Associate Protection Officer, IICA-1 at UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Title: Associate Protection Officer

Duty Station: Windhoek, Namibia

Duration: 6 months

Contract Type: Individual Contractor

Closing date: 1 Aug 2022

Start date: ASAP

Organizational context:

UNHCR Namibia has a total population of over 6,800 asylum seekers and refugees registered on its PRIMES database, as of June 2022, and over 140,000 persons without civil status registration, potentially at risk of statelessness. Namibia is both a signatory to the 1959 Conventions and the 1967 protocols, as well as to the African refugee convention. It has yet to sign or accede to the Statelessness Conventions and has signed but yet to ratify the African Union Convention for the protection and assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention).

The majority of asylum seekers and refugees reside in Osire Settlement, in the Northern part of the country. Registration and documentation related to refugees is undertaken by the Government of Namibia, with technical support as need be from UNHCR. The nationality breakdown of refugees registered with UNHCR is predominantly from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, and a few other nationalities. The refugee situation in Namibia is assessed as a protracted situation as some refugees have been in Osire since its establishment in 1992. The Osire Refugee Settlement is situated about 220 km from Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia and about 130 km from Otjiwarongo which is the nearest town to the settlement. Beyond the protracted nature of asylum, refugees in Osire are also subject to drought and limited self-reliance or durable solution options.

The Government of Namibia is responsible for Registration, Camp Management, Education and Health interventions at the Settlement. Under the GoN umbrella, the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration/COR is responsible for land allocation, camp coordination and provision of security. The Ministry of Health is in charge of the Clinic. The Ministry of Education is covering needs related to the education of refugees. Two other partners of UNHCR – Society for Family Health (SFH) and LAC, are charged with specific programmatic (distribution of food and core relief items, WASH, Shelter construction, livelihoods, lighting, Specific needs issues, community outreach and counselling, warehousing, etc) and legal responsibilities in support of refugees respectively. The National Association for Child Care Workers (NACCW) will implement activities related to child protection and community-based child and youth care in Namibia. UNHCR plays a coordination, technical and financial support role, as well as advocacy in relation to UNHCR and other global refugee compact related issues. UNHCR also participates in the UN Country Team obligations and works closely with sister UN Agencies in the country.

In 2015, UNHCR has closed its office in the country and transferred protection monitoring and support responsibilities for the country over to the Southern Africa Office, with occasional technical visits to the country. Thereafter, the GoN requested that UNHCR re-establish its presence in order to enhance international protection support to the country. Under its mandate responsibility, and over the passage of time, there is a recognised need to support the country in arriving at achieving the realisation of its Global Refugee Compact commitments and pledges in different areas such as on solutions (self-reliance, local integration, resettlement, and complementary pathways), statelessness issues, and Refugee Status Determination. The need to also strengthen foundational protection interventions in the areas of child protection, SGBV, community-based-protection, and protection counselling are also evident.

As of 2022, the impetus on UNHCR pillar (2) – Statelessness, as well as initiatives related to accountability for affected populations have both picked up pace, requiring an individual with multiple protection skills sets, to absorb in these emerging support needs of the operation, as well as offer reinforced partner support across operational areas, to ensure that protection is visibly mainstreamed and routinely monitored across all sectors. The operation is equally in a period of transition from in-kind assistance to cash-based interventions, leading to self-reliance at some point in future. There is therefore a need for a candidate with previous related experience, including with working with agencies like WFP for joint assessments and related surveys. In other words, an individual with a multi-facetted strong protection and operations background, over extensive period of time, in different settings: both humanitarian and governmental where applicable.

As of Aug 2020, a Senior Legal Officer heads the UNHCR field presence in Namibia, reporting to the MCO Representative in Pretoria. The office is currently supported by a team of six staff: Snr Admin Asst, two drivers, and two RST AWF Staff. It will be further complimented by the current position, as well as both a protection and field associate up until Dec 2022.

Please also note that recruitment as a UNHCR staff member and engagement under a UNHCR affiliate scheme or as an intern is subject to proof of vaccination against COVID-19.

The position:

The Associate Protection Officer reports to the Protection Officer or the Senior Protection Officer. Depending on the size and structure of the Office, the incumbent may have supervisory responsibility for protection staff including community-based protection registration, resettlement, and education. S/he provides functional protection guidance to information management and programme staff on all protection/legal matters and accountabilities. These include: statelessness (in line with the campaign to End Statelessness by 2024), Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) commitments, age, gender, diversity (AGD) and accountability to affected populations (AAP) through community-based protection, Child protection, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) prevention and response, gender equality, disability inclusion, youth empowerment, psycho-social support and PSEA, registration, asylum/refugee status determination, resettlement, local integration, voluntary repatriation, human rights standards integration, national legislation, judicial engagement, predictable and decisive engagement in situations of internal displacement and engagement in wider mixed movement and climate change/disaster-related displacement responses. S/he supervises protection standards, operational procedures, and practices in protection delivery in line with international standards.

