Protection Coordination Specialist Switzerland

Contract

This is a Professional contract, Grade 9 (NRC) contract. More about Professional contract, Grade 9 (NRC) contracts.

Context

NRC Geneva leads Norwegian Refugee Council’s representation and activities in Geneva, especially with the IASC mechanisms and UN agencies, as well as leading on humanitarian policy globally. NRC strives to assist and protect vulnerable and displaced people during crises, especially in situations of conflict. Established in 1946, NRC is an independent, humanitarian, non-profit, non-governmental organisation working in over 25 countries with approximately 4,500 staff. NRC employs a rights-based approach, challenging those with responsibility to uphold the rights of displaced people set out within national and International Laws. NRC endeavors to secure the acceptance of local stakeholders for activities and is committed to the principles of humanity, neutrality, independence, and impartiality.

Alongside other humanitarian NGOs, NRC advocates towards decision-makers at local, national, regional, and global levels in order to obtain full respect for the rights of displaced and vulnerable people. Advocating with the United Nations, especially with protection-mandated agencies, is a priority in order to strengthen humanitarian response. NRC seeks to engage with all relevant actors in order to secure and maintain access to displaced and vulnerable people, and promote the achievement of durable solutions.

We are looking for a resourceful, organised, experienced protection and coordination expert with excellent interpersonal skills and strong written and verbal communication skills to enable the Global Protection Cluster (GPC) to strengthen civil society co-coordination of national protection clusters.

Come work with us!

What you will do

You will be seconded to the Global Protection Cluster. The Global Protection Cluster (GPC) is a network of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), international organizations and United Nations (UN) agencies, engaged in protection work in humanitarian crises including armed conflicts, slow and rapid-onset disasters, and health emergencies. The GPC is mandated by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), governed by a Strategic Advisory Group (SAG), co-chaired by the GPC Coordinator and an operational NGO, and serviced by a multi-partner Operations Cell (Ops Cell). The GPC Ops Cell is composed of five key pillars: (1) Leadership and coordination; (2) Field Operations and Support (FOS); (3) Advocacy, communications, and partners engagement; (4) Learning, development, and capacity building; (5) Policy and standard-setting. You will also:

• Have a specific focus on supporting civil society organisations to maintain continuity in their co-coordination, through deployments to support coordination gaps
• Act as rapid response coordinators in new crises or where field clusters face critical capacity gaps through deployment to field operations (max 3 months) to perform the function of protection cluster co-coordinator ad interim (surge capacity).
• Provide remote support to the field protection clusters and participate (remotely), as necessary, in country-level Protection Cluster meetings and dialogue, inter-agency meetings and coordination, not limited to, but with a focus on supporting civil society co-coordination and civil society engagement.
• Provide ongoing technical support to field operations to strengthen cluster co-coordination and response capacities (intra and inter-cluster coordination, system-wide coordination, area-based coordination).
• Support planning processes, including the Humanitarian Program Cycle, Protection Cluster workplan, mainstreaming of protection in National Development Plans, UN Common Country Analysis, United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks and other relevant plans.
• Promote the Centrality of Protection through supporting the development of cluster and HTC protection strategies and protection mainstreaming and integration in other sectors.

What you will bring

• Master’s degree in Law or Human Rights, International Relations, Social Science or related protection-oriented discipline;
• 6-8 years of operational experience with a humanitarian civil society organisation, including experience leading or actively participating in Protection Cluster, IDP Operation or Country Operations applying the Cluster Approach;
• Experience in working in an inter-agency environment at field or Headquarters level;
• Thorough understanding of humanitarian coordination processes and recent inter-agency developments related to the IASC and the broader UN;
• Experience in protection cluster coordination or support, thorough understanding of GPC’s mandate;
• Knowledge of the Humanitarian Programme Cycle;
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and French, experience working in another third language, particularly Spanish or Arabic, is desirable.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills: the ability to successfully and effectively communicate with people in a multi-cultural environment;
• Excellent research and analytical skills: data analysis skills including the capacity to collect and analyse qualitative and quantitative data from various sources to produce meaningful analysis for strategic planning, programming, advocacy and other needs.

We know that you are curious and would like to learn more about this role; please click here to access the full Job Description.

What makes this position attractive?

• A challenging and exciting opportunity with an international team dedicated to advocating for the rights of people forced to flee;
• A chance to support NRC’s global policy work;
• A 6-month full-time contract with a likelihood of extension;
• We believe that talent is evenly distributed and therefore placement in any NRC duty station is considered;
• A competitive salary and benefits package in line with NRC’s salary scale, terms, and conditions.

We are also looking for people who share our values:

• To be dedicated in what we do;
• To be innovative with our solutions;
• To act as one unified and inclusive team;
• To be accountable to the donors that make our work possible; the beneficiaries that we exist to serve; and to each other… the members of our NRC family.

We are happy about early applicants.