This position is open to Pakistan Nationals Only

BACKGROUND

Pakistan has become the epicentre of climate change, ranking among the top 10 countries most vulnerable to natural disasters, including floods, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF), droughts, and others. These climate-induced disasters in Pakistan have caused fatalities, loss of livelihood and livestock, and damaged and destroyed public and private infrastructure across the country, often with significant humanitarian consequences that require adequate emergency response preparedness. 

In 2025, a supercharged monsoon season triggered devastating floods across multiple provinces, with Punjab experiencing the worst riverine flooding in four decades. The floods have resulted in extensive loss of life, mass displacement, large-scale destruction of homes and social infrastructure, crop damage, loss of livestock, and the collapse of livelihoods for millions. Thereby, increasing vulnerability to millions of people who need urgent humanitarian, early recovery, and resilience-building support for them to bounce back to life with dignity.  As of mid-September 2025, over 6.9 million people have been affected, 1,037 lives lost, injured 1,067 and 2.9 million displaced. These recurrent disasters are not isolated incidents but part of a growing pattern of climate-induced emergencies.

All this is happening at a time when OCHA is faced with a “Humanitarian Reset” triggered by the 2025, a global decision to scale down OCHA Pakistan operations and transition to a Humanitarian Advisory Team (HAT) by early 2026. Accordingly, UNOCHA in its organization resulted in some restructuring that gave birth to the position of Humanitarian Affairs Associate/Assistant GS-7, to strengthen programmatic Humanitarian Affairs functions within OCHA’s Coordination Unit.

Position Purpose: 

The Humanitarian Affairs Associate under the direct supervision of the Humanitarian Affairs Officer - NOB, and the overall guidance of the Head of Office HAT Team Leader. The HAA is responsible for providing programme support for the Coordination Unit including supporting HCT/ISCG/EWG/ABC, sectoral coordination, engagement with government/partners/donors, emergency response preparedness/contingency planning/training, needs assessments, gap/response analysis, after action reviews and support knowledge building and sharing (including taking minutes, developing concept notes, talking points). 

Key Duties and Accountabilities:

Summary of Key Functions:

  • Provide Coordination support functions to OCHA Pakistan, the government, donors, and humanitarian actors.
  • Ensure information collection, analysis, and sharing in support of Humanitarian Analysis and Response.
  • Support Emergency Response Preparedness, Emergency Response, Coordination Architecture, and Reporting.
  • Support knowledge building and sharing (including taking minutes, developing concept notes, and talking points).
  • Support communication plan, media coverage, and digital footprint anchored on strong analytical and writing skills. 

1.  Provide Coordination support functions to OCHA Pakistan, government, donors, and humanitarian actors.

  • Support the organization and facilitation of inter-cluster coordination meetings, working group sessions, and ad-hoc briefings with UN agencies, NGOs, donors, and government authorities.
  • Prepare meeting agendas, compile participant lists, take minutes, track action points, and ensure follow-up with responsible actors.
  • Assist in strengthening coordination between federal, provincial, and district disaster management authorities and humanitarian partners.
  • Coordinate field-level inputs from clusters/partners to inform Humanitarian Needs Overviews (HNO), Humanitarian Response Plans (HRP), and other planning tools.
  • Support emergency coordination arrangements during crises, including activation of clusters, rapid information sharing, and liaison with local authorities.
  • Monitor humanitarian developments, analyse impacts, and draft situation reports (SitReps), talking points, concept notes, and background notes.
  • Assist in collecting and consolidating sectoral updates from sectors/clusters, government bodies, and implementing partners for inclusion in situation reports, dashboards, and donor briefings.
  • Support linkages with humanitarian stakeholders (UN and NGOs), donors, and facilitate humanitarian coordination for a timely response.
  • Assist in maintaining productive relationships with NDMA/PDMA/DDMAs, line departments, and other government counterparts.
  • Support coordination of joint assessments, field missions, and response planning between government and humanitarian actors.

