Under the supervision of the Country Director, the Senior Protection Officer will be responsible for working with local and national authorities to ensure that vulnerable individuals and communities can effectively navigate their social benefit entitlements. This includes providing guidance on accessing civil documentation, housing, land, and property (HLP) rights, as well as other essential social services.
The candidate will lead the implementation of social protection activities within the ECHO consortium, while also providing insights to humanitarian and development actors and donors in Ukraine. Within this framework, ERC will contribute to delivering humanitarian cash transfers and transition pathways, developing systems and processes for a successful transition, and evaluating the operationalisation of these pathways.
The candidate should be skilled in advocacy and capacity-building, enabling them to support individuals in understanding and claiming their rights within complex social protection systems. They will play a critical role in bridging the gap between beneficiaries and service providers, ensuring that the most marginalised populations receive the support they need. Experience in humanitarian contexts and familiarity with international standards for social protection and human rights will be highly advantageous.
Additionally, the candidate must have proven managerial experience, demonstrating the ability to lead and manage a team effectively. This includes overseeing project implementation, coordinating activities, and ensuring that all team members are aligned with the project’s objectives and timelines. The incumbent should possess strong leadership skills, including the ability to mentor and develop staff, manage performance, and foster a collaborative and supportive work environment.
ECHO Consortium:
- Referral Management: Oversee and support the consortium to build referral mechanisms to link humanitarian cash beneficiaries, particularly vulnerable individuals and groups, to services, referral workshops, and SOPs.
- Project Scaling: Prepare to scale up operations to the hromada level, including planning and resource allocation. Identify program gaps, areas of growth, and strategies and support in adapting program design to effectively meet beneficiary needs, the changing context, and other factors.
- Provide technical guidance and support to ERC staff and partners on all Protection related issues
- Monitor and analyse key processes via consortium (including cross-referrals, communication protocols, and enrolment lead times for social assistance programmes) and contribute to the development of briefing papers and lessons learned to inform future programming.
- Liaison: Work closely with the consortium partners and local authorities to facilitate the understanding and navigation of social benefit entitlements for beneficiaries.
- Prepare and submit detailed reports on project progress, challenges, and key findings, including contributions to briefing papers and lessons learned for GM and Project Coordinator and consortia reporting.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Engage with various stakeholders including NGOs, government agencies, clusters and communities to ensure comprehensive support for beneficiaries.
Protection Programming:
- Oversee implementation of the protection monitoring and information dissemination program through managing project work plans and budgets (budget forecasting, development of spending plans and budget follow-up), ensuring timely recruitment, quality implementation and accurate reporting in accordance with ERC and donor regulations.
- Act as focal point and lead committee member for the review of IPA cases, working collaboratively with programme and finance teams, and ensure that all referrals (both through the consortium and via ERC) are reviewed in a timely and appropriate manner, in line with established procedures and quality standards
- Participate in cross-departmental collaboration to ensure that linkages between programs are made and programs gain from protection best practice, in particular with regular contact and coordination with Coordinators in Livelihoods, MPCA and Shelter.
- Coordinate the preparation of, implement and oversee Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all protection/solutions activities.
Coordination and Protection Development:
- Ensure that, within operations applying the Cluster Approach, the Protection Cluster response is grounded in a comprehensive strategy addressing all assessed and prioritized protection needs of affected populations.
- Ensure the Protection strategy is fully integrated into the Country Office strategy, and contribute to its alignment with organizational priorities and programming frameworks.
- Develop, implement, and monitor community-based protection strategies, ensuring the systematic application of participatory and community-based approaches in protection programming, planning, and solutions.
- Act as the focal point on behalf of ERC in Protection Cluster meetings, PSEA working groups, and other relevant protection coordination fora.
- Team Management: Provide direct supervision to Protection Assistant, providing guidance, support, and performance evaluation.
- Assist the Donor and Partner Relations department by offering technical guidance for proposal development to expand ERC’s Protection Programme.
- Education: Masters or Bachelor degree in Law, Social Work, Social Sciences, Project Management or related field.