Humanitarian Specialist

Humanitarian Specialist, Kathmandu, Nepal, NOC

Job Identification: 12822
Locations: Kathmandu, Nepal
Posting Date: 08/03/2023, 04:45 PM
Apply Before: 08/18/2023, 05:30 PM
Job Schedule: Full time
Grade: NOC
Vacancy Type: Fixed Term
Rotational/Non Rotational: Non-Rotational
Contract Duration: 1 Year with Possibility for extension
Education & Work Experience: Master’s Degree – 5 year(s) experience
Vacancy Timeline: 2 Weeks
Job Category: Humanitarian & Emergency Response

Job Description

The Position:

The Humanitarian Specialist plays a leadership role in humanitarian preparedness and response for the UNFPA Nepal. S/he is responsible for providing technical inputs to the planning, conceptualization, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian preparedness and response initiatives in the country.

S/he will maintain collaborative relationships with the government line ministries and departments, civil society constituents, the United Nations funds, programmes and specialized agencies and other development organizations.
Under the overall guidance of the UNFPA Resident Representative, you will report directly to the Deputy Representative and will work closely with the programme teams and the UNFPA provincial offices among others.

How you can make a difference:

UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. UNFPA’s strategic plan (2022-2025), reaffirms the relevance of the current strategic direction of UNFPA and focuses on three transformative results: to end preventable maternal deaths; end unmet need for family planning; and end gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results capture our strategic commitments on accelerating progress towards realizing the ICPD and SDGs in the Decade of Action leading up to 2030. Our strategic plan calls upon UN Member States, organizations and individuals to “build forward better”, while addressing the negative impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, recover lost gains and realize our goals.
In a world where fundamental human rights are at risk, we need principled and ethical staff, who embody these international norms and standards, and who will defend them courageously and with full conviction.

UNFPA is seeking candidates that transform, inspire and deliver high impact and sustained results; we need staff who are transparent, exceptional in how they manage the resources entrusted to them and who commit to deliver excellence in programme results.

Job Purpose:

Nepal is a priority country for emergency preparedness and response in Asia given its susceptibility to natural hazards such as earthquakes and floods. These vulnerabilities are compounded by poverty and inequality; around a quarter of the population live in extreme poverty and are among the most marginalized as it intersects with caste, ethnicity, gender and sexuality among others. Availability and quality of public services, including health care are limited, due to weak institutional capacities particularly at sub-national level. Nepal’s geographical terrain makes many remote and rural areas hard to reach, further complicating access to services and provision of humanitarian assistance.

Under the humanitarian architecture for coordination of humanitarian action, UNFPA leads the Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) Sub-cluster, the Gender Based Violence (GBV) Sub-cluster and co-leads the Protection Cluster, together with relevant government counterparts.

Addressing GBV in humanitarian contexts is a priority for UNFPA and cuts across all other areas of work including sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, the rights of adolescent girls, and the generation of high-quality population data. UNFPA is also the lead agency around the world for the provision of maternal health care and family planning services in humanitarian settings. When a crisis strikes, skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care services are often disrupted, exacerbating the vulnerability of pregnant women. This was experienced in the aftermath of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal in the affected areas as well as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

UNFPA’s preparedness and response work focuses on enhancing coordination among concerned actors; strengthening capacities of service providers and other frontline workers and stakeholders; contributing to national and sub-national disaster preparedness and response plans; updating relevant technical guidelines and protocols; and prepositioning of life-saving commodities and other essential materials, among other interventions. The primary focus of UNFPA’s prevention and response interventions is to reach affected women and young people. UNFPA works in close collaboration with federal, provincial, and local authorities, local NGOs, UN agencies and other partners across the country.

In a highly multifaceted operating environment, the humanitarian specialist will play a lead role in contributing to the prioritization and effective management of UNFPA interventions in the areas of humanitarian preparedness and response. You will facilitate the delivery of UNFPA supported humanitarian preparedness and response interventions and the appropriate application of systems and procedures. You will provide information on achievement of results in the implementation of the humanitarian preparedness and response programmes.

