Career Opportunity with RI, Bangladesh

Protection Program Manager

About RI: Relief International, headquartered in USA, is a leading international non-government organization working in 16 countries to relieve poverty, ensure well-being and advance dignity. We specialize in fragile settings, responding to natural disasters, humanitarian crises and chronic poverty.

Relief International (RI) has been working in Bangladesh since 2004, implementing programs covering emergency response, health, economic opportunity, trafficking in persons, gender equality and youth empowerment. RI has been present in Cox’s Bazar since 2014 where it was implementing a trafficking in person’s project in Ukhiya and Teknaf supporting old caseload refugees as well as host communities prior to the large-scale influx. Since 2017, RI has scaled up its operations in Cox’s Bazar to support the emergency response by providing integrated, multi-sectoral programming for refugee and host communities, covering health services, child protection, SGBV, complimentary food and livelihoods opportunities to support social cohesion. Relief International is currently implementing a large scale refugee response program in Cox`s Bazar in Bangladesh in collaboration with multiple partners including UNHCR, WFP, USAID.RI maintains a country office in Dhaka with multiple field offices in Cox`s Bazar.

Relief International combines humanitarian and development approaches to provide immediate services while laying the groundwork for long-term impact. Our signature approach which we call the RI Way emphasizes local participation, an integration of services, strategic partnerships, and a focus on civic skills. In this way, we empower communities to find, design and implement the solutions that work best for them.

Position Summary

The Protection Program Manager is responsible for overseeing all of RI’s protection projects for the Rohingya refugee response, with dual focus on child protection and GBV activities. S/he will focus on: 1) Overall supervision and the successful implementation of the Protection portfolio; 2) Technical design of new and enhancement of the existing protection Programs; 3) Training and capacity building of RI program staff and implementing partners; 4) Integration of protection mainstreaming into other sector programs (i.e. health, FSL and social Cohesion); 5) Developing tools and templates for RI staff and partners as applicable; 6) Continually updating RI’s context and protection risk analysis as the situation evolves; 7) Representing RI in relevant Sectors/Clusters and with other protection agencies; 8) People Management and implementation of organizational policies and guidelines.

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES:

Under the overall supervision of the Program Director, the Protection Program Manager shall be responsible for the following:

• Provide supervision for, and ensure the successful implementation of, the existing protection portfolio.
• Provide overall people management of 5 Coordinators and all protection staff reporting to them in line with agreed organograms
• Lead development of and technical design for RI’s protection programming in the areas of child protection, gender based violence, and mental health/psychosocial support. This includes feeding into design for new projects as well as overseeing implementation of existing projects by RI staff and its protection partners.
• Conduct training and continuous mentoring to staff and partners to strengthen their protection technical knowledge and capabilities.
• Lead the development of a strategy for integrating protection into all emergency response programming, and collaborate with technical advisors from other sectors to identify opportunities for multi-sector program integration.
• Develop protection tools and templates for RI staff and partners, including assessments, activity facilitation tools, case management trackers, etc.
• Maintain an up-to-date awareness of the protection situation on the ground and inform the Program Director and other colleagues of any recommended changes in implementation.
• Lead in writing various UNHCR protection reports, as well as Protection Sector/ Sub sector requests of RI inputs
• Participate in protection-related Cluster/Sector/Sub-sector meetings and any relevant technical working groups on behalf of RI. S/he will be responsible for supporting to build relationships with protection-mandated agencies and interagency fora at the field level (and at country level, as required).

