Policy Officer (training) At UN High Commissioner for Refugees

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is offering this assignment in the Division of International Protection in our Geneva Headquarters in Switzerland.

UNHCR is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. Every year, millions of men, women and children are forced to flee their homes to escape conflict and persecution. We are in over 125 countries, using our expertise to protect and care for millions.

Title : Policy Officer (training)

Duty Station : Home-Based

Duration : 12 months

Contract Type : UNOPS International Individual Contractor Agreement IICA-2

Closing date : 31 October 2021

Start date : ASAP

Organisational context

Collaboration with stakeholders to advance UNHCR’s protection mandate has long been a core function of UNHCR, enshrined in the 1951 Convention. From 2016 onwards several global commitments were made that have revitalized and significantly stepped up UNHCR’s collaboration with development and peacebuilding partners (hereafter: partners). These include the adoption of the Sustainable Development Agenda in 2015, the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants in 2016, the Global Compact on Refugees in 2018 and the OECD DAC recommendation on the humanitarian-development-peace nexus.

Within this context, partners have requested UNHCR for learning exchanges and trainings that would allow their staff to better understand how to best leverage and integrate IDP, refugee and statelessness protection into the development and peacebuilding responses that are pursued by them. In response to these requests, UNHCR delivered some basic protection trainings but dedicated resources and staff capacity were not available to tailor these to the specific objective of integrating protection in development and peace responses and to the specific learning needs of respective partners in that regard.

Within UNHCR, the Division of Resilience and Solutions (DRS) leads on the development and management of strategic partnerships with development partners of non-transactional nature. DRS has a dedicated section for this purpose, consisting of four teams: i) a multi-lateral development banks team, ii) a bilateral development partners team, iii) a UN development agencies and peacebuilding partners team, and iv) a capacity development and knowledge management team. The latter focuses on strengthening the capacity of UNHCR staff to engage with development partners. The Division of International Protection (DIP) leads on protection policy/guidance/trainings and operational protection responses. Over the last few years, DIP has been playing an increased role in the partnerships with development and peacebuilding actors with a view to better leverage and scale up protection objectives in development and peacebuilding responses.

The position

The overall purpose of the position is to support the development of content for protection learning exchanges and trainings for UNHCR’s development and peacebuilding partners. The content should help partners understand – in a very practical manner – how to best leverage and integrate IDP, refugee and statelessness protection objectives into the development and peacebuilding responses pursued by them. It should also help partners understand the potential adverse protection consequences that development and peacebuilding interventions can generate and how they can best mitigate and address them.

Duties and responsibilities

Under the direct supervision of the Senior Policy Officer and in close collaboration with DRS partnerships teams and partners themselves, the Individual Contractor will be responsible for delivering the three outputs below:

Output 1: Partner’s protection learning needs identified and validated

In close collaboration with DRS, the Contractor will undertake an extensive desk review and will conduct individual and group discussions with partners and UNHCR staff to identify needs and priorities. This includes needs already formulated by partners and expected further needs for 2021 and 2022. It is expected that across the various partners there will be stark similarities in needs, while at the same time there will be differences in priority topics and approaches for each specific partner. These similarities and differences will need to be highlighted and accounted for in the needs identification.

Output 2: Content development process planned and agreed

Based on the needs identification, the Contractor will develop a work plan for content development for 2022 and agree this with all stakeholders involved. As this is a relatively new substantive area for both UNHCR and partners, the content will need to be developed through an iterative process where ‘base’ content is further developed through workshops between the main focal points in UNHCR and partner organizations. As such the workshops themselves should be considered learning exchanges for UNHCR and partner staff.

Output 3: Workshops held and content developed

The Contractor will support the implementation of the 2022 workplan with a focus on content development. The content will consist of learning materials used for the workshops with partners and UNHCR staff (e.g. PowerPoint presentations and/or worksheets and handouts) and learning materials as revised following the integration of workshop inputs and final validation by all stakeholders. The Contractor will be supported by the DRS capacity development team in the organization of workshops and the esthetical design of materials. Workshop facilitation will be led by DIP and DRS senior and working level staff with support from the consultant.

Essential minimum qualifications and professional experience required

Education:

Master’s degree in Law, Human Rights, Political Science, International Affairs, Management, Economics, Development Studies or other relevant fields.

Experience:

Ø At least 6 years of experience working in Protection, out of which at least 2 years in a field operation.

Ø Experience in working with different populations of concern to UNHCR (refugee, returnee, IDP, stateless) and on different aspects of protection (policy/law, GBV, community-based protection, RSD, documentation etc.).

Ø Experience in the development of protection and solutions strategies.

Ø Experience as a training facilitator is recommended

Ø Experience in working with government, bi/multilateral donor agencies, development and peacebuilding partners is desirable.

Competencies:

Key Competencies

Ø Excellent theoretical and applied understanding of refugee, IDP and statelessness protection

Ø Knowledge of development and peacebuilding partners, global strategies and operational processes; and of the humanitarian system, and how these complement each other.

Ø Ability to think creatively, and to explore, harness and translate innovative concepts into practice.

Ø Excellent communication and listening skills, including the ability to solicit, apply and integrate inputs from others into materials.

Ø Good planning, prioritizing and self-management skills to work both independently and as part of a team.

Ø Strong applied analytical skills across related sectors.

Ø Excellent writing skills and ability to draft reports and develop materials.

Ø Excellent computer skills: advanced MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Languages

Ø Excellent knowledge of English is required.

Ø Good working knowledge and command French is required.

Location

The successful candidate will be home-based. The Contractor might be expected to undertake 3 one-week missions from home to Geneva for consultation and potential missions abroad to HQs or Regional Offices of the development partners to deliver/facilitate the training sessions when deemed appropriate (3-4 maximum).

Conditions

This contract runs for 12 months. UNHCR is looking for someone who can start as soon as possible. It concerns a full-time contract (40 hours per week) and will receive a monthly payment.