanitarian programme planning, coordination, monitoring and reporting, including at least 2 years in emergency preparedness and response.
• Language Requirements: Fluency in written and spoken English is required. Knowledge of Thai is an asset.
• Knowledge/Expertise/Skills: Sound knowledge of the Core Commitments for Children in H