TERMS OF REFERENCE
PETRI SOFIA’S YOUTH COORDINATOR
I.
Background and Justification:
National Center for Public Health and Analysis (Sofia, Bulgaria) has established successful
partnership with the UNFPA in the area of youth peer education training and research in
2007, when a PETRI Center was created as a joint initiative of the national institution, the
Bulgarian Ministry of Health, UNFPA, and the Y-PEER International Network. Since it’s
opening, the PETRI Center has worked to strengthen peer-education in the area of youth SRH
in the EECA region. The annual PETRI activities included capacity building, establishing and
maintaining M&E system, establishing and maintaining database for professional peer
educators and trainers, facilitating collaboration with potential partners and communication.
Today the PETRI Center plays a key role in institutionalizing youth involvement and peer
education in the region. PETRI is providing the expertise and technical support to the YPEER Network. One (out of six) Y-PEER International Coordinator has been physically
present in PETRI on the fellowship position since 2009. Since 2007 PETRI Sofia has
welcomed 27 Y-PEER fellows from 16 countries of Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the
Arab States (Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Egypt, Georgia, Kazakhstan,
Macedonia, Moldova, Morocco, Romania, Serbia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and
Yemen).
The main strategies of the partnership between NCPHA and Eastern Europe and Central
Asia1 Regional Office, as defined according to the UNFPA Regional Programme Action Plan
for EECA (2014 – 2017).
By maintaining and further expanding UNFPA partnership with the NCPHA, EECARO is
aiming at establishing a regional resource center and knowledge hub to ensure that
comprehensive youth policies and sexual and reproductive health services and education, that
are in line with international standards, are expanded across the region, with specific focus on
addressing the needs of vulnerable and most-at-risk young people.
This is intended to be achieved through utilizing and further developing PETRI’s experience
in working with the youth NGOs and governmental institutions addressing young people’s
needs across the region. The PETRI’s portfolio was expanded from exclusive focus on peer
education to comprehensive youth SRH and RR coverage. While retaining its role as a YPEER resource and capacity building center, a broader networking with youth programmes
across the region is promoted to facilitate knowledge and learning programmes between
technical assistance providers and recipients. Particular emphasis is made to strengthen South
to South cooperation, as well as the cooperation between governments, European Union and
UN partners, with a purpose of capacity building, advocacy, and resource mobilization.
The partnership between UNFPA and NCPHA will also assist the Y-PEER network in the
EECA region in transition into legal entity and support it through first years of independence.
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List of Country Offices Covered by the Regional Office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia: Albania, Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, FYR of Macedonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, UN Administered Province of
Kosovo, Uzbekistan
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PETRI is a regional knowledge hub and a resource centre working to advance sexual
and reproductive health and reproductive rights of adolescents and youth in the
countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The scope of UNFPA – NCPHA partnership, operationalized through activities of the
regional PETRI center, is framed by the overall goal to increase youth access to sexual and
reproductive health and reproductive rights, particularly that of the most vulnerable and mostat-risk young people.
Bringing into action the commitment to young people’s reproductive health and rights, PETRI
aims to accumulate knowledge, mobilize resources and act as ‘broker’ linking the
beneficiary’s needs in knowledge, capacities, high-quality programme development and
implementation, to the expertise and know how existing in the region, including the expertise
of young people.
Throughout this process the center will ensure translation of the internationally agreed
standards into regional programme practices.
In particular, PETRI will facilitate the research, knowledge sharing, capacity building,
maintaining standards, resource mobilization, and advocacy efforts within the region in the
following main thematic areas:

Policy, Advocacy and Programming in line with the International Conference on
Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action (PoA) and post 2015
Development Agenda related to young people

Sexual reproductive health education, including life skills and peer education

Youth-Adult Partnership
Activities identified below will be implemented through youth-adult partnerships. Young
people will be given meaningful participatory role through fellowships and other modalities,
thus building their capacity through active engagement.
Specific areas of PETRI-Sofia activities cover:
Research and Innovation

