Associate Protection Officer

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (the UN Refugee Agency, also known as UNHCR) is an intergovernmental organization with a mandate to protect refugees and stateless persons worldwide. Since 1950, the agency has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives. Today, a staff of more than 15,000 people in 130 countries continues to help and protect millions of refugees, returnees, internally displaced and stateless people. UNHCR provides lifesaving assistance, protection, shelter, food, clean water, education and medical care to some of the world’s most vulnerable. UNHCR also provides assistance to refugees who want to return home when it is safe to do so and helps integrate refugees within their local host country or resettle to a third country when returning home is no longer an option. Non-governmental organization (NGO) partners work with UNHCR around the globe to assist and protect refugees and internally displaced people.

Mexico faces complex displacement dynamics as a country of origin, destination, and return, while also confronting increasing internal displacement driven by violence and insecurity. Despite fluctuations in mixed movements, asylum applications remain at historically high levels, placing sustained pressure on national systems and humanitarian actors. At the same time, UNHCR Mexico is operating under significant financial constraints, which have reduced staffing capacities and limited operational reach at a time of growing needs. In this context, the UN Volunteer assignment is essential to sustaining core protection activities, particularly in Mexico City, which serves as a key operational and coordination hub for UNHCR’s response. Based in Mexico City, the UN Volunteer will support the delivery of protection services, including the identification and analysis of protection risks, provision of counselling and referrals, and strengthening coordination with government counterparts, civil society, and other partners. The assignment will also contribute to ensuring access to asylum procedures and services for refugees, asylum-seekers, returnees, and internally displaced persons. Through these functions, the role supports the safeguarding of fundamental rights and contributes to the effective implementation of UNHCR’s protection mandate in Mexico. This request aligns with the Letter of Commitment between JICA and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID), witnessed by UNHCR during President Tanaka’s visit to Mexico in 2025, and reflects commitments under the Humanitarian–Development–Peace Nexus as reaffirmed at the Global Refugee Forum 2023

Under the supervision of the Senior Protection Officer, the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks:

•Support the implementation of UNHCR’s protection strategy in Mexico City, contributing to the delivery of core protection activities in line with UNHCR policies, and Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) principles.
•Contribute to protection monitoring and analysis by collecting, verifying, and synthesizing information on protection risks, trends, and profiles of asylum-seekers, refugees, return-ees, and internally displaced persons, and by producing analytical briefs to inform opera-tional responses.
•Support individual protection case management, including identification, registration sup-port, documentation, follow-up, and safe, confidential, and accountable referrals related to legal assistance, gender-based violence (GBV), child protection, detention, and risks of refoulement, in line with established Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
•Provide guidance and support to persons of concern on access to asylum procedures and available services, ensuring a rights-based and protection-sensitive approach.
•Strengthen coordination with government counterparts, implementing partners, shelters, civil society organizations, and service providers to enhance access to protection ser-vices and effective referral pathways.
•Contribute to community-based protection approaches, including participation in assess-ments, community consultations, and outreach activities, ensuring accountability to af-fected populations (AAP) and meaningful engagement of communities.
•Support the monitoring of partner activities and follow-up on protection indicators and deliverables, in coordination with the Protection team.
•Assist in the preparation of reports, briefing notes, situation updates, and donor inputs on protection trends and activities.
•Promote the mainstreaming of protection across UNHCR interventions and coordination mechanisms.
•Support UNHCR engagement with relevant stakeholders, including Japanese partners, as required.
•Perform other related protection duties as required in support of operational priorities.

Furthermore, UN Volunteers are required to:

•Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and take active part in UNV activities (for in-stance in events that mark International Volunteer Day).
•Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country.
•Reflect on the type and quality of voluntary action that they are undertaking, including participation in ongoing reflection activities.
•Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publica-tions/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.
•Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers.
•Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering, or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.