Senior WPE Officer

Requisition ID: req51940

Job Title: Senior WPE Officer

Sector: Women Protection & Empowerment

Employment Category: Regular

Employment Type: Full-Time

Open to Expatriates: No

Location: Al-Hassaka, Syria

Work Arrangement:

Deadline: 1-June-24

Job Description

Background/IRC Summary:  

The Syria crisis is often described as the worst humanitarian catastrophe since the end of the Cold War. Today, 13.4 million people in Syria – more than half of the country’s population – need humanitarian assistance with needs increasingly being exacerbated by economic decline. Of these, 6.8 million are refugees and asylum-seekers who have fled the country. This is no short-term humanitarian episode. The devastating human consequences to huge numbers of people will endure for decades. The destruction of relationships, communities, livelihoods, homes, and infrastructure will take years to repair.

IRC is offering a robust humanitarian response to the Syria crisis a rapidly expanding portfolio, supported by more than 1000+ staff in Syria Country Program. IRC is undertaking programs in Syria and the neighboring countries of Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan in the fields of health, child protection, early childhood development, education, women’s protection, and empowerment, non-food items and food distribution, cash assistance, water and sanitation, protection and rule of law, and livelihood programming. Our work in these challenging settings gives rise to some of the most pressing issues facing contemporary humanitarian action, including questions of access, security, funding, and coordination.

Job Overview/Summary:

With direct management support from the Women’s Protection and Empowerment Manager and Senior Women’s Protection and Empowerment Manager, the WPE Senior Officer plays a key role in supporting field-level implementation of WPE Response and Prevention programming including overseeing IRC and/or partner-led WGSS activities, delivering WPE’s capacity development plan and priority donor deliverables in Alhol, Roj camp, Areesha camp Washokani camp, Serikani camp and in another assigned site at Hassakah. The WPE Senior Officer will also support the roll-out of IRC’s new and innovative program models such Women Rise and EMAP.  The WPE Senior Officer is a roving position and will require regular weekly travel to field locations especially in Alhol at Hassakah. This position will oversee and support the day-to-day WPE activities in their designated sites in static centers and/or mobile locations.  

Responsibilities:

Program management and implementation.

• Supervise and support the day to day running of the WPE activities in Hassakah sites.
• Ensuring that WPE program activities are survivor-centered and adhere to standard IASC guidelines and GBV guiding principles, flagging any concerns to the WPE Manager in a timely manner.
• Ensuring smooth collaboration with IRC local partners by establishing strong working relationships. This involves providing extensive technical support to partners, aiding them in resolving any technical issues that may arise, and actively participating in joint initiatives.
• Conduct regular weekly in-person field visits and provide remote support to supervise the successful implementation of WPE activities in the designated area of operation, which may include camps, clinics, urban women’s centers, and mobile locations.
• Ensuring monthly site collaboration plans and weekly activity schedules are in place and updated, supervising progress with the WPE Officers, and ensuring weekly follow-up of activities against produced work plans.
• Supporting the WPE team to continuously supervise and assess risk across all their services, activities, and sites of operations, raising any concerns immediately in line with procedures.
• Meet regularly with the site teams to discuss, design, and plan community outreach, mobilization, and engagement activities; and support the team to identify, train, and mentor teams of community volunteers.
• Meet regularly with the other WPE senior officers, officers and Managers to discuss programming progress, successes, challenges, and responsiveness of our program; putting in place an action plan and follow up.
• With technical guidance from WPE Manager or Snr WPE Manager, provide technical support to the case management team on high-risk and/or complex, difficult cases.
• Conduct weekly team case management meetings and individual supervision sessions with GBV Caseworkers at each site of operation.
• Review all case files with the Case Workers through GBVIMS primero and act like GBVIMS primero focal point as need base.