Conducting regular needs assessments, qualitative and quantitative research within the
above mentioned areas, including peer education;

Developing new education programs, using innovative approaches and tools based on
the identified needs;
Monitoring & Evaluation and Quality assurance

Promoting national adoption of peer education standards, developed by the
International Y-PEER Network;

Supporting quality assurance assessments of national Y-PEER networks;

Assisting beneficiaries in conducting monitoring and evaluation activities;

Integrating rigorous monitoring and evaluation frameworks and approaches into all
self-administrated processes;
Knowledge sharing, Capacity building and Technical assistance

Creating and maintaining knowledge sharing platform on young people and SRH and
RR, regular documenting regional and national good practices and disseminating them among
beneficiaries and partners;
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
Maintaining experts and institutions data base and facilitating provision of technical
assistance in all above mentioned areas;

Organizing advanced level training and capacity building activities for young leaders,
activists, peer educators, youth organization managers in all above mentioned areas;

Providing expertise and technical assistance in design and planning of comprehensive
national and regional programmes on adolescents and youth sexual and reproductive health
and reproductive rights;
Advocacy and policy dialogue

Mapping regional and global events with potential for advocacy and empowering
youth initiatives to engage in policy and advocacy dialogue;

Engaging high-level decision makers into policy and advocacy dialogue through
organizing advocacy events, such as inter-governmental study tours, etc.;
Communication and visibility

Documenting national and regional best practices in the above mentioned areas;

Ensuring visibility of the adolescents and youth SRH and RR issues, as well as
achievements, through establishing and coordinating partnerships with media and utilization
of internet-based platforms;

Facilitating communication between partners through agreed communication channels
and means;
Resource mobilization

The resources for regional programmes will be accumulated in PETRI and can be
implemented either by PETRI itself, or by partnering organizations, national Y-PEER
networks (if these networks have capacity to administrate financial resources), etc;

PETRI will assist beneficiaries and partners in national resource mobilization efforts.
I.
Objective of the position
The PETRI-Sofia’s Youth Coordinator (PSYC) shares substantive, administrative and
financial responsibility for the successful achievement of the PETRI-Sofia annual outputs and
implementation of annual work plan’s (AWP) activities with PETRI administrator.
The PSYC ensures cohesion and cooperation among PETRI-Sofia stakeholders and partners;
i.e. PETRI fellows, Y-PEER National Networks and FPCs, the Y-PEER International
Coordinators (ICs), other youth networks representatives, PETRI Sofia staff (PETRI
Executive, other PETRI team members, administration of the National Centre of Public
Health and Analyses (NCPHA), responsible officers from UNFPA EECARO and from
UNFPA COs, and other partners.
II.
Scope of work and responsibilities
Programme support:

Participation in PETRI-Sofia’s AWPs development and implementation, in line with
the existing policies and procedures;

Drafting of quarterly, annual and other reports on the implementation of the AWPs of
PETRI-Sofia, as well as any other reports as requested;

Assistance in preparation of terms of reference for consultants, concept notes for
events, and trainings, etc.;
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
Participation in development of performance assessment system for the PETRI-Sofia
Fellows;

Coordination of the work of PETRI – Sofia fellows in cooperation with the Y-PEER
IC present at the PETRI-Sofia (if and when Y-PEER IC is present) or other youth networks
representatives (if there are present in PETRI -Sofia);

Overall responsibility for ensuring effective transmission/hand-over of fellows’ tasks’
(work plans) and accomplishments in order to ensure smooth shifting of PETRI – Sofia
fellows with minimum loss of information, documents and implementation results;

Overall responsibility of identifying, establishing and maintaining partnerships with
youth led organizations and networks of relevance to the PETRI-Sofia at all levels, including
national, regional (Eastern Europe and Central Asia) and international entities

Shared responsibility of identifying, establishing and maintaining other partnerships of
relevance to the PETRI-Sofia at all levels, including national, regional (Eastern Europe and
Central Asia) and international entities;

Promotion of PETRI-Sofia’s objectives and image at national, regional and
international level.

