Hiring Office: Humanitarian & Fragile Contexts Branch (HFCB)

Duty Station: Home-based (with extensive travel up to 70%)

Duration: 6 months (with possibility of extension) beginning April 2016

Purpose of Consultancy

The Roving GBViE Specialists will be part of the GBViE Roving Team covering different thematic areas and/or geographical areas. They expected to be deployed in the field, either in an emergency or roving capacity, for up to 70% of the time and must be able to deploy to the site of an emergency within 72 hours of notification. They will be deployed to either support existing UNFPA country programs in their GBV emergency response, or to initiate a new GBV program in the crisis zone.  They will deploy in roving capacity to provide highly GBV skilled, experienced, management or inter-agency coordination support due to unexpected vacancies, program transitions, in-country GBV programs and coordination transitions, extreme spikes in workloads, and other situations that may require extra skilled support. They will be responsible for supporting the transfer of responsibilities and knowledge to the long-term staff to ensure the continuity of GBViE UNFPA programming and GBV Sub-cluster coordination.  They will report to the HFCB GBV Capacity Development Specialist. 

Background

UNFPA’s mission is to work towards delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every child birth is safe, and every young person’s potential is fulfilled. In humanitarian contexts, UNFPA works in collaboration with partners to provide lifesaving sexual and reproductive health services and to implement and coordinate gender based violence prevention, protection and response programs.  Risk mitigation and preparedness are also UNFPA core interventions in order to build countries’ and communities’ resilience. UNFPA has committed to scale up humanitarian response and to increase organizational capacity to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in emergencies. The dearth of qualified individuals with the right experience, expertise and maturity to deal with GBV issues in the context of an active emergency often means that humanitarian settings go for several months without the necessary support, both for programming implementation and interagency coordination.  In this connection, UNFPA strategic priority is to endow the Country Offices with timely and quality support through the deployment of UNFPA Roving GBViE Specialists at the aftermath of an emergency and to support programmatic developments; and through a Surge Roster for longer and more specific deployments. This effort will be matched with the establishment of a Roving Gender Based Violence in Emergencies (GBViE) Specialists Team, for which this vacancy is announced.

Roles and Responsibilities:

During their deployment, the GBViE Roving Specialists will be deployed as necessary to lead GBV interventions in the field as GBV Programme Specialist or a GBV Coordinator or Clinical Management of Rape (CMR) Specialist;

• If acting as GBV Program Specialist, they will support UNFPA country office in designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating quality GBV prevention and response programs, including training, staff recruiting, reporting and financial management as appropriate; and/or
• If acting as GBV Coordinator, they will facilitate and coordinate the rapid implementation of multi-sectoral, inter-agency GBV intervention in a humanitarian setting to ensure the setting up and/or the coordination of a robust and well-functioning coordination body that promotes the highest standards of GBV prevention and response, in line with global guidance; and/or
• If acting as CMR Specialist, they will support the country of deployment and/or of responsibility through remote support, UNFPA country team, and GBV national and international actors in designing, implementing, evaluating a GBV response during the most critical moments of an emergency. They should particularly lead the medical response within a comprehensive GBV survivors’ assistance framework, taking into account national policies, internationally recognized best practices, and availability of qualified human resources, materials and drugs.

Emergency Deployment Response

As GBV Program Specialist:

• Lead GBV specific or joint assessments and provide prioritized recommendations for program interventions;
• Assist UNFPA country office with the design of GBV program responses including geographic areas of intervention, in coordination with internal and external actors 
• Assist and lead with the design of a resources mobilisation GBV strategy in country and develop proposals design;
• Advocating with other humanitarian actors and/or sectors on the inclusion of specific activities for GBV risks mitigation  and promote GBV mainstreaming;
• Proactively engage with all relevant stakeholders to ensure coordination bodies reflect the range of actors addressing GBV, including across multiple sectors (health, psychosocial, legal, security, etc.) and categories of actors (UN, NGO, civil society, government, etc.). As feasible, engage UN missions who may be active in addressing GBV, including but not limited to ensuring inter-agency inputs to the annual S-G’s report on conflict-related sexual violence;
• Provide a comprehensive handover to successor, including ensuring transfer of all related documentation, program monitoring data and staff performance information;
• Acting as coach to new GBV program specialist within UNFPA country office;
• Performing other related duties as required. 

