Senior Protection Associate (Communication with Communities) - UNOPS - G7 - BEY056 - Beirut, Lebanon

There are currently over one million Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR in Lebanon, which makes Lebanon the highest refugee-hosting country per capita in the world. There are no approved camps in the country, and refugees are spread over 2,125 communities and locations across the country. The refugee response is led by the Government and local actors, supported by the international community.

As the designated lead agency in the refugee response, UNHCR has established a sector-based structure in Beirut and in the field. The structure brings together over 100 UN agencies, national and international NGO partners in identifying and agreeing on the strategic priorities to address the needs of Syrian refugees and other affected populations. The Lebanon national response falls under the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP), whereby UNHCR guides the refugee response and UNDP facilitates the resilience and stabilization component.

The UNHCR operational response in Lebanon is the largest for the organization. Media attention and the frequency of influential high-profile visitors is high. The Office has grown substantially in the past years and now has around 640 staff. Aside from the Branch Office in the capital city of Beirut, UNHCR has two sub-offices in Zahle and Tripoli and two field offices in Mt Lebanon, Tyre, and one field unit in Qobayat under the Tripoli Sub-Office.

Communication with Communities (CwC) is an essential part of the UNHCR Lebanon operation. The CwC Unit is working to ensure that Persons of Concern (PoC) not only have the right to participate in making decisions that affect their lives but also receive the information they need to be protected and have access to life-saving services and support.

The Unit, established in Lebanon in 2013, concentrate efforts to support with the gathering and production of information (surveys, Q&A, leaflets, videos, mapping of hotlines), the development of dissemination tools (SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, website, call centre, e-mail), upkeep outreach activities (outreach volunteers, info desks, refugee committees, capacity building) and to invest in Innovation (Hackathon, Humanitarian Information Lab, chatbot health).

In 2017, the Unit commenced to be involved in the Lebanon One Unified Inter-Organizational System for E-cards (LOUISE) project with UNICEF and WFP for cash related programmes, and in particular in the set-up of a joint call center.

Thanks to the on-going efforts put in place over the last years and the experienced gained in managing a call center and in all the aspect co-related to the use of phones for two-way communication with refugees - creation of scripts, monitoring of the phone operators, control of the audio recordings, reporting, and projections – UNHCR will continue to play a vital role providing information and counselling to refugees.

The incumbent will work mainly on the overall management of the call center in close coordination with the LOUISE agencies, and more specifically support the UNHCR activities and programmes.

The Senior Protection Associate (Communication with Communities) will also contribute to support social media related initiatives and on research and reporting as well as editing of protection documents. Additionally, the incumbent will provide functional and administrative support to the protection section on protection-related correspondence, filing and ad hoc administrative requests.

The Senior Protection Associate (Communication with Communities) will also support on liaising with the Sub/Field Offices mass communication focal points as well as outreach volunteers. The incumbent will also help in testing developed materials and tools with the refugees to receive their feedback.

Under the supervision of the Communication with Communities Officer, the incumbent will undertake the following tasks:

• Develop objectives for the call center’s day-to-day activities
• Provide on-going training for the phone operators about the UNHCR assistance programs and other services provided by UNHCR and the partners.
• Update the call center software system with the most updated information materials.
• Measure performance with key metrics such as call abandonment, calls waiting etc.
• Ensure the implemented system is user-friendly and comprehended by the phone operators to ensure a better counseling for the persons of concerns.
• Conduct effective resource planning to maximize the productivity of the call center i.e. increasing/decreasing phone operators, automated emergency referrals mechanism, etc.
• Collect and analyze call-center statistics i.e. daily, weekly and monthly reports analysis and for multiple stakeholders.
• Anticipate escalation and take over calls when needed
• Coordination between the relevant UNHCR departments to harmonize activities and timelines.
• Monitor and accompany the phone operators counseling especially under peak time.
• Monitor audio calls on a daily basis to ensure quality control of the counseling.
• Team supervision and management i.e. dedicate phone operators for callbacks and prioritize the abandoned calls left on the IVR or vice versa depending on the scenario.
• Mitigate damage in shut-down time i.e. if the system or the E1 are down this would result in stopping the operation until the bug is fixed, collecting all abandoned calls during the shutdown time and  dedicate a team to call these numbers as a priority
• Knowledge and comprehension of the call center infrastructure.
• Track and refer emergency calls to dedicated UNHCR focal points.
• Translate into Arabic/English relevant correspondence and protection material (SMS, leaflets, website, Q&A, reports, etc.).
• Support refugees' involvement in the development of messages and information mechanism and help to test with refugees the material produced.
• Assist with the delivery of training frontline on communication techniques, including how to ensure the information is received and disseminated using methods which do not put refugees at risk.
• Analyze data and trends gathered from the various components of the protection response framework and produce the monthly countrywide analysis.
• Compile relevant input and general information required for the production and editing of protection reports, notes and documents as needed.
• Referral mechanism including ticketing system for a better tracking and reporting
• Perform other duties as required.

Monitoring and Progress Controls

• Staff is responsible for monitoring, coordinating input, analyzing reports;
• Staff will ensure that emergency instances (e.g. vulnerabilities or technical queries) are re-routed to the proper unit or focal point for follow up in a timely and efficient manner;
• Staff will provide the supervisor with reliable and timely statistics on the call with qualitative analysis on a weekly basis, monthly and ad hoc basis.
• Staff will coordinate on daily basis with the LOUISE agencies and with the call center company to ensure the smooth running of activities and counseling over the phone to refugees.