Work closely with Y-PEER Network to promote youth SRH issues, and youth-led
development concepts;

Any other tasks that might be necessary
Administrative support:

Overall coordination of the PETRI-Sofia office’s daily activities, such as internal and
external correspondence (respond to outside queries in a timely fashion), and maintenance of
PETRI fellowship office;

Overall
responsibility
for
maintenance
of
PETRI-Sofia’s
complete
documentation/files, including keeping good record and track of all fellows applications,
contracts and reports;

Participation in the procurement and contracting of services and goods;

Participation in the logistics and organization of PETRI-Sofia events, in collaboration
with the PETRI Administrator, PETRI fellows and the Y-PEER ICs and other youth networks
in the Region, and in accordance with the NCPHA rules and procedures;

Coordination of further development and implementation of Y-PEER Monitoring &
Evaluation Database and provision of regular reports on its progress in collaboration with YPEER International Coordinators and PETRI Fellows. Identify problems and recommend
actions to solve them.

Development and regular update of databases of training workshops, events, meetings
and consultants of PETRI-Sofia;

Regular update of web page of PETRI-Sofia;

Analysis of collected data for monitoring and evaluation purposes;

Coordination and conduction of periodic briefings with NCPHA, UNFPA, NCCA
IYCD in Amman and Y-PEER ICs on the accomplishments of the PETRI-Sofia;
III.
Terms and conditions for provision of the services
PETRI-Sofia’s Youth Coordinator reports to PETRI Sofia Executive
The incumbent holds a full-time position, based in NCPHA, Sofia, Bulgaria at the PETRISofia office.
The incumbent conducts him/herself in a professional and ethical manner at all times and will
not enter into activities, which may adversely affect the image or success of the PETRI-Sofia,
NCPHA and partners.
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IV.
Professional requirements
 University degree in social sciences, public health, marketing or management;
 Two years of youth project coordination record of accomplishment
(professional/volunteering);
 Relevant experience in conducting and organizing trainings and workshops;
 Relevant working experience in youth-led organizations/institutions on youth issues;
 No older than 32 years old;
 Native Bulgarian and fluent English. Russian language would be considered a strong
asset;
 Computer literacy – advanced skills in the use of MS Windows, MS Office and office
equipment.
 Comfortable using the internet and methods of online communication, i.e. online forums,
blogs, chat rooms, etc;

Ability to gather data, compile information and prepare reports;

Ability to analyze, develop, establish, and maintain office work flow and
administrative processes;

Excellent organizational and coordinating skills

Good writing, reporting skills and presentation skills
Personal Skills and Attitudes
Proven self-starter attitude and ability to work independently while ensuring strictest
adherence to rules and procedures:
• Ability to work independently and proactively (while still operating in a team
environment);
• Dynamic, accurate, self-motivated and immediate result oriented personality;
• A true methodological approach to the job and attention to detail;
• Ability to analyze and solve problems;
• Ability to work in harmony with persons of different national and cultural
backgrounds;
• Ability to learn and transfer knowledge and experience in a friendly and helpful way;
• Ability to foster a cooperative work environment. Positive attitude;
• Ability to prioritize while taking on multiple projects simultaneously;
• Confident, creative enthusiastic and showing initiative;
• Demonstrated commitment to the aims and objectives of youth networks and a
passion for youth culture;
• Desire and ability to learn fast, work hard, face challenges and grow with the
organization;
• A positive and professional approach,
• Flexibility, responsibility and ability to meet tight deadlines;
• Good interpersonal skills, diligent, be open minded and dedicated;
• Positive and friendly demeanor.
• Good team player;
V.
Duration of contract
The contract will be issued for the duration of the Annual Work Plan (AWP) for 2015, with a
possibility of two years extension
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