Regional Advisor, Social Protection 222 views0 applications

Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty.

That means we tackle the inequality that keeps people poor. Together we save, protect and rebuild lives. When disaster strikes, we help people build better lives for themselves, and for others. We take on issues like land rights, climate change and discrimination against women. And we won’t stop until every person on the planet can enjoy life free from poverty.

We are an international confederation of 19 organizations (affiliates) working together with partners and local communities in the areas of humanitarian, development and campaigning, in more than 90 countries.

Background

With the growing number and duration of crises, in particular the high level of refugees, displaced populations and the cyclical shocks that inhibit people’s livelihoods in the Horn, East and Central Africa (HECA); Oxfam is looking for more systemic ways to support and link its humanitarian and development work. In HECA we recognise the need for comprehensive social protection for all our work – both as a more stable response to the growing frequency and duration of crises and to support households when they face a loss of income along the project cycle. The aim therefore is to support Oxfam country teams in the technical aspects of this work: to bring a social protection lens to our work on food security, livelihoods and cash in order to support more stability in the system as a whole and thus greater impact to Oxfam’s work to save lives and livelihoods in crisis.

The Role

As part of the Regional team, you will provide strategic direction for social protection and support country teams to identify opportunities and to deliver through programming. This role will engage closely with humanitarian, development and influencing colleagues.

The dimensions to this role:

i) Support to country team social protection programming and strategising (40%)

ii) Leading the social protection direction for the regional office (40%)

iii) Liaising at the global level to share learning, seek support and contribute coherence to Oxfam’s global social protection work (10%).

iv) Approximately 10% of time will be spent on miscellaneous work, which includes team and departmental meetings

This position reports to the Regional Humanitarian Coordinator.

The Person

We are looking for a strategic, dynamic and credible individual with the following:

• · A postgraduate qualification in a relevant field, e.g. MSc in fields related to social protection, food security, nutrition, economics, geography, humanitarian studies, agriculture or other technical livelihoods/food security related area
• · Experience in implementing social protection programmes (both formal and informal social protection) in both development and humanitarian contexts
• · Understanding of the gender dynamics in social protection and how this can be incorporated into improving social protection and cash standards
• · Strong, demonstrable technical experience in slow onset, rapid onset, and chronic/protracted crises and complex emergencies, in both rural and urban settings (preferably in East Africa)
• · Leadership and management skills to enable operation within complex management frameworks
• · Excellent understanding of the linkage between food security, livelihoods, DRR, gender, protection and social protection
• · Well-developed strategic, planning and analytical skills
• · Proven influencing and negotiating skills with internal and external audiences in complex and stressful circumstances
• · Experience with writing briefs as inputs to media and campaigns
• Fluent written and spoken English is essential