Protection Programme Development Manager At Norwegian Refugee Council

Background:

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organisation 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.

In the Middle East, NRC has over 3000 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 (CC) of Shelter, Education, Water and Sanitation Hygiene, Food Security, along with Information Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) to forcibly displaced people.

The Iraq context is a dynamic context with an ongoing transition from emergency response to early recovery programmes. NRC Iraq wants to strength the protection programme as a strategic priority for the next 4 years, the position holder will lead the needs assessments, capacity building of NRC staff, developing funding proposals and positioning of NRC protection programme.

Role and responsibilities:

The purpose of the Protection Programme Development Manager is to be responsible to design, develop, and implement CC programme/project in a small and medium size Country Operation or a start-up/small CC in a large country.

The Protection Programme Development Manager will be in charge of opening the protection programme for North Iraq Area Office (NIAO) including conducting needs assessments, training NRC staff, developing funding proposals, and positioning NRC as a protection actor in Iraq.

Generic responsibilities:

Develop CC strategy, technical Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) / guidelines and Macro Legal Framework Agreements (LFAs).
Compliance and adherence to NRC policies, CC tools, handbooks and guidelines.
Responsible of development and management of funding proposals, project budgets, and donor reports.
Overall management of project staff.
Coordinate and manage CC (Protection) project implementation (activities, budget and project documentation) in line with proposals, strategies and donor requirements.
Ensure capacity building of project staff and transfer key skills.
Liaison and collaborate with relevant local and national authorities and stakeholders and represent NRC in relevant forums/cluster/working groups.
Promote the rights of Internally Displaced People (IDPs)/returnees in line with the advocacy strategy.

Specific responsibilities:

Conduct needs assessment context analysis to identify main protection needs and produce relevant reports/updates on the protection trends.
Assess and analyse risks to Safe and Inclusive Programming (SIP), i.e., assess communities’ perceptions and experiences in terms of safety, dignity, access, and participation, and risks of potential harm.
Develop/contextualize a package of trainings on SIP and stand-alone protection programming.
Conduct training and mentoring for key staff all across Iraq.
Identify key protection gaps where NRC can add value and support the specialist or regional advisor in proposal development and fundraising discussions.
Represent NRC in the relevant clusters.
Support Project Managers across NRC Iraq in the implementation of safe and Inclusive programming standards and action plans.
Budget holder for protection projects.
Set up a sustainable internal and external referral system.
Support the development of integrated programmes.
Act as a Protection and SIP focal point for Iraq mission.
Responsible for ensuring programme support to integrated programme, coordination and technical quality in the Area office.
Provide area specific input relevant for NRC Iraq and CC strategies.
Compliance to donor standards, and grant management and regular reporting to donor in Area, within the NRC Iraq grants management structure.
Identify funding opportunities and develop funding strategy and forecasts in collaboration with head of programs.
Ensure compliance with contractual commitments and extracting and implementing key learnings from project implementation.
Closely work with the MERO Protection Advisor as the technical line to align Iraq protection work to the regional and global priorities.
Any other task in line with the role.

Critical interfaces:

By interfaces, NRC means processes and projects that are interlinked with other departments/units or persons. Relevant interfaces for this position are:

Proposal development: Area Managers, Project Managers (PMs), MERO Protection Advisor, Specialists, Head of Programme (HoP)
Budget Programme Overview and allocation of shared costs: Finance Manager, Area Managers, PMs
Grant management: Area Managers, Grant Manager, HoP

Scale and scope of position

Staff: Project Coordinators and Managers

Stakeholders: Donors, UN agencies, INGOs, local NGOs, civil society, governmental bodies

Budgets: Responsible for NRC Iraq Protection portfolio

Information: GORS, Agresso, NRC People, Intranet

Legal or compliance: Terms of employment, donors

Competencies:

Competencies are important in order for the employee and the organisation to deliver desired results. They are relevant for all staff and are divided into the following two categories:

Professional competencies:

These are skills, knowledge and experience that are important for effective performance.

Generic professional competencies:

Minimum 3 years’ experience as protection programme manager/advisor in a humanitarian/ recovery context
Experience in conducting trainings
Experience in context analysis and research
Experience working in complex and volatile contexts
Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities
Knowledge about own leadership skills/profile
Fluency in English, both written and verbal

Context/ Specific skills, knowledge and experience:

Knowledge of the context Iraq is strong advantage
Knowledge of Arabic is strong advantage
Experience in scaling up programs
Behavioural Competencies

These are personal qualities that influence how successful people are in their job. NRC’s Competency Framework states 12 behavioral competencies and the following are essential for this position:

Strategic thinking
Initiating action and change
Influencing
Managing resources to optimize results
Managing performance and development
Handling insecure environments

Performance Management:

The employee will be accountable for the responsibilities and the competencies, in accordance with the NRC Performance Management Manual. The following documents will be used for performance reviews: