Ireland: Humanitarian Policy Advisor

Reports to: Emergency Director (or Head of Emergency Technical Unit – tbc)

Job location: Dublin, with between four and six overseas trips per year, each of up to four weeks in duration.

Pay Band: 5 (€45,563 to €53,603)

Contract: Permanent

Job Purpose: Conflict is an unparalleled hazard in terms of its destructive impact on human development. It keeps one fifth of the world’s population under the threat of large-scale organised violence and traps populations in situations of protracted disaster, increases the global number of extremely poor and deepens their levels of suffering.

The Humanitarian Policy Advisor (HPA) is responsible for leading on Concern’s approach to conflict management, implementing the Strategy on Violent Conflict, and providing technical support to assist country programmes to enhance their approach to working in and on conflict. The HPA will also ensure the realisation of the workplan of this strategy and act as the organisational focal point for armed conflict within the organisation.

Key Responsibilities:

1.Coordinate the implementation of Concern’s Strategy on Violent Conflict

a. Lead on the implementation of the strategy’s five areas: the integration of conflict sensitivity into programming; technical support and guidance to the conflict focal countries; development and design of conflict management tools; support on the design of conflict-related programmes, conflict sensitivity measures, and monitoring of these; and input into advocacy and thought leadership activities as per the workplan.

b. Analyse the policy implications of conflict as it affects Concern’s target groups and programmes, and provide technical input into policy and advocacy positions related to this.

c. Monitor and report on the implementation of the strategy annually at the Emergency Directorate meeting and other fora as required.

2.Support programme design, implementation, monitoring and the evaluation of peacebuilding programming across Concern’s programmes and countries of operation

a. Lead on the mapping of capacity, needs and strategic partnership opportunities in relation to conflict-sensitive and peacebuilding programming in Concern’s conflict focal countries.

b. Provide technical support to conflict focal countries through field visits, remote support, and the capacity building of the staff of Concern and its partners in conflict sensitivity and good practice in integrated peacebuilding programming.

c. Develop tools and resources for conflict analysis, peacebuilding programming approaches, conflict-sensitive programming and organisational learning in relation to each of these.

d. Develop monitoring and evaluation tools, including standard indicators, for monitoring in peacebuilding programming and conflict sensitivity.

e. Develop a library of good practice resources drawn from external sources as well as documentation and learning from Concern’s own programming for peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity.

f. Support recruitment of country programme staff on peacebuilding programmes as required.

g. Support institutional fundraising and new business development teams to develop relationships with donors and support the development of new proposals on peacebuilding programmes as required.

3.Act as the organisational focal point for armed conflict

a. Lead on conflict research projects, as required. This may entail designing and completing field-based research or engaging consultants to do so, and the consequent management of the work of any such consultants.

b. Engage IPD, SAL, Concern UK and Concern US on conflict as a cross-organisational issue.

c. Support IPD and SAL to include good practice in conflict sensitivity, peacebuilding, social cohesion and conflict prevention, management and resolution in organisational strategies, policies, approaches, and tools.

d. Map existing advocacy opportunities within the conflict focal countries and input into the development of key messages both for and about these country programmes for external use and closed-door policy engagement.

e. Participate in internal country working groups for conflict focal countries and input into coordination between existing and emerging advocacy initiatives.

f. Represent Concern on the issue of conflict at external events as required to build Concern’s credibility, visibility and reputation in the area of peace and conflict. This may include engagement with the Irish government, and other NGOs and academics working in the area of conflict management.

g. Lead on the establishment of regular meetings, workshops, presentations or other tasks within the conflict portfolio to a variety of internal and external stakeholders.

h. Capture and disseminate good practice in conflict programming by other organisations.

4.Additional responsibilities

a. Support the delivery of inductions as required.

b. Identify the need for, develop work plans and manage the day-to-day work of interns, volunteers and research students working on conflict-related projects in the Emergency Directorate, as required.

c. Develop or input into public documents such as Concern policies, public messaging, speeches, etc. as required.

d. Support the development of project proposals with specific conflict relevance/focus.

e. Maintain the ‘Armed Conflict’ section of the Emergency Directorate’s intranet site.

f. Conduct desktop reviews of potential countries of operation, as required.

g. Be able to travel to the field/overseas, as required, to generate information about contexts or good practice in emergency response, or to support sudden onset emergencies.

Skills and Experience Required:

Essential:

· Master’s degree, or equivalent in a conflict-related field

· At least two years’ professional experience working in a conflict-specific humanitarian or development role

· Excellent written and verbal communication skills

· Strong interpersonal skills and ability to work across directorates and foster collaboration with a diverse range of stakeholders across and beyond the organisation

· A proven self-starter, with an evidenced ability to work autonomously and to tight time schedules

· Concern chooses to work in countries in which there is a high incidence of attacks on aid workers. The role requires a willingness to travel to Concern’s country programmes – including for the provision of technical support or to support the establishment of new responses to sudden onset emergencies

· Demonstrable experience of supporting peacebuilding and conflict-sensitive programming and organisational learning related to this

· Ability to develop concepts of conflict and conflict management, and to explain these accessibly to others

· Strong network of connections in the conflict, humanitarian or development sectors in Dublin or elsewhere

· Fluency in French

To apply: CVs should be submitted through our website at https://jobs.concern.net by closing date: 4^th July 2019

Candidates must be legally entitled to work in Ireland at the time of application.

Concern is an equal opportunity employer and welcome applications from all section of the community.

Concern has an organisational Code of Conduct (CCoC) with three Associated Policies; the Programme Participant Protection Policy (P4), the Child Safeguarding Policy and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy. These have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organisation, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organisation to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Concern Code of Conduct and Associated Policies as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the content of both the Code of Conduct and the Associated Policies and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these policies.

Your Personal Data

During this job application, you will provide Concern with your personal data. Concern takes its responsibilities towards this personal data very seriously and is committed to complying with all relevant data protection legislation.

Concern receives a substantial amount of funding from external donors each year. Increasingly donors are introducing requirements whereby future funding is conditional on ensuring that the name of any employee or volunteer (existing or new), does not appear on terrorism lists generated by the European Union (List of person, groups and entities to which Regulation (EC No. 2580/2001 applies), the US Government (Office of Foreign Assets Control list of specially designated Nationals and Blocked Persons) and the United Nations (Consolidated List).

Any offer of employment (either paid or voluntary) with Concern Worldwide will only be made following a successful clearance check being conducted on the applicant and such checks may be updated periodically during the course of the period of employment.

By submitting a formal application for paid or voluntary employment to Concern, you agree to Concern carrying out a clearance check as outlined above and that Concern will not proceed to recruit you should your name appear on any of the aforementioned lists

In certain circumstances, donors may request that personal data relating to employees to work on the activities that they fund be provided directly to them - so that they can perform their own counter terrorism checks. This may involve transferring some basic personal data outside the EEA. It will be a condition of your employment contract that Concern be allowed to share this information with institutional donors for these purposes.

For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office.

You have certain rights under data protection legislation. For more information on how to exercise those rights please visit www.concern.net/about/privacy

Please only apply for this position if you are satisfied with the proposed processing of your personal data as outlined above.

CVs should be submitted through our website at https://jobs.concern.net by closing date: 4^th July 2019