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IRC began working in Nigeria in October 2012 in response to a widespread flood disaster. Since then, IRC has expanded its program scope and size with the aiming of making the greatest possible contribution to meeting humanitarian needs in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states in North East Nigeria. IRC’s response includes integrated health, reproductive health and nutrition support, protection including women’s protection and empowerment services, child protection, environmental health, economic recovery and development, and education. In 2015, IRC Nigeria developed a five year Strategy Action Plan, which has protection, health, education and livelihoods as high priority program areas.

IRC is the NGO Co-Lead of the Protection Sector in North East Nigeria, which is responsible for:

• Ensuring predictable, accountable and effective coordination of the protection response at the National and State levels.
• Ensuring the centrality of protection in the humanitarian response in North East Nigeria through effective mainstreaming of protection in all humanitarian sectors.
• Ensuring that Protection Sector members are accountable to affected populations through consultative and feedback mechanisms.

SCOPE OF WORK:

The Protection Sector NGO Co-Lead will work in partnership with UNHCR, as the Sector Lead Agency, to provide leadership and facilitate the processes that will ensure a well-coordinated, strategic, adequate, coherent, and effective protection response in Nigeria. The Co-Lead will have specific responsibility for ensuring that the Protection Sector is informed by NGO perspectives, including, importantly, that of local partners. The Co-Lead will also be responsible for ensuring that the NGO membership is contributing to and sharing Protection Sector responsibilities, and will play a lead role in developing the active engagement and technical capacity of members of the Protection Sector.

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Co-chair regular coordination meetings of the Protection Sector in the absence of the Sector Coordinator. Actively identify, make contact with, and offer technical and operational support to new and existing protection partners, including both national and international organizations; lead follow-up with prospective Protection Sector members, as applicable.
• With the Sector Coordinator, provide leadership and strategic direction, reflecting NGO perspectives in particular, including those related to the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) and Humanitarian Response Strategy as well as Situation Updates; otherwise support coordination so as to enable coherent and timely responses to protection and humanitarian needs.
• Co-lead on the development, implementation and regular updating of the Protection Sector strategy and workplan.
• Support Technical Working Groups, where needed, and operational working groups to facilitate emergency responses and to strengthen emergency response capacity and coordination.
• Support in developing periodic and ad hoc protection analyses to inform strategy development, as well as operational responses and advocacy; likewise, in collaboration with UNHCR, develop periodic response analyses to further assist in identifying response gaps in relation to identified needs.
• In collaboration with the Lead Agency, support the development and dissemination of appropriate protection tools for use by Protection Sector members to identify, report, monitor and respond to protection concerns.
• Identify core advocacy concerns for the Protection Sector through a consultative process; develop joint Working Group/ Inter Sector Working Group messages and advocacy strategies to ensure regular and consistent advocacy, including those raised by the CP, GBV, HLP and Mine Action Sub-Sectors, as well as the General Protection TWG and the Anti-Trafficking Task Force.
• Support the other Sectors and their membership with protection mainstreaming initiatives and promote analysis and integration of protection risks into their strategies and accompanying responses.
• Otherwise work with IRC Protection colleagues to generate and share evidence and to leverage the IRC’s technical knowledge and programmatic strengths so as to improve the overall quality of the response.
• Support representation of the Protection Sector in interagency fora; otherwise support protection mainstreaming through engagement in interagency and direct support to protection and non-protection actors.

OTHER CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Promote and support accountability to the affected population.
• Support the monitoring of the Centrality of Protection Work Plan and the drafting of quarterly / bi-annual/ annual reports on its implementation in the NE Response.
• Support training and capacity building of Protection Sector Members.
• Support LGA Protection Sector meetings as appropriate.
• Work with UNHCR Co-Lead, IRC ProSPINE+ Consortium Lead and PSWG members to ensure that key protection (including Anti-Trafficking, CP, GBV, HLP and Mine Action) concerns are reflected in OCHA or NGO led multi-sectoral assessments, as well as other protection specific sectoral assessments.
• In collaboration with the Protection Sector’s Information Management Officer, support the Sector’s data collection efforts, helping national partners in particular to submit accurate and consistent data; provide analysis back to the Protection Sector and other inter-agency fora.
• Support the PROSPINE+ Consortia lead to develop and implement a protection advocacy strategy to support and amplify protection sector-wide advocacy initiatives.
• Provide direct training in protection for key stakeholders, in line with agreed upon Protection Sector priorities.
• Work with protection and non-protection partners to promote understanding of, and adherence to, humanitarian and protection principles and standards according to international legal frameworks.
• Serve as the representative of the Protection Sector in key cross-sector working groups.
• Any other duties assigned by the line manager.

Qualifications

• Masters degree (MA) or equivalent in international affairs, international law, development, social sciences or other relevant subject; Bachelors degree required
• Minimum of 3-5 years proven experience working on protection issues in humanitarian environments, including provision of technical advice to field teams; excellent understanding of protection issues in emergency situations and detailed knowledge of humanitarian principles, guidelines and laws
• Demonstrable leadership, coordination, capacity building, planning and analytical skills
• Demonstrable experience in policy and advocacy and negotiation
• Good communicator with strong organizational, time management and analytical skills
• Fluency in English, spoken and written
• Strong writing and editing skills with close attention to detail
• Ability to juggle competing priorities, make timely decisions and work under pressure in an insecure environment
• Willingness to travel
• Commitment to women’s rights and IRC’s vision, mission and values, including sensitivity to cultural settings

Desirable

• Prior experience working on Nigeria, and/or experience working in West Africa
• Strong prior experience with information management as related to the protection sector, including maintaining standards of impartiality and confidentiality with data of a sensitive nature
• Previous experience of working within the sector/cluster system

SPECIFIC SECURITY SITUATION/ HOUSING

The Protection Sector NGO Co-Lead will be based in Maiduguri, Borno, Nigeria with travel throughout the sites affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The security situation in North East Nigeria continues to be volatile; candidates should have experience of implementing programming in insecure environments. This is a non-accompanied position, and the postholder will live in shared housing.