The Associate Protection Officer is expected to coordinate quality, timely and effective protection responses to the needs of populations of concern, ensuring that operational responses in all sectors mainstream protection methodologies and integrate protection safeguards. The incumbent contributes to the design of a comprehensive protection strategy and represents the organization externally on protection doctrine and policy as guided by the supervisor. S/he also ensures that persons of concern are meaningfully engaged in the decisions that affect them and support programme design and adaptations that are influenced by the concerns, priorities, and capacities of persons of concern. To achieve this, the incumbent will need to build and maintain effective interfaces with communities of concern, authorities, protection, and assistance partners as well as a broader network of stakeholders who can contribute to enhancing protection.

Duties and responsibilities:

All UNHCR staff members are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional, and managerial competencies and UNHCR’s core values of professionalism, integrity, and respect for diversity.

• Stay abreast of political, social, economic, and cultural developments that have an impact on the protection environment.
• Promote International and National Law and applicable UN/UNHCR and IASC policy, standards, and codes of conduct.
• Foster their consistent and coherent interpretation and application through mainstreaming in all sectors and /or in clusters in applicable operations.
• Assist in providing comments on existing and draft legislation related to persons of concern, and aptly supporting and monitoring the legal partner.
• Provide legal advice and guidance on protection issues to persons of concern; liaise with competent authorities to ensure the issuance of personal and other relevant documentation. This will include covering at a national level, support for statelessness related undertakings along with the government officials charged with the portfolio.
• Promote and contribute to measures to identify, prevent, and reduce statelessness, as well as monitor developments on the Govt of Republic of Namibia Global Refugee Framework Pledges and Commitments with respect to statelessness.
• Contribute to a country-level child protection plan as part of the protection strategy to ensure programmes use a child protection systems approach.
• Contribute to a country-level education plan.
• Implement and oversee Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all protection/solutions activities which integrate AGD sensitive procedures, as well as Accountability for Affected Populations.
• Oversee and manage individual protection cases, including those on SGBV and child protection. Monitor, and intervene in cases of refoulement, expulsion and other protection incidents through working relations with governments and other partners.
• Recommend durable solutions for the largest possible number of persons of concern through voluntary repatriation, local integration and where appropriate, resettlement.
• Assess resettlement needs and apply priorities for the resettlement of individuals and groups of refugees and other persons of concern.
• Participate in the organization and implementation of participatory assessments and methodologies throughout the operations management cycle and promote AGD sensitive programming with implementing and operational partners.
• Contribute to and facilitate a programme of results-based advocacy through a consultative process with sectorial and/or cluster partners.
• Facilitate effective information management through the provision of disaggregated data on populations of concern and their problems.
• Promote and integrate community-based approaches to protection and contribute to capacity-building initiatives for communities and individuals to assert their rights.
• Support activities in the area of risk management related to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, fraud, case-processing, data protection, and human rights due diligence at country level.
• Participate in initiatives to capacitate national authorities, relevant institutions, and NGOs to strengthen national protection related legislation and procedures.
• Intervene with authorities on protection issues.
• Negotiate locally on behalf of UNHCR.
• Decide priorities for reception, interviewing and counselling for groups or individuals.
• Enforce compliance of staff and implementing partners with global protection policies and standards of professional integrity in the delivery of protection services.
• Enforce compliance with, and integrity of, all protection standard operating procedures.
• Perform other related duties as required.

Essential minimum qualifications and professional experience required:

The ideal candidate will be required to have demonstrated and recorded professional maturity, in addition to:

Education:

• 3 years relevant experience with Undergraduate degree; or 2 years relevant experience with Graduate degree; or 1 year relevant experience with Doctorate degree.

Relevant Job Experience:

Essential:

• professional experience in refugee protection, internal displacement, statelessness, human rights or international humanitarian law, protection coordination and operational field assessments. Good knowledge of International Refugee and Human Rights Law, Statelessness, and ability to apply the relevant legal principles.

Desirable:

• Field experience, including in working directly with communities, implementing partners, UN sister agencies, government officials and diverse national and international actors. Good ICT skills including database management skills. Strong reporting capability and project proposal drafting. An ability to mobilise and bring together communities, a strong ability to coordinate and advance projects and the ability to work under hardship conditions – remote setting of refugee settlement, long working and travelling hours, sensitive operational environment context.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English and working knowledge of another relevant UN language or local language. (In offices where the working language is not English, excellent knowledge of UN working language of duty station and working knowledge of English.)

Competency requirements:

• Core Competencies:

Accountability

Communication

Organizational Awareness

Teamwork & Collaboration

Commitment to Continuous Learning

Client & Result Orientation

• Managerial Competencies:

Judgement and Decision Making

Empowering and Building Trust

• Cross-Functional Competencies:

Analytical Thinking

Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

Political Awareness

Eligibility:

• Candidates must meet the essential minimum requirements of the position and candidates not citizens of the country must comply with all eligibility requirements for employment in line with the prevailing legislative prerequisites in the country and the essential minimum requirements of the position.

Remuneration:

A competitive compensation and benefits package is offered. For information on UN salaries, allowances, and benefits, please visit the portal of the International Civil Service Commission and please refer to the relevant category / grade level at: http://icsc.un.org

Location:

The successful candidate will be based with the team In Windhoek, Namibia.

Conditions:

The contract is for six months, and the start date is ASAP. It is a full-time role with working hours starting from 8.00am to 5pm Monday to Friday (40 hours per week).