Associate Protection Officer – Job Ref. TAN/UNHCR/1511/2313

Standard Job Description: Associate Protection Officer

Organizational Setting and Work Relationships

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.
• 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.

Duties

– 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.

– 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.

– Conduct eligibility and status determination for persons of concern in compliance with UNHCR procedural standards and international protection principles.

– 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. – Implement and oversee Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all protection/solutions activities which integrate AGD sensitive procedures.

– Oversee and manage individual protection cases, including those on GBV 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 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.

– 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.

– Support the identification and management of risks and seek to seize opportunities impacting objectives in the area of responsibility. Ensure decision making in risk based in the functional area of work. Raise risks, issues and concerns to a supervisor or to relevant functional colleague(s).

– Perform other related duties as required.

Relevant Job Experience

• Essential 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.

Functional Skills

• Protection-related guidelines, standards and indicators
• Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) PR-Gender Based Violence (GBV) Coordination MG-Project Management
• Human Rights Doctrine/Standards
• International Humanitarian Law
• Assessment of IDPs Status, Rights, Obligation
• Climate change and disaster related displacement CO-Drafting and Documentation (

Language Requirements For International Professional and Field Service jobs: Knowledge of English and UN working language of the duty station if not English.

Desired Candidate Profile:

• Demonstrated professional experience in refugee protection, human rights or international humanitarian law, including experience in working directly on protracted refugee caseload and onward movement.
• Good knowledge of International Refugee and Human Rights Law and ability to apply the relevant legal principles.
• Excellent analytical and drafting skills.
• Diverse field experience in coordination within an inter-agency context and other actors, in a refugee or humanitarian context.
• Experience in child protection and community-based protection themes.
• Knowledge of French, Swahili and previous assignments in hardship duty stations are an asset.

Nature of Position:

The Government of Uganda (GoU) is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. Uganda adopts a settlement approach to refugee management and protection, whereby, upon receiving refugee status, new arrivals are provided with plots of land in refugee-hosting villages on which to build new homes and grow agricultural crops. Refugees can freely access public services such as health and education and are granted a range of rights and freedoms, including freedom of movement, to seek employment and to start their own business. Uganda hosts the largest number of refugees in Africa with multiple emergencies unfolding around its borders with majority of the refugees ‘ origination from South Sudan and the DRC Congo.

The P2 Associate Protection Officer is responsible for the oversight and supervision of all protection activities and some key areas include coordination of SGBV and Psychosocial support working groups, Protection donor ‘s mission and as well acting as antifraud/corruption focal point for the Field Office. The current Population in Kyaka II Refugee settlement is 121,166 individuals of 33,396 households biometrically registered refugees and 2,707 asylum seekers. About 77% of the refugee population in Kyaka settlement are women and children with a significant number of persons with specific needs. The settlement is dominated by Congolese from Democratic Republic of Congo (95.13%), Burundians (2.87%) and Rwandans (1.92%). The settlement no longer receives new refugees, apart from second displaced refugees who were previously registered in Kyaka II, family reunification, referrals, and protection cases. Therefore, the presence of a P2 Associate Protection Officer is critical to ensure that proper Protection monitoring is taking place continuously while ensuring accountability of services provision to the persons we serve. The position reports to the Head of Field Office Kyaka.

The incumbent will have direct supervisory responsibility for protection and registration staff and supports the application of protection standards, operational procedures and practices at field level. Development and maintenance of constructive relationships with key Government counterparts that measurably impact and enhance protection planning, programming, and results, form the core of the work of the incumbent.

Living and Working Conditions:: The settlement is located about 50 kilometres from Mubende town and transport time is about 1 hour. Transport time to Mbarara is about 4 hours, while only 3 hours to Kampala. Even though FO Kyaka is a family duty station, staff is expected to reside at the staff accommodation provided by the office due to lack of local UNDSS cleared accommodation. At the staff accommodation compound provided by UNHCR, electricity and water are available. There is a local market at the Bujubuli zone of the settlement, while local supermarkets are only found in Fort Portal (130 km from Kyaka) or Mbarara. There are no education facilities similar to international schools in Kyaka, Fort Portal and Mbarara. International schools are available in Kampala and Entebbe areas. In term of medical services, only basic medical services are available in health centres in the settlements, and if necessary, further medical referral to Kampala. The nearest banking facilities including ATM are either in Mubende (60 km from Kyaka) or Fort Portal. The accommodation is located in the refugee settlement and within a fully secure compliant compound where office space and interview rooms are also located. Rooms are individual with bathrooms, kitchen and common space are shared. Although mobile phone network coverage is at times unstable, an office landline is available. Radio communication system is in place in case of emergency.

International staff normally place their families either in Kampala or Entebbe for those with school age dependents.

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