Associate Protection Officer (Community-Based)

Details

Mission and objectives

Update

Context

The National Office in Guatemala opened in 2015 in order to strengthen UNHCR’s protection work in the region as part of the UNHCR’s Regional Protection and Solutions Strategy for the countries in the North of Central America (NCA). Following the scale-up of operation activities in the region, a decision is made to reinforce UNHCR presence in both at the field and country levels with futher upgrade the office status to Representation. Central America is suffering a wave of violence stemming from organized criminal groups, including record high homicide rates, sexual violence, disappearances, forced recruitment into gangs, and extortion. The epi-demic of violence is compelling a diverse range of people to flee their homes and to seek in-ternational protection, particularly in bordering and nearby countries. The United States of America, Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and El Sal-vador are all affected, either as countries of origin, transit or destination, and in some cases, in a combination of these. The Associate Protection Officer will report to to the Head of Field Unit who will provide the incumbent with general guidance and workplans. The incumbent works quite independently with an oversight from the supervisor. These position do not imply super-visory role. The incumbent will work closely with other colleagues in the same duty station to discuss relevant agenda and exchange information. External contacts might be required with local authorities for gathering and exchange of data.

Task description

Under the direct supervision of the Head of the Unit in Esquipulas the UN Volunteer will undertake the following tasks: • Be fully informed about community structures and the protection and security situ-ation of the population of concern and develop strong links with a cross-section of members of refugee/Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)/stateless communities, using an Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) approach; • Through relationships with persons of concern and network of partners stay abreast of political, social, economic and cultural developments that have an im-pact on the protection environment and provide advice to senior management. En-sure that the perspectives, capacities, needs and resources of the persons of con-cerns are reflected in the protection strategy, planning processes and operations plan addressing the specific protection needs of women and men, children, youth and older persons, persons with disabilities, minority groups such as sexual minor-ities and persons living with HIV/AIDS; • Ensure through direct action and advocacy with more senior protection staff that the necessary resources are allocated to enable community work to identify and address protection and assistance gaps; • Assist in supporting consultative process with government counterparts at local levels, partners and persons of concern to develop and implement integrated strategies that address the key protection priorities, including, for example, child protection, education and SGBV, and solutions approaches; • Provide technical guidance and support to UNHCR and partners and implement and oversee Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on all community-based pro-tection related issues; • Support the design, implementation and evaluation of protection centred and solu-tions oriented programming with implementing and operational partners guaran-teeing that community-owned activities are integrated; • Support communities in establishing representation and coordination structures • Promote confidence building and conflict resolution among populations of concern, authorities and host communities; • Maintain protection presence through regular field missions and reports, making direct contact with persons of concern, host communities, local authorities and partners. In operations applying the humanitarian cluster system, contribute to en-suring that the response of the Protection Cluster is grounded in an AGD-compliant strategy which covers all assessed and prioritized protection needs of the affected populations; • Support the Operation's work to ensure the protection strategy is fully integrated into the Country Operations Plan, the UN Development and Assistance Frame-work (UNDAF), the Humanitarian Country Team’s common humanitarian action plan where applicable; • Contribute to the Protection team's information management component which: provide disaggregated data on populations of concern and their problems; re-searches, collects and disseminates relevant protection information and good practices to enhance protection delivery and provide technical advice if necessary; • Ensure participatory, community-based protection and AGD approaches are in-cluded in, strategies and plans in the country operation; • Ensure community understanding of UNHCR's commitment to deliver on account-ability and quality assurance in its response; • Support persons of concern to develop structures that enhance their participation and protection. 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.