As GBV Coordinator:

• Maintain solid working relationships; in collaboration with the GBV Sub-Cluster co-Coordinator and UNFPA Representative/Head of Office, provide regular and comprehensive updates to the UN Country Team, GBV Sub-Cluster, Protection Cluster, Health Cluster, and other relevant actors on UNFPA’s progress to address GBV;
• Facilitate rapid establishment of Standard Operating Procedures, initially emphasizing development of referral pathways in advance of full SOP completion. Regularly review and revisit SOPs at strategic points throughout the crisis response.
• Work with partners to develop an inter-agency GBV capacity development strategy that meets the needs and priorities of key national and local stakeholders to facilitate implementation of agreed work plan;
• Acting as a GBV Information Management Specialist to develop knowledge mechanism to document GBV, including through in-depth research, assessments/situational analyses, mapping, programme development, monitoring and evaluation, and service-level data collection both from primary and secondary sources;
• Providing a comprehensive handover to successor, including ensuring transfer of all related documentation, program monitoring data and staff performance information;
• Acting as coach to new GBV Coordination within UNFPA country office.
• Performing other related duties as required. 

As CMR Specialist:

• Analyzing the local political, social and economic environment relevant to sexual and reproductive health and youth, and identifying needs and opportunities for UNFPA assistance and interventions;
• Carrying out health facilities assessments of the target area, including at a minimum geographical mapping of the facilities, human resources capacities, drugs availability, according to a pre-elaborated checklist.
• Facilitating technical training on clinical management of rape to medical staff, such as doctors, nurses, midwives, clinical officers, and auxiliary’s staff. They might as needed facilitate training sessions to other administrative and support staff working in the health facilities, such as receptionists, secretaries, watchmen and security guards;
• Coaching when appropriate medical staff of national systems to include in their work GBV core principles in caring for GBV survivors and respects of international protocols for providing assistance to victims of sexual aggression;
• Assess, identify, and develop survivor centered referral pathways within the health facilities and among different health centers for referral; this might involve identify and assess each step of the medical assistance provided to a survivor from the moment she enters a heath facility.
• Contributing with other GBV actors when appropriate to the setting up of an overall referral pathway among all services necessary for providing quality and timely care to GBV survivors, hence contributing to the development of a local and/or national Standards Operating Procedures;
• Identifying health providers data flow as regards as the management of information of GBV incidents and providing recommendations to ensure safe and ethical management of individual data;
• Develop when appropriate national protocols in line with international standards;
• Performing other related duties as required. 

While home-based:

• Participate in the development and management of global funding proposals to support GBV emergency preparedness and response;
• Contribute to strategic discussions research, learning, knowledge and evaluation;
• Develop, adapt and facilitate the translations of training material, international protocols, medical resources and IEC material;
• Provide technical support as required to support humanitarian settings GBV preparedness, preventions and response;
• Develop best practices and lesson leant to be shared among countries. 

Deliverables:

• Mission Reports;
• Detailed hand-over notes with recommendations for country programs or GBV inter-agency mechanisms.

Qualifications, Skills and Experience

The GBViE Roving Team members is home-based and is expected to be able to deploy anywhere in the world where UNFPA may require them. The position requires extreme flexibility as UNFPA cannot predict with any certainty the specific kinds of assignments that will come up in the course of a year, their location or duration.

• Advanced university degree or equivalent in gender studies, social anthropology, public health or other related field;
• Minimum of five recent years of humanitarian and GBV work experience carried out in the field;
• Experience of working across multiple humanitarian sectors and proven knowledge of humanitarian architecture and coordination mechanisms;
• Minimum of five years of demonstrated experience and technical proficiency in designing, adapting, implementing and evaluating GBV prevention and response programs;
• Excellent understanding of the survivor-centred approach and muti-sectorial GBV response;
• Experience in the effective design and implementation of data collection and analysis including in cross-cultural environments and complex security environments;
• Ability to work with a wide range of diverse stakeholders such as national and international NGOs, governments and local authorities, donors, international organizations;
• Excellent communication skills and demonstrated ability to work as part of a team, with team members based in other countries/organizations;
• Availability and willingness to travel (up to 70% of the time).

Languages
English is mandatory. Good oral and written communication skills in French or Arabic are a necessary requirement.

How to Apply
Interested candidates are required to send their CV and cover letter with “Roving Specialists in Emergencies” in the subject line to Francesca Rivelli at rivelli@unfpa.org by 7th March 2016.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.