2.   Ensure information collection, analysis, and sharing in support of Humanitarian Analysis and Response:

  • Assist in gathering multi-sectoral data from UN agencies, NGOs, government counterparts, and local partners on humanitarian needs, population movements, gaps, and response activities.
  • Monitor early-warning indicators, including conflict dynamics, natural hazards, displacement, market conditions, and protection risks.
  • Assist in conducting field Multi-Sector Rapid Needs Assessments (MSRNA/RNA), observatory assessments, and other humanitarian assessments to capture qualitative and quantitative information.
  • Verify and validate incoming information to ensure accuracy, completeness, and consistency.
  • Assist in compiling and analysing data to identify trends, priority needs, and emerging risks across sectors and geographic areas.
  • Assist in preparing situation updates, analytical briefs, dashboards, and summary reports that highlight humanitarian impacts and operational constraints.
  • Support humanitarian needs overviews (HNOs) and contribute to the analysis framework, severity assessments, and narrative sections.
  • Actively support in the preparation of the Humanitarian Programme Cycle (HNO, HRP, CERF proposals, etc.), and any other strategic planning and field analysis initiatives that involve field input and analysis.
  • Support Humanitarian Affairs Officer NOB for regional analysis and interface with the Inter-Sectoral Coordination Group to extract key action points for Humanitarian Dashboard and donor reporting.

3.  Support Emergency Response Preparedness, Emergency Response, Coordination Architecture, and Reporting:

  • Support OCHA’s Emergency Response Preparedness through information and trend analysis.
  • Assist in drafting/updating contingency plans, preparedness matrices, and response readiness checklists.
  • Support simulations/exercises by preparing materials, participant lists, and after-action reports.
  • Assist in organizing HCT/UNCT/ISCG/EWG, including maintaining meeting calendars and documenting action points.
  • Assist in capacity building/training of NDMA/PDMA/DDMA, humanitarian partner,s and community/charity organizations. 
  • Ensure timely updates to data portals, SharePoint sites, or information management platforms.
  • Support humanitarian coordination mechanisms and assist in engagement with government, donors, ISCG, EWG, Area-Based Coordination and humanitarian partners.
  • Assist the Humanitarian Affairs Officer NOB in establishing relationships with key stakeholders, including non-traditional humanitarian actors, ISCG, Donors, Government Departments, Red Cross Movement, and NGOs in areas of operation to ensure the humanitarian information flow from OCHA to partners and vice versa and ensure their participation in operations/coordination forums.
  • Assist in drafting talking points, agendas, meeting minutes, updates, concept notes, proposals, advocacy messages and contribute to different reports.
  • Support in hosting high-level delegations, including actively engaged in drafting briefing packs, programmes, talking points and mission logistics.

4.   Support knowledge building and sharing (including taking minutes, developing concept notes, and talking points):

  • Prepare accurate and concise minutes of coordination meetings, cluster meetings, and inter-agency briefings, ensuring key decisions, action points, and responsibilities are clearly captured.
  • Help in drafting concept notes for humanitarian projects, inter-agency initiatives, workshops, or thematic discussions.
  • Assist in preparing talking points and briefing materials for senior management, field missions, donor meetings, and humanitarian coordination events.
  • Support the development of reports, including situation reports, humanitarian snapshots, analytical briefs, and background documents.
  • Contribute to lessons-learned exercises, after-action reviews, and evaluations by consolidating inputs and documenting findings.
  • Facilitate the circulation of information to humanitarian partners, including through email lists, shared platforms, and coordination channels.
  • Assist in developing training materials related to humanitarian principles, coordination mechanisms, assessment methodologies, or information management.

5.   Support communication plan and media coverage, and digital footprint anchored on strong analytical and writing skills:

  • Support for donor communication, conferences, and media briefings
  • Assists the  information management team to produce top-line presentations for sharing, including snapshots, flash updates, SitRep, etc
  • Support and convene HCG and represent OCHA at UNCG
  • Media Coordination and relation
  • Draft media briefs, social media, human interest stories, and including conducting field missions for stories/video documentation.
  • Ensure full and complete media coverage of the UN in Pakistan and UN AFPs working on emergency response activities, high-level missions, and any other important event that may require media coverage.
  • Ensure fostering partnerships with other humanitarian agencies to plan and evaluate humanitarian and emergency assistance programmes and help ensure that the latest findings, lessons learned, policy guidelines, etc., are incorporated into these activities, including gender-related considerations.   
  • Prepares or contributes to the preparation of various written reports, document,s and communications

The key results have an impact on the overall coordination of humanitarian and emergency assistance. The root causes of the humanitarian/emergencies are appreciated, ensuring that strong and effective responses are mounted. This facilitates operational agencies in succeeding in their core objectives, the building of strong partnerships with relevant parties and the achievement of OCHA’s objectives.

