Protection Advisor - Syria

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, education, emergency food security, legal assistance, and water,sanitation and hygiene sectors.



The Norwegian Refugee Council has approximately 5000 committed and competent employees involved in projects across four continents. In addition, NRC runs one of the world’s largest standby rosters -NORCAP, with 650 professionals, ready to be deployed on 72 hours notice when a crisis occurs

BACKGROUND 
In the Middle East, NRC has over 3,000 staff dedicated to assisting people affected by conflict in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine. Its humanitarian interventions are based upon its programming expertise in the Core Competencies of Shelter, Education, Water and Sanitation Hygiene, Food Security, along with Information Counselling and legal Assistance (ICLA) to forcibly displaced people.  

The Syrian Crisis is well into its sixth year, but the level and intensity of conflict in the country remains high.  Humanitarian and protection needs continue to grow inside Syria as a result of the ongoing conflict and consequent complex emergency situation in which displacement is both massive and widespread. 

NRC’s programming in Syria has a strong protection and resilience focus that ensures integrated programme responses that meet diverse needs of vulnerable populations. NRC’s response to the complex challenges of the operating environment in Syria is to focus its resources upon continually strengthening the effectiveness of its directly implemented activities and those enabled through partnership with local actors. 

NRC Syria Response Office (SRO) is now looking to recruit an experienced Protection Advisor based in Amman, Jordan to ensure minimum protection standards and core humanitarian principles are institutionalised and integrated within all programme, support and partner-implemented activities. The successful candidate will be a university graduate with at least 5 years’ experience working in the field of protection or human rights, ideally in a complex and volatile humanitarian or recovery context.

Role and responsibilities

The Protection Advisor will be a key part of the Country Office Programme Unit and will work closely with the project (field) teams. The Advisor will provide advice on humanitarian principles and protection issues in relation to NRC SRO’s current and planned areas of activity in Syria. S/He will support project teams to identify, monitor and reduce protection risks faced by beneficiaries and staff in relation to humanitarian programming in Syria. 

Generic responsibilities include:

• Provide analysis and advice regarding key humanitarian protection trends and risks and monitor how they interact with NRC’s current and planned activities in Syria. 
• Ensure compliance with NRC (global and national) policies and procedures, handbooks and guidelines and/or propose new initiatives to bridge gaps and implement these.
• Institutionalise and further develop systems that address Protection needs and follow up on their implementation with the Head of Programme, implementing teams, and other members of the Programme Unit. 
• Support the training, capacity building and mentoring of field staff on minimum safe programming standards including primarily: safety, dignity and ‘do no harm’, meaningful access and responsiveness to diverse needs and accountability to affected populations.
• Develop policies and tools and provide technical advice in relation to identifying ‘red lines’ and supporting application of humanitarian principles and protection standards in programme development and implementation.
• Review proposals and budgets to ensure that adequate attention is paid to the protection response and adherence to humanitarian principles.

Specific responsibilities include:

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  Context Analysis. Support regular context analysis, including key protection trends.
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  Humanitarian Principles. Provide guidance and support use of tools to monitor ongoing adherence to humanitarian principles. Advise the NRC SRO Country Management Group (CMG) in relevant decision making fora, as required.  
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  Strategy Development. Contribute to the development of programme and advocacy strategy and ensure the sufficient consideration of protection trends, risks and mitigation measures at Area Office and Country Office level.
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  Programme Quality. Provide technical advice to the Programme Unit and Field Teams throughout the programme-cycle. This is to ensure adherence to the relevant standards during planning, implementation and monitoring of NRC’s programming. Ensure complementarity of protection with further initiatives aimed at ensuring programme quality.
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  Safe Programming. The Protection Advisor will also oversee the continuing roll-out of safe programming within the NRC SRO, in line with NRC's global Protection Roadmap.This includesbuilding systems, capacities and tools for applying minimum protection standards and humanitarian principles across NRC’s response.
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  Grant Processes. Review and provide protection inputs to project/grant processes, including: concept notes, proposals, grant agreements and reports.
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  Reporting. Contribute to reports, including: situation reports (sitreps), assessments, background/briefing papers, talking points, information memos, and other relevant protection-specific documents relating to NRC’s programmes as required by the Country Director or Head of Programmes.
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  PSEA.Support the roll out of Head Office guidance and capacity building in relation to Preventing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
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  Representation.As delegated by the Country Director and/or Head of Programmes, represent NRC in relevant external meetings and coordination for a. 
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  Line Management.Direct line management of Protection Coordinator. 

Our Ideal Candidate: 

For this position we are seeking a candidate with a relevant university degree and a minimum 5 years’ experience in related programming in conflict / post-conflict environments. They will have strong knowledge of global protection standards and relevant bodies of international law. They will also possess strong communication skills and ability to build trust and confidently navigate both internally and externally at different levels.

We are particularly looking for an individual with the ability to think strategically and constructively and to apply these skills in developing policy frameworks and guidelines to support institutionalization of protection mainstreaming. Experience in developing and delivering high quality protection-related training and tools to support practical implementation of protection standards is essential.  Experience in working with partners and supporting development of their organisational and programmatic protection capacities is also an asset. 

Additional Information:

We welcome applications from interested and qualified candidates. Candidates are encouraged to apply early, as applications may be screened prior to the vacancy deadline

Duty Station: Amman, Jordan

Duration: 12 months

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