Senior WPE Officer

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 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 in 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.
• 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 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.

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.