Competencies

  • Achieve Results LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline
  • Think Innovatively LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is a pragmatic problem solver, and makes improvements 
  • Learn Continuously LEVEL 1: Open-minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback
  • Adapt with Agility LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible 
  • Act with Determination LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in the face of adversity, confident
  • Engage and Partner LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships
  • Enable Diversity and Inclusion LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination 

Cross-Functional & Technical Competencies

Business Management  Customer Satisfaction/Client Management

  • Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfill and understand the real customers' needs. 
  • Ability to anticipate the client's upcoming needs and concerns.

Business Management  Partnership Management

  • Ability to build and maintain partnerships with networks of stakeholders, Governments, civil society, and private sector partners, expert,s and others in line with strategy and policy

Business Management  Resource Management 

  • Ability to allocate and use resources in a strategic or tactical way in line with principles of accountability and integrity.

Business Development  Knowledge Generation

  • Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant to the context, or responsive to a stated need.

Business Management  Monitoring

  • Ability to provide managers and key stakeholders with regular feedback on the consistency or discrepancy between planned and actual activities and programme performance and results.

QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

  • Secondary education (high school) is required. 

OR

  • A first university degree (Bachelor's) in International Relations / International Development, Political Science, Social Sciences, Humanitarian Affairs / Disaster Management, Public Administration / Public Policy, Geography / Environmental Studies, Peace & Conflict Studies, or Media & Community Studies, or related field will be given due consideration, but is not a requirement.

Experience, Knowledge, and Skills:

  • Minimum of 7 years (with a high school diploma) or 4 years (with a bachelor’s degree) of relevant experience with UN/ International Organization/ Government/ civil-society engagement is required.
  • Strong analytical, writing, and problem-solving skills are desired, with proven evidence of such skills coupled with excellent communication (written and verbal), coordination, and stakeholder engagement skills, ability to summarize information and prepare reports/briefs, and ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines.
  • Progressive experience in large humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations, Large NGOs, etc., in humanitarian coordination, Inter-sector/cluster coordination, emergency response preparedness/contingency planning, emergency response, needs assessments/analysis/report writing, and project coordination or field operations is desired.
  • Experience in the use of computers, office software packages (MS Word, Excel, etc.), database packages, and web-based management systems such as ERP is required.
  • Demonstrated experience in developing a humanitarian response plan, preparedness plan, and capacity building within the UN System, including the humanitarian programme cycle and Sector/ Cluster System , is desired.
  • Demonstrated experience in humanitarian coordination and the application of humanitarian policies, needs assessment, and cluster coordination.
  • Experience in building and maintaining effective partner networks and partnerships in the humanitarian or development sector is desirable.
  • Ability to research, analyse, evaluate, and synthesize information.
  • Experience in conducting needs assessments and drafting programmatic/assessment/mission reports is desirable.

Language Requirements:

  • Fluency in the written and spoken English Language is required.
  • Fluency in the Urdu language is required.

Equal opportunity

As an equal opportunity employer, UNOCHA values diversity as an expression of the multiplicity of nations and cultures where we operate, and, as such, we encourage qualified applicants from all backgrounds to apply for roles in the organization. Our employment decisions are based on merit and suitability for the role, without discrimination. 

UNOCHA is also committed to creating an inclusive workplace where all personnel are empowered to contribute to our mission, are valued, can thrive, and benefit from career opportunities that are open to all.

Sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse of authority

UNOCHA does not tolerate harassment, sexual harassment, exploitation, discrimination, or abuse of authority. All selected candidates, therefore, undergo relevant checks and are expected to adhere to the respective standards and principles. 

Probation

For all new UNOCHA fixed-term appointments (FTA), including for staff members being transferred or seconded to UNOCHA under the Inter-Organization Agreement concerning Transfer, Secondment or Loan of Staff, on an appointment of more than one year, continuation of the appointment beyond the initial 12 months is contingent upon the successful completion of a probationary period.

Right to select multiple candidates

UNOCHA reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement.  We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNOCHA at the same grade level and with a similar job description, experience, and educational requirements.

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