You will be expected to analyze and assess the evolving political, social, environmental and economic trends and risks; take a short, medium and long-term perspectives in view of the increasingly protracted nature of humanitarian situations; and work across silos in collaboration with relevant programme teams and other actors to advance the humanitarian-development-peace nexus towards promoting resilience and building capacities of local systems to provide essential SRH and GBV services, and prevent and prepare for future crises.

You would be responsible for:

A. Humanitarian Coordination

• Ensure strong collaboration and coordination among humanitarian actors at national and sub-national level, including through the cluster mechanism if activated and facilitate the necessary technical and operational support for the humanitarian action including conducting rapid assessments, mapping of partners and institutional response capacities, building capacities of relevant actors, sharing/adapting relevant policy guidelines and technical standards and other resource and training materials.
• Provide technical support for the development of relevant advocacy and policy documents to address SRH and GBV in the context of broader humanitarian concerns.
• Support UNFPA’s engagement in coordination/cluster working groups including the Humanitarian Coordination Team and relevant cluster and inter-cluster meetings to share information about the SRH and GBV gaps and challenges for humanitarian action.
• Establish results oriented, two-way communication channels between national and sub-national coordination/cluster mechanisms to ensure a standardized response.
• Facilitate a process to develop a realistic, evidence based, multi-sectoral response plan under the cluster/sub-clusters led by UNFPA and ensure realistic benchmarks and timelines for achieving the set objectives; and regularly monitor progress against the plan during the coordination meetings, identify response gaps and seek solutions.
• Promote robust analyses of data to ensure readily-available information on known trends and patterns on SRH and GBV for consideration at various points along the humanitarian preparedness and response cycle.
• Undertake new assessments as necessary, taking into consideration intersecting identities and inequalities rooted in social structures to determine the magnitude and scope of SRH gaps and GBV and identify strategic approaches for addressing these gaps and reaching the furthest behind.
• Liaise with humanitarian actors and key stakeholders, including representatives of marginalized and vulnerable groups, community organizations, faith-based organizations, and community leaders to increase their meaningful participation in the process of humanitarian planning, monitoring and evaluation of activities.
•  Assist in providing regular updates for SitReps and other reports on the gaps, challenges, and response efforts to facilitate efficient and targeted humanitarian action.

B. Programme Development and Implementation

•  In conjunction with the Deputy Representative make substantial contributions to the leadership of the humanitarian preparedness and responses efforts of UNFPA Nepal, and liaise with Government, UN agencies, local NGOs, and other partners across the country to identify areas of collaboration and integration of SRH, gender/GBV, in their response.
• Lead the development and implementation of UNFPA Minimum Preparedness Actions and development of contingencies/scenarios for specific humanitarian contexts.
•  Contribute to strengthening programmatic links among the relevant programme teams in UNFPA and among other actors to bridge the silos and promote coherence and synergy among the development, humanitarian and peace-related actors and programmes towards enhancing resilience in the national and sub-national capacities.
• Liaise with clusters/sub-clusters (such as health, protection, water and sanitation, camp management, education, logistics, early recovery) to ensure inclusion of the relevant elements of the Minimum Initial Service Package for SRH in Crisis Situations and the Minimum Standards for GBV in Emergencies Programme, in their responses.
•  Visit affected communities to conduct in-depth interviews with the key stakeholders including humanitarian actors and agencies present on the ground to gather information on the immediate needs and concerns of vulnerable and affected populations and if possible, undertake joint inter-agency assessment missions.
•  In conjunction with the senior management lead efforts on implementing, monitoring, and evaluating UNFPA’s humanitarian preparedness and response programmes in collaboration with the programme teams and ensure regular monitoring of the work of Implementing Partners is undertaken.
•  Oversee the rapid deployment of reproductive health commodities, inter-agency reproductive health kits, Dignity Kits, and Kishori Kits, in collaboration with concerned personnel in the office and monitor their distribution and utilization by the end user; support the necessary logistics for timely humanitarian response.
•  Explore and help maintain Long Term Agreements (LTAs) with suppliers of emergency materials and other relevant services and with organizations that can be contracted to implement UNFPA programme response activities efficiently.
•  Provide technical support and build the capacity of UNFPA staff and partners on implementing humanitarian preparedness and response, including on the Minimum Initial Service Package for SRH in Crisis Situations and the Minimum Standards for GBV in Emergencies Programme, in collaboration with other technical staff.
•  Assist in the preparation of strategy documents, briefing papers and appeal documents and help document and share knowledge about emergency preparedness and response issues by analyzing programme strategies and lessons learned.
• Maintain higher sensitivity while working with children, people living with disability, LGBTIQ + and the members of vulnerable and excluded groups.