Monitoring and Reporting:

• Ensure GBV information generated from the services is handled in line with ethical standards, the GBVIMS guidelines, information sharing, and data protection protocols.
• In collaboration with the WPE Manager, continuously supervise activities, assessing their relevance to the needs, priorities, and interests of women and adolescent girls; raise any issues and make adaptations accordingly.
• Weekly activity summary report captured from the sites and raise any challenges or concerns immediately.
• On a weekly basis capture case management data from the sites and cross check the activity tracker with the row data and data base

Coordination:

• Collaborate with the Humanitarian Access team, security focal points, and WPE Manager to ensure smooth access for program implementation and collaborate with local partners.
• Develop and maintain effective working relationships where relevant with IRC internal sectors, NGOs, UN agencies, and authorities.
• Represent WPE program in coordination meetings in camp as assigned by the WPE manager.

Staff Performance Management, Learning & Development

• Hire, supervise, and build the capacity of team members in relevant technical and management competencies.
• Develop and implement remote management capacity-building approaches to build the strengths of the teams in Hassakah.
• Approve and lead time, attendance, and leave requests to ensure adequate departmental coverage; ensure monthly, accurate timesheet submission and carry out probationary reviews.
• As required, identify staff performance issues and work with Human Resources to document and address in accordance with the National Staff Employment Policies.

Other:

• Other relevant duties as assigned by the WPE Manager to support the implementation and quality of the program.
• All IRC staff are required to adhere to The IRC Way Standards for Professional Conduct and the IRC country employment policies.

Qualifications

• A university degree in social work, psychology, other social science, or other field of study.
• At least 3-6 years’ experience in GBV prevention and response area or related areas, GBV case management, and delivering services to women and girls GBV survivors.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Validated sense of professional discretion, integrity, and ability to handle complex situations diplomatically and to effective resolution.
• Excellent management and interpersonal skills and a solid ability to promote harmonious/cohesive teamwork, in a cross-cultural context.
• Validated ability to plan long-term, organize priorities and work under administrative and programmatic pressures with detail orientation and professional patience.
• Analytical ability in creating effective solutions to complex matters while adhering to labor laws and internal policies.
• Familiarity with principles of monitoring and evaluation; experience in writing brief narrative reports and data reporting.
• Good computer skills and familiarity with Word/Excel.
• Demonstrated experience with capacity building and training (GBV)

Language/Travel:

English and Arabic are required while being fluent in Kurdish is highly desired.

Travel: 70% to field sites in 60% as well as attending field, regional workshops and meetings.

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to:WPE Manager

Indirect Report to for technical guidance: Senior WPE Manager
Position directly supervises: WPE Officers and GBV Caseworkers

Position provides technical support and mentorship to: WPE Officers, GBV Caseworkers, Adolescent Girls Assistants, Community Mobilisers, Facilitators

Internal: Other WPE Senior Officers, WPE Admin and IM Officer

External: Other local and international actors, camp management

Professional Standards: IRC staff must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Global Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability and Equality. In accordance with these values, IRC operates and carries out policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti-Workplace Harassment, Respect at Work Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

Returning National Candidates: We strongly encourage national or returning national candidates to apply for this position. If you are a citizen of the Country in which this position is based and are currently located outside of your home country and possess over two years of international work experience, the Middle East Region has introduced an attractive remuneration package. The package includes competitive compensation, return flight to post, shipping allowance, temporary housing and a relocation allowance. Certain restrictions may apply. IRC strives to attract, motivate and retain qualified national staff in our programs.

Accountability to Clients: IRC staff must adhere to the commitment of contributing to the sustainability and development of its (CR) Client Responsiveness Mechanisms, preserving the culture of prioritizing the needs of our clients and affected communities by systematically listening to their perspectives and using their feedback to make programmatic decisions and give them greater influence over program design and delivery.

Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.

Diversity and Inclusion: at IRC MENA, we are passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity. Organizations that are diverse in age, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, ethnicity, nationality, and perspective are validated to be better organizations. More importantly, creating a safe workspace environment where everyone, from any background, can do their best is the right thing to do. So, bring your whole self to work.

IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. In keeping with our core values of Integrity, Service, Accountability and Equality, IRC strives to maintain a work environment built on mutual respect in which all individuals treat each other professionally, and free of bias, prejudice, and harassment. IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of IRC Persons in any work setting. All IRC staff, wherever they are located, are accountable for creating an environment free of discrimination, harassment, bullying, and retaliation.