Protection Officer - on QUDRA2

Expertise France is the French public agency for international technical assistance. The agency provides partner countries with knowledge, skills and management expertise in:

• Democratic, economic, and financial governance,
• Stability, international security and peace,
• Sustainable development, climate and agriculture,
• Health and human development.

Expertise France designs and implements cooperation projects addressing skills transfers between professionals. The agency also develops integrated offers, assembling public and private expertise in order to respond to the partner countries' needs.

With a business volume of 192 million Euros, a portfolio of over 500 projects in 100 countries, and 63,000 days of expert missions every year, Expertise France promotes French and European development policy goals.

Context

The Middle East is currently experiencing a profound crisis. The conflicts in Syria and Iraq are both a reflection and a transmitter of this crisis, with growing potential to further destabilise neighbouring countries and the wider region. These crises have resulted in a humanitarian disaster affecting more than 13.5 million people who were forced to flee their homes from Syria, and more than 17 million people in need of humanitarian aid (12.2 in Syria and 5.2 in Iraq).

Lebanon is now home to the largest number of Syrian refugees per capita relative to its total population, putting a severe strain on the country’s fragile infrastructures, economy, and security. The population of Lebanon was estimated at about 4.8 million (including almost 1.5 million of Syrian and Palestinian refugees). Even though Lebanon has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, up to date it has taken in about a fourth of its own population. According to UNHCR, in April 2018, 986 942 persons from Syria were registered as refugees in Lebanon. In the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan 2017-2020 (LCRP), the total number of people living in Lebanon is estimated at 5.9 million, with 3.3 million people in need. Among the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon, which today comprises over 1.5 million people, the Bekaa Valley contains the highest concentration of refugees, with over 360,000 registered with UNHCR.

In Lebanon, the Stabilisation and Resilience Unit of Expertise France ensures the consistency and the coordination of two projects in the field of crisis management. The first project is a second phase of the QUDRA project funded by EU and BMZ, for the benefit of both Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities.  The second project is funded by AFD (Agence Française de Développement) and aims at helping local and international Lebanese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) become lasting, key players in mitigating and ameliorating the effects of the Syrian refugee crisis on Lebanon.

Stabilisation and Resilience background

The “Stabilisation and Resilience” unit runs 2 projects in Lebanon: QUDRA and SHABAKE.

1. QUDRA

’Qudra – Resilience for Syrian refugees, IDPs and host communities in response to the Syrian and Iraqi crises’ is a regional action financed by the EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis, the Madad Fund and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), seeking to strengthen the resilience of Syrian refugees, IDPs and host communities in response to the Syrian and Iraqi crises.  The programme launched in June 2016, has been jointly implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Expertise France (EF) and Spanish Agency for International Development (AECID) in programme partner countries of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and North Iraq.

In Lebanon, the project seeks to improve social stability between communities in Lebanon through a comprehensive and local approach of protection for children and adults. To do so, activities revolve around four pillars: (i) support to Social Development Centers (SDCs) of the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), (ii) Child Protection activities, (iii) Protection activities and (iv) campaigns and communication activities. Expertise France works within the framework of the LCRP and MoSA National Plan for Safeguarding women and children in close partnership with Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA).

The second phase of the programme will end in 2022. The programme will be implemented in at least 12 SDCs of the MoSA. Expertise France will select local NGOs as implementing partners, following a precise programme drafted by EF with MoSa.

2. SHABAKE

The SHABAKE project aims to strengthen the capacities of local NGO’s on the long run, to enable them to become key and resilient stakeholders of the Lebanese civil society. The project is funded by Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and the Denmark’s development cooperation (Danida), and is implemented by Expertise France.

The global objective of SHABAKE is to help local NGOs become lasting, key players in mitigating the effects of the Syrian crisis on Lebanon by a strong capacity building and a direct link with international donors.

Shabake has a 3 years long approach, and will be implement through three main component parts:

1. Strengthening assets, capacities, and skills of the local Lebanese NGOs selected for a grant award.
2. Implementation by each NGO of a crisis-response project to reduce vulnerabilities.
3. Improving the participation of NGO partners in the development-aid ecosystem.

* The Expertise France office in Lebanon currently implements 3 other projects, outside the scope of this position.

Description of the Tasks:

Under the supervision of the Project Manager and in coordination with the Project Expert, The Protection officer is responsible for implementing, following, and monitoring the implementation of the related protection guidelines, policies and other relevant protection initiatives. The position encompasses capacity building, coaching relevant to protection and matters both, on regular and ad hoc basis. The responsibilities also include close liaison with relevant parties on protection related matters.

In coordination with MoSA, and the the Project Manager – as technical advisor of the project

Guarantying Quality

• Will guarantee the QUALITY of the Protection activities implemented by all NGOs and SDCs staff in the SDCs and through Oussra Mobile Units
• Will ENSURE the development, capitalization, revision and good use of CP, GBV and Protection Curriculum, Guidelines and SoPs needed for the activities - in line with existing MoSA guidelines and its National Protection Plan
• Will monitor and adjust if need be MoSA referral system guidelines and templates based on what is currently being used, ensuring complete confidentiality
• Will review and analyse project data management system to identify protection trends, reporting, referral (as appropriate) response, ensuring complete confidentiality

Capacity building and coaching

• Will participate with the Project manager to the recruitment of the protection trainers and case management coaches
• Will create and/or coordinate the development of the needed guidelines
• Will ENSURE the programmatic capacity building plan and coaching of Qudra Staff (NGOs and SDCs staff) and coordinate the tasks of the protection trainer and case management coaches recruited (preparation of the trainings, revisions of the curriculums, preparation of the training modules if needed, implementation of the capacity building and coaching plan, M&E frameworking to assess the impact of the action plan on the capacity strengthening)

Support to implementation

• With the Programme coordinator and the Program officer , will participate on the selection of new SDCs to be added to the project/ and SDCs to be handover to MoSA
• In line with MoSA will monitor and adjust/create accordingly all codes of conduct, will finalise the ToRs of all SDCS and NGOS staff allocated to protection activities as well as the protection trainers and the case management ;
• Will Support all SDCS and NGOS staff at area level on how to identify critical protection cases and reinforce the follow up system
• Will technically supervise the Case management Coaches recruited by EF to work as flying in SDCS

Specific responsibilities

• Will travel to Beirut and all other Lebanon to meet relevant stakeholders and especially Qudra NGOs partners and the Social Development Centres (SDC) to monitor the protection activities, especially the case management activities, provide technical and programmatic support and evaluate the needs of capacity building and coaching
• Will bring his technical expertise during coordination meetings, meeting organized at MoSA Beirut as agreed with the Project Coordinator
• Will Promote protection risk assessments, do no harm, and effective referral system in close collaboration with other protection actors at area level.
• Will ensure continuous updates on local and national news related to protection and ensure the monitoring, the assessment and the briefing to Expertise France, Qudra partners and MoSA whenever relevant or applicable.
• Will promote enhanced understanding of protection issues among all stakeholders and the observance of international protection and humanitarian law standards
• Will participate in all Expertise France internal and team meetings