Partnership Officer (Peacebuilding)

UN High Commissioner for Refugees

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is offering a UNOPS Individual Contractor full-time position of Partnership Officer (Peacebuilding) within the Development Partnerships and Analytics Service in the Division of Resilience and Solutions.

UNHCR is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people. Every year, millions of men, women and children are forced to flee their homes to escape conflict and persecution. We are in over 125 countries, using our expertise to protect and care for millions.

Title: Partnership Officer (Peacebuilding)

Duty Station: Geneva, Switzerland

Duration: asap to 31 December 2023

Contract Type: UNOPS IICA, Level 2

Closing date: 10 August 2022

Start date: As Soon As Possible

Organizational context

UNHCR’s mandated responsibility for finding solutions has long required stronger cooperation with partners across development, political and security spheres. Due to a variety of factors, including the changing nature of conflicts over the last decades, the proportion of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in protracted displacement situations continues to be very high, while the overall number of people who have access to durable solutions remains marginal. Approximately 99% of internally displaced persons and 89% of all refugees are hosted in developing countries, generally in the most poor, remote and fragile areas often affected by or bordering conflict-areas. About 58 percent of IDPs and 34 percent of refugees are living in conflict areas. Many are displaced multiple times or go back and forth to their place of origin and host country depending on the security situation. In short, achieving protection and solutions for the majority of forcibly displaced persons is defined by socio-economic and security constraints.

The need to better connect the humanitarian, development and peacebuilding agendas has received revitalized attention over the past years as demonstrated amongst others by the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, the 2016 Agenda for Humanity, the 2016 General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions on Sustaining Peace, the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees and the 2019 OECD DAC recommendation on the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. In these and other contexts, humanitarian, development and peace actors have been called upon repeatedly to leverage each other’s strengths in ensuring inclusive socio-economic development that leaves no-one behind. The Global Compact on Refugees also explicitly calls for the international community to invest in preventing and addressing the root causes of forced displacement including through conflict prevention and other early efforts to address the drivers and triggers of large-scale refugee situations. These important policy developments are now reflected in the UNHCR 2022-2026 Strategic Directions, noting additional, accelerated, and targeted action for mainstreaming engagement of peace and development actors from the outset.

Duties and responsibilities

Purpose and Scope of Assignment

UNHCR’s Division of Resilience and Solutions (DRS) has been at the forefront in terms of strengthening partnerships with development actors, including Multilateral Development Banks and bilaterals and has seen significant success in this area. Efforts have also been made to better leverage peacebuilding and security actors. These efforts are yielding results and peace and security partners are increasingly coming forward to collaborate with UNHCR in the search for protection, solutions and addressing root causes of displacement and statelessness. The international community’s focus on the HDP nexus and greater attention to addressing root causes and conflict prevention underscores the need for UNHCR to strengthen partnerships in this area and build internal knowledge/capacity.

DRS is recruiting a Peacebuilding Specialist who will work under the supervision of the Snr Development Officer (rule of law; governance and peacebuilding) (P4). S/he will facilitate UNHCR’s engagement and cooperation with peace and security partners. This position will support the Sr Development Officer in ensuring that UNHCR’s persons of concern are properly considered as part of conflict prevention, peacebuilding and security frameworks at both the policy level and in the field. The incumbent will support the Sr Development Officer in identifying opportunities for developing effective partnerships, managing these partnerships, promoting UNHCR’s objectives and strategies with these partners, and ensuring that forced displacement and statelessness considerations are taken into account in their planning, programming, financing, advocacy and policy work. S/he will support DRS in meeting objectives related to peace and security as articulated in the 2022-2026 Strategic Directions and meet relevant expectations from partners and requests for support from UNHCR operations. The specific and time bound duties to be fulfilled under this assignment are listed below.

Monitoring and Progress Controls

Specific outputs and performance indicators:

  • Conduct comprehensive analyses to map and identify ways to support Regional Bureaux and operations in their work concerning peace security and fragility, including in the design of programmatic activities that help address displacement drivers and triggers.
  • In line with the Strategic Directions, and based on the above mapping and priority identification with regional bureaux and country operations, support the development of a UNHCR workplan on peacebuilding and conflict prevention based on the identification of key priorities in select regions/operations with concrete activities to be pursued for discussion and validation by relevant teams in NYO, DIP, GRF and DER;
  • In collaboration with UNHCR’s New York Office (NYO), update and finalize regional and country priorities and needs on peacebuilding operations and the mapping of future and/or strengthened partnerships with peace and security partners;
  • Support UNHCR’s policy and strategic engagement with the UN Peacebuilding Fund and the Peacebuilding Support Office and provide technical support to project development and inter-agency submissions in collaboration with NYO and DER;
  • Develop and coordinate capacity-building activities on peacebuilding for UNHCR in partnership with other interested stakeholders, and generate evidence, know-how and best practices based on peacebuilding practice in support of UNHCR’s adherence to the OECD DAC Recommendations;
  • Support DRS technical area teams on their main partnerships to identify and seek new or further engagement opportunities directly anchored in interventions in peace, security and fragility;
  • Contribute to coherence and alignment of UNHCR priorities in peacebuilding as a focal point of multiple working groups/support teams and participate in cross-divisional/multilateral consultation and collaboration internally/externally.

Essential minimum qualifications and professional experience required

Education

Bachelor’s degree or preferably advanced degree in international relations, development and conflict studies, refugee studies or related subject.

Work Experience

6 years of relevant experience with undergraduate degree; 5 years relevant experience with graduate degree; or 4 years of relevant experience with Doctorate degree.

Essential: experience in peacebuilding, security and conflict prevention related fields including in forced displacement contexts. Experience in working on peace / security related matters with bilateral donors, UN peace and security entities as well as non-governmental organizations and/or UNHCR. Experience of designing/coordinating/implementing peacebuilding projects in the field in IDPs and/or refugee contexts. Experience in drafting and editing, in particular on protection and solutions strategies, advocacy strategies, or partnership building. Experience in project design, primary data collection, and both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Experience in coordination of UN interventions with other actors, in fragile and post conflict contexts.

Desirable qualifications: Experience in lobbying and advocacy with Government and other institutions. Experience in submitting successful application to the UN Peacebuilding Fund. French, Arabic and/or Spanish language skills. Experience in monitoring and evaluation and results-based management.

Location

The successful candidate will be working full-time in Geneva, Switzerland.

How to apply

Interested applicants should submit their letter of motivation and Personal History Form (PHF) to [email protected] indicating DRS/2022/011; First name/Last name, Partnership Officer (Peacebuilding), UNOPS in the subject of the email.

Personal History Forms are available at PHF Form / Supplementary Sheet.

Applications without Personal History Form will not be considered – PHFs and Supplementary Sheet are available on UNHCR website.

The UNHCR workforce consists of many diverse nationalities, cultures, languages and opinions. UNHCR seeks to sustain and strengthen this diversity to ensure equal opportunities as well as an inclusive working environment for its entire workforce. Applications are encouraged from all qualified candidates without distinction on grounds of race, colour, sex, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.


Job Notifications
Subscribe to receive notifications for the latest job vacancies.