Overview
The Protection Officer provides protection leadership and technical support across Cabo Delgado and Nampula Provinces, ensuring that UNHCR’s protection mandate is effectively implemented in a complex operational environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Contribute to the development, implementation and review of area-based protection strategies.
- Provide technical leadership and guidance on international protection standards.
- Support senior management with operational protection analysis and recommendations.
- Monitor and support the implementation of protection activities by partners.
- Conduct regular field-based partner monitoring visits.
- Review and validate partner workplans, activity reports and protection outputs.
- Provide technical guidance and corrective support to partners.
- Support programme and supply units in ensuring partner-implemented activities align with budgets and priorities.
- Flag and follow up on protection risks, implementation bottlenecks, access constraints or compliance issues.
- Support UNHCR’s operational leadership during sudden-onset displacement, returns, flooding, insecurity or access disruptions.
- Deploy to newly affected or hard-to-reach areas to support rapid protection assessments.
- Coordinate with UNHCR field teams, Government counterparts and partners to activate and implement emergency protection interventions.
- Support the scaling-up, adaptation or redirection of partner activities.
- Provide real-time operational advice to senior management during emergencies.
- Support post-emergency reviews and adjustments.
- Maintain regular engagement with provincial and district authorities.
- Provide technical support and capacity building to national NGOs, community-based organizations and implementing partners.
- Support coordination with development and recovery actors.
- Support project management, including planning, implementation, monitoring, and reporting of protection programmes.
- Work closely with UNHCR programme teams to ensure protection priorities inform targeting, design and monitoring of assistance and solutions-oriented interventions.
- Provide protection inputs to project proposals, partner agreements, monitoring missions and reporting.
- Conduct regular field missions across Cabo Delgado and Nampula.
- Provide on-site protection support during emergencies, new displacement, returns and rapid response operations.
Required Experience
- Minimum 4 years of relevant professional experience in protection, including refugee protection, internal displacement, human rights, or humanitarian response, with substantial field-based experience in complex or emergency settings.
- Demonstrated experience in the implementation, monitoring, and quality assurance of protection programmes, including direct engagement with partners and government counterparts at field level.
- Experience supporting emergency response operations, including participation in rapid protection assessments, field deployments, and adaptation of interventions in fluid and high-risk environments.
- Strong experience engaging with government authorities (provincial and district level) and humanitarian actors to support coordination, access, and implementation of protection activities.
- Demonstrated knowledge and application of core protection principles, including Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD), Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP), and Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA), within humanitarian programming.
- Experience in community-based protection approaches, including engagement with affected populations and identification of persons with specific needs.
- Demonstrated ability to provide technical guidance to partners and contribute to capacity building on protection-related topics, including monitoring, referrals, and accountability systems.
- Experience in supporting cluster coordination and coordination mechanisms, including with the Protection Cluster and/or sectoral coordination platforms.
- Knowledge of GBV prevention, risk mitigation, and response, including application of survivor-centred principles and safe and ethical referral practices.
- Strong analytical and drafting skills, with the ability to produce high-quality reports, protection analyses, and operational updates.
- Strong understanding of safe and ethical data collection and management, particularly in relation to sensitive protection issues.
- Experience in capacity building and mentoring of national NGOs, community-based organizations, and government counterparts.
- Knowledge of participatory approaches and community engagement methodologies in humanitarian settings.
- Good understanding of displacement dynamics and cross-cutting protection issues, including civil documentation, housing, land and property (HLP), GBV, child protection, disability inclusion, and access to services.
- Previous experience in emergency or conflict-affected contexts, particularly in remote or hard-to-access operational environments.
- Familiarity with UNHCR protection frameworks, tools, and guidance, as well as relevant inter-agency standards.
Qualifications
- 6 years relevant experience with Undergraduate degree; or 5 years relevant experience with Graduate degree; or 4 years relevant experience with Doctorate degree
- Field(s) of Education: Law; International Law; International Refugee Law; International Human Rights Law; International Humanitarian Law; Refugee and Forced Migration Studies; Political Sciences or other relevant field.
- Protection Learning Programme