Core activities of the Protection Program Manager include but are not limited to:

Program Management:

• Provide supervision to protection staff as well as provide training and other development opportunities to build their technical capacity.
• Monitor program performance and quality through the development of work plans and through regular program reviews to ensure achievement of targeted program results. It is expected that the Program Manager will spend significant time at field sites to ensure this quality.
• Directly manage program budgets, forecast procurements, and human resource needs and coordinate with finance, HR, and operations to prevent gaps in services. As part of this, the Protection Program Manager will be expected to maintain budget tracking, procurement and HR plans.
• Evaluate activity progress and undertake the needful corrective actions in collaboration with the program and MEAL team.
• Manage and oversee data collection, including sensitive case management data based on donor and institutional standards.
• Provide program reports that are timely and meet institutional and donor requirements.
• Represent RI at relevant stakeholders’ or coordination meetings as needed. Enhance RI’s visibility in the protection sector, develop and maintain strategic relationships with local partners, donors, and vendors.
• Work constructively with support teams to ensure sound administrative practices with regards to record keeping, compliance with donor regulations, communications, etc.
• Participate in program kick off meetings, grant review meetings and grant closeout meetings.
• Design and lead staff consultations, briefings and staff inductions on protection. As much as possible, this should leverage the existing knowledge of (field) staff on these issues, and help disseminate and “formalize” this knowledge by translating it into concrete program guidance.
• Develop and facilitate protection trainings and workshops based on effective need assessments.

Project Development:

• Lead needs assessments in populations affected by the Rohingya Response to identify new program opportunities.
• Stay up-to-date with key developments in the protection sector including best practices, contextual developments as well as regional and country-specific response plans.
• Share methods, approaches and tools with RI colleagues across the region, and contribute toward RI’s regional response strategy by ensuring programmatic coherence, innovation and responsiveness.
• Provide protection technical inputs during proposal development/budget modification, in consultation with the program and program development units as well as other technical leads.

Protection Integration:

• Support the country office to undertake context and protection risk analysis to formulate appropriate protection risk mitigation and response activities.
• Support the country office to integrate protection in assessments, monitoring and evaluation and reporting tools.
• Develop necessary tools and templates for program design and implementation.
• Support the country office to strengthen its strategy for communicating with affected people.
• Support the country office to establish effective complaints and feedback mechanisms.
• Promote partnerships and interagency collaboration on protection

Qualifications & Requirements

This position demands a dynamic individual with a demonstrated ability to achieve results in a demanding and fast paced environment.
           
A. Education: Advanced university degree in a relevant area, for example, social science, international development or law, international relations, human rights or political science.

B. Work Experience: At least 8 years of relevant (SGBV, child protection and/or case management) work experience with humanitarian organizations.

C.  Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Demonstrated experience in protection programming, human rights programming or community services in humanitarian settings
• Strong program management experience, ideally with familiarity with multiple donors (UNHCR, UNFPA, ECHO, etc.)
• Experience and ability to implement full project management cycle (proposal and logical framework, work plans, budget management, reporting)
• Substantive experience managing, supervising, and mentoring staff
• In-depth knowledge of IHL, refugee and international human rights legal frameworks as well as the humanitarian principles
• Strong analytical, written and oral communication skills
• Fluent in written and spoken English
• Cultural competency and the ability to motivate through a variety of management approaches
• Willingness to work in a challenging environment
• Positive and problem-solving attitude
• Creativity, flexibility and ability to live and work in a dynamic environment

Desirable qualifications:

• The ideal candidate has some background in both SGBV and child protection, or has a willingness and enthusiasm for learning both sub-sectors
• Previous experience representing organizations at cluster and donor meetings
• Previous experience working in the region

Safeguarding and Gender Sensitiveness

• Be part of embedding an organizational culture that is committed to protecting clients from harm.
• Ensure that the team understand and abide by the organization culture of safeguarding

RI Values:

We uphold the Humanitarian Principles: humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and operational independence. We affirmatively engage the most vulnerable communities. We value:

• Integrity
• Adaptability
• Collaboration
• Inclusivity
• Sustainabilit

How to Apply:

Interested candidates are requested to apply through online by December 19, 2022.

Qualified female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

RI Bangladesh has a non-negotiable policy of ZERO TOLERANCE towards Safeguarding. All employees are expected to abide by the Code of Conduct, Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA), Child Protection Policy and Human Trafficking Policy of Relief International.

You may check our website at www.ri.org to know about our organization.