C. Advocacy, Communication and Resource Mobilization

•  Assist in preparing relevant advocacy materials and updates for stakeholders, partners, and donors on UNFPA’s humanitarian preparedness and response efforts.
•  Support the development of a communication plan and oversee the preparation of press releases, articles, human interest stories, and other print and audio-visual materials on UNFPA’s humanitarian preparedness and response activities.
• Ensure UNFPA is well positioned in resource mobilization efforts, including in humanitarian funding mechanisms, such as Consolidated Appeals Process, Pooled Funds, Common Humanitarian Funds, Flash Appeal, Emergency Response Fund and Central Emergency Response Fund.
•  Facilitate and participate in donor meetings and public information events, and prepare donor profiles, briefing notes, concept notes and project proposals for consideration under relevant funding windows and/or donors.
• Ensure timely implementation and reporting of UNFPA’s humanitarian activities implemented with donor and/or emergency funding.
• Ensure data on UNFPA’s humanitarian activities is recorded and readily available, including records of beneficiaries reached and financial expenditure.
• Carry out any other duties as may be required by UNFPA leadership.

Qualifications and Experience:

Education:

• Advanced university degree in Public Health, Medicine, Humanitarian Action, Social Sciences, International Relations, Political Science, or related disciplines.

Knowledge and Experience:

• At least five years of progressively responsible professional experience in international development assistance, preferably in emergency and/or humanitarian programme management and coordination.
• Substantive knowledge and practical experience of IASC humanitarian architecture and UN humanitarian operations is essential.
• Strong analytical, coordination and organizational skills and an ability to handle multiple tasks simultaneously and within limited timeframes.
•  Excellent oral and written communication skills are required.
•  Experience in work plan development and results frameworks, monitoring and evaluation is highly desirable.
• Experience in knowledge management and resource mobilization is desirable.
•  Familiarity with UN procedures and working methods, particularly with UNFPA’s mandate, policies, and procedures, is highly desirable.
• Computer literacy: Proficiency in use of standard MS Office packages.

Languages:

Fluency in English and Nepali (both oral and written) is required. Other UN languages are an asset.

Required Competencies:

Values:

• Exemplifying integrity,
•  Demonstrating commitment to UNFPA and the UN system,
• Embracing cultural diversity,
•  Embracing change

Core Competencies:

•  Achieving results,
• Being accountable,
• Developing and applying professional expertise/business acumen,
•  Thinking analytically and strategically,
•  Working in teams/managing ourselves and our relationships,

Functional Competencies:

•  Facilitating quality programmatic results
• Generating, managing and promoting the use of knowledge and information
•  Delivering results-based programmes
• Internal and external communication and advocacy for results mobilization
•  Providing conceptual innovation to support programme effectiveness

Managerial Competencies (if applicable):

•  Facilitating quality programmatic results
•  Generating, managing and promoting the use of knowledge and information
•  Delivering results-based programmes
•  Internal and external communication and advocacy for results mobilization
• Providing conceptual innovation to support programme effectiveness

Compensation and Benefits:

This position offers an attractive remuneration package including a competitive net salary plus health insurance and other benefits as applicable.

Disclaimer:

UNFPA does not charge any application, processing, training, interviewing, testing or other fee in connection with the application or recruitment process. Fraudulent notices, letters or offers may be submitted to the UNFPA fraud hotline http://www.unfpa.org/help/hotline.cfm

In accordance with the Staff Regulations and Rules of the United Nations, persons applying to posts in the international Professional category, who hold permanent resident status in a country other than their country of nationality, may be required to renounce such status upon their appointment.

Tagged as: Kathmandu, NGO INGO, UNFPA