Associate Protection Officer

The position starts on the 1 January 2021 and it is for 12 months.

Associate Protection Officer (UNOPS IICA 1)
UNHCR Pretoria, South Africa

Operational Context
The UNHCR Multi-Country Office (MCO) in South Africa delivers protection and assistance to refugees and other persons of concern in South Africa and countries where there is no UNHCR presence, namely Namibia, Botswana, Madagascar, Kingdoms of Lesotho and Eswatini, Seychelles, Mauritius, and the Comoros. The cumulative population of persons of concern in countries covered by MCO stands at 281,633 refugees and asylum seekers (and possibly hundreds of thousands of stateless persons).

South Africa has been known for its generous refugee legislation but is steering towards restrictive measures together with Botswana. Populations in several Southern African countries are small and focus has been on phasing down and out in Namibia and Botswana. However, with the influx of Congolese asylum seekers in the region and unresolved protection issues in Botswana, UNHCR was compelled to increase its presence and staffing in countries where emergencies or protection constraints called for UNHCR’s presence and the trend will most likely continue until the time when governments in the region are able to independently manage refugee populations, which is unlikely to happen in the near future.

In terms of refugee protection and solutions, South Africa has had progressive refugee legislation, but legislative restrictions are underway, prompted by the scale of mixed migratory flows into the country. Countries in the region are changing refugee legislation to narrow the formal asylum space in various ways and tightening enforcement of encampment policies even with miniscule refugee populations like Botswana and Namibia. In all camps or settlement settings the setup is parallel or semi-parallel service delivery for refugees, largely financed by UNHCR, and the organisation is far from its global policy and vision of locally integrated lives and services for selfreliant refugees.
Whereas middle-income countries like South Africa, Namibia and Botswana in principle have resources to spend on protection and service delivery for PoCs, the question at hand remains their willingness to spend on refugees and asylum-seekers vis-à-vis local populations. In addition, the region comprises cash-strapped countries like the Kingdom Eswatini and Madagascar, with very limited resources to assist national populations, including refugees and asylum-seekers.

In regard to statelessness, resources and institutional capacity of governmental stakeholders will remain limited. Comprehensive birth registration and access to nationality documentation will remain major challenges in view of the overall development situation and economic constraints faced by most countries in the region. The lack of financial resources will adversely affect the availability of quantitative and qualitative data. Irregular migration is expected to remain high and thus continue to be a risk factor for statelessness among migrant children, as well as disrupted family ties of unaccompanied children (without documentation) and protracted displacement
situations.

Regional commitments on the SADC level (MIDSA Conclusions 2015 to 2017, SADC PF Resolution 2016, the AU Protocol on Nationality in 2018 or 2019) and globally applicable advocacy tools (SDG, ID4D, UNICEF-UNHCR Coalition, recommendations by UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies) will facilitate the work on statelessness in the region.

• Title: Associate Protection Officer
• Duty Station: Pretoria, South Africa
• Duration: 1 January 2021 – 31 December 2021
• Contract Type: (UNOPS) International-Specialist IICA 1
• Closing date: 9 December 2020 (midnight Geneva time)

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, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) 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 incumbent provides leadership, guidance and functional and administrative support to the running of the Helpline which is part of the protection unit. This includes analysis of trends and patterns, protection related liaison, correspondence, monitoring, case management and reporting activities. The incumbent will also supervise the team of Helpline protection assistants who operate the Helpline.

The incumbent also facilitates the involvement of PoC in making decisions that affect them, whether in accessing their rights or in identifying appropriate solutions to their problems. To achieve this, the incumbent will need to build and maintain effective interfaces with communities of concern, local authorities and protection and assistance partners.
In addition, UNHCR is planning to outsource the Helpline and the incumbent will be required to steer and support the process in this role.

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.
• Observe and respect protection related Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) including Helpline SOPs.
• Provide guidance, supervision, functional and administrative support to the Helpline staff
• Provide functional and administrative support in implementing participatory approaches, needs assessments, monitoring, reporting and case management.
• Support protection assessments and refer to the appropriate partner and UNHCR protection staff.
• Facilitate liaison with partners and competent authorities for protection responses.
• Support the Office’s ambition to outsource the Helpline project by providing guidance, leadership and development of the outsourcing project.
• Assist in drafting reports, routine correspondence, maintain data for trends analysis, updating relevant databases and compiling statistics within the Area of Responsibility (AoR).
• Enforce integrity in the delivery of protection services by local implementing partners.
• 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.
• Promote and contribute to measures to identify, prevent and reduce 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.
• Participate in the organisation 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.
  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:
Education:
Minimum undergraduate degree in the field of Law or other relevant field.

Work Experience

Essential:

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

Professional experience in the area of refugee protection, internal displacement, human rights or international humanitarian law.

Good knowledge of International Refugee and Human Rights Law and ability to apply the relevant legal principles.

• Desirable: Field experience, including in working directly with communities. Good IT skills including database management skills.

Languages:
• Fluency in English.
**
Key Competencies:**
• 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

Location
The successful candidate will be based in Pretoria, South Africa.

Conditions
The position starts on 1 January 2021 and is for 12 months.