Protection Advisor, Ukraine

About Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Now, and for the future.

The Program / Department Summary

Mercy Corps’ Ukraine crisis response seeks to meet the humanitarian needs of vulnerable Ukrainians and other conflict-affected people where they are: displaced inside Ukraine, refugees in Poland, Romania and Moldova, or trapped behind frontlines. We aim to reach 500,000 vulnerable people with multi-purpose cash assistance, in-kind humanitarian support, and protection services across four countries. Almost all of our impact will be delivered in partnership: with Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian and Moldovan civil society organizations through a granting program that matches humanitarian action with capacity strengthening, and with peer international NGOs through a consortium in Ukraine. Mercy Corps is responding to the Ukraine crisis with large-scale consortium programming with a focus on Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA). The Consortium is a partnership between four international humanitarian aid agencies to model and deliver innovative, effective cash and other humanitarian assistance programs to support people affected by the Ukraine crisis within Ukraine.

An objective of the Ukraine Cash Consortium (UCC), Mercy Corps will be activating an information sharing platform (Signpost) that allows people on the move to access critical information about their current location, as well as linking them to information about locations where they plan to go and their journey there. People can access the information on a digital platform and traditional information sharing channels.

The Position

Mercy Corps is seeking a dynamic individual, who has experience engaging professionals from a variety of humanitarian sectors (and in particular cash and voucher assistance and digital information sharing) to analyze challenging protection problems and find practical solutions which help displaced populations mitigate risks. The Protection Advisor will oversee the protection aspects of the UCC program including support to the information sharing platform, as well as ensure all sectors implement best practices in protection mainstreaming and safe programming. The Protection Advisor will work with consortium partners to align protection best practices for the project and establish a system to monitor evolving protection risks emanating from project activities and community engagement.

In addition, the Protection Advisor will provide technical expertise and guidance in the development of Mercy Corps’ Ukraine response. This will include performing ongoing protection risk analysis to inform strategy and program activities; developing and strengthening partnerships with local protection NGOs; developing and implementing standard operating procedures and capacity strengthening strategy on protection analysis, mainstreaming and safe programming that is appropriate to sector staff and partner capacity needs; working with sectors to identify and develop initiatives with protection outcomes; supporting staff recruitment; coordinating with government agencies and humanitarian cluster system related to protection issues; coordinating with the Safeguarding team and CARM (community accountability) team to enable a holistic approach to safe and accountable programming.

Essential Responsibilities

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT & QUALITY

• Oversee the protection aspects of the UCC project and support protection issues related to cash assistance.
• Support/review content development for the Information Sharing Platform (Signposts) concerning protection information to make sure its accurate, up to date, aligns with best practices, and is user friendly information.
• Work with the technical advisor, moderators, and editors of the Information Sharing Platform (Signposts) to develop SOPs on how to mitigate protection issues coming from users of the platform and referral pathways.
• Coordinate with the Information Sharing Platform (Signposts) technical advisor, monitors and editors on monitoring evolving protection risks coming from communication with platform users and develop SOPs on best practices for sharing trends.
• Coordinate and provide support to the Information Platform (Signposts) technical advisor, monitors and editors with challenging cases/issues that may arise during two-way communication on the platform.
• Support local partners (especially those supporting cash assistance) with developing SOPs that promote safe programming during activities.
• Support the development of assessment and monitoring tools such as PDM to include questions that help monitor issues related to safety, dignity, and inclusion of people of different age, sex, abilities as well as marginalized groups.
• Support staff and partners with sector related approaches and best practices that enhance accessibility and participation of people who have challenges with their vision, hearing, mobility, communication, and self-care in all sector activities.
• Train and coach (remote and in person) staff and partners on relevant protection mainstreaming related to their sector activities, including psychosocial first aid skills.
• Support on-going use of protection risk analysis to inform programming in different locations by keeping up to date with existing protection risk reports and analysis and/or supporting technical teams with developing FGD and KII tools to better understand protection risks to safety, dignity, access, and meaningful participation related to the diversity of people engaged in their sector programming.
• Review and support team adherence to Mercy Corps and donor policies and procedures.

STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT

• Work with senior leadership team to develop and support the Ukraine response strategy.
• Inform strategy based on analysis demonstrating evolving protection risks and trends.
• Encourage the adaption of universal design principles for disability accessibility in all sectors approaches in the strategy and the design of programming.
• Work with sectors to assess opportunities to integrate protection outcomes in their strategic approach and project design.
• Assess capacity strength of sector staff and local partners in protection mainstreaming and safe programming, and tailor and facilitate capacity strengthening coaching appropriate to their need.
• Support sector teams and partners to collect and analyses data disaggregated age, sex, abilities, and where safe and appropriate by context related information such as language, ethnicity, nationality, displacement status, religion, etc.
• Collaborate and coordinate with Safeguarding Advisor, Gender Advisor, and CARM Advisor to enhance a holistic approach to safe, inclusive, and accountable programming.
• Contribute/review to project proposals and reports to ensure protection inputs meet best practices, minimum standards, and donor requirements; and support all sector sections to adequately demonstrate protection and gender mainstreaming, as well as disability inclusion, relevant to their sector approaches.

REPRESENTATION AND COORDINATION

• Coordinate with UCC consortium partner protection leads to align best practices with protection mainstreaming, enabling accessibility for people with disabilities, outreach and support to marginalized groups, mitigating protection risks and adopting safe programming, and monitoring protection trends observed during program activities.
• Participate in Protection cluster meetings and relevant work groups such as Cash for Protection, GBV, Child Protection, and Disability Inclusion to keep well-informed of country-wide protection trends, align best practices and contribute to joint initiatives.
• Garner local partnerships with protection related government agencies, as well as, local and international NGOs to assess protection trends and to maintain best practices and ensure that information and referral pathways aligned with current practice.

HUMAN RESOURCES, SAFEGUARDING AND DIVERSITY

• Develop position descriptions, technical interview questions, and support the recruitment of technical staff
• Assist with the on-boarding of team members, ensuring they are set up for success and familiar with the centrality of protection in their work.
• Support Mercy Corps global and regional initiatives for human resources, including safeguarding and diversity, and talent development;
• Collaborate with the people team to promote staff access to high quality learning opportunities, with a special emphasis on national team member development;

Supervisory Responsibility

Supervise the Technical Advisor of the Information Sharing Platform (Signposts)

Accountability

Reports Directly To: Deputy Director of Program

Works Directly With: Sr. GESI Advisor, Program Managers and Deputy Program Managers, CARM team members, Safeguarding team members, Response Director of Programs, partner Protection Advisors

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects.

Minimum Qualification & Transferable Skills

• BA in international development, international law, social work, public health, or equivalent disciplines. MA is preferable.
• Three to five years of experience in international development work, with a minimum of three years in field postings; experience working with displaced populations strongly preferred.
• Substantial background in protection and development work including experience conducting training, doing protection analysis and program integration and engaging in advocacy. Experience supporting projects that use cash assistance and digital technology is preferrable.
• Detailed understanding of the centrality of protection in humanitarian action, mitigating GBV and child protection risks, promoting accessibility for people with disability and other marginalized groups and their application, including community-based and rights-based approaches.
• Comprehensive knowledge of protection norms and standards as well as holistic and practical methods towards implementing protection mainstreaming and integrated protection outcomes.
• Strong report writing skills, including experience in writing proposals and donor reports. For this excellent analytical skills and computer literacy is required.
• Good interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate and negotiate clearly and effectively, taking into account cultural and language differences. Tact and diplomacy are essential.
• The ability to work closely in a team, be patient, adaptable, flexible, able to improvise and work in an environment that is often stressful and potentially volatile.
• Strong written and public speaking skills required.
• Fluency in written and spoken English required.
• Proficiency in Ukrainian is beneficial.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office

Success Factors

The Advisor will demonstrate a winning track record in program development, and bring flexibility, creativity, and enthusiasm to every project he/she undertakes. The individual must the ability to multi-task, set priorities, pay attention to detail, and work under tight deadlines within complex team environments and have exceptional writing skills. The Advisor must take an active role in building and maintaining external relationships as well as demonstrating the drive and initiative to contribute to internal team efforts. The individual must learn quickly how to provide technical data and support in the most efficient and effective form possible for each unique field team and environment. All technical advisor positions require strong interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills, and a level of emotional intelligence proficiency that quickly builds and maintains productive relationships across teams. Being aware and sensitive to international development issues and diverse cultures is critical.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions

The position is based in Lviv, Ukraine. Accommodations are being defined and access to services – medical, electricity, water, etc is in place but may change depending on the situation. This position requires travel to other oblasts within Ukraine, as security permits. Given the emergency context, this position requires exceptional work schedules, including evenings and weekends.

Ongoing Learning

In support of our belief that learning organizations are more effective, efficient and relevant to the communities we serve, we empower all team members to dedicate 5% of their time to learning activities that further their personal and/or professional growth and development

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Mercy Corps is an equal opportunity employer that does not tolerate discrimination on any basis. We actively seek out diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and skills so that we can be collectively stronger and have sustained global impact.

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy Corps is committed to ensuring that all individuals we come into contact with through our work, whether team members, community members, program participants or others, are treated with respect and dignity. We are committed to the core principles regarding prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse laid out by the UN Secretary General and IASC and have signed on to the Interagency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme. We will not tolerate child abuse, sexual exploitation, abuse, or harassment by or of our team members. As part of our commitment to a safe and inclusive work environment, team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner, respect local laws and customs, and to adhere to Mercy Corps Code of Conduct Policies and values at all times. Team members are required to complete mandatory Code of Conduct elearning courses upon hire and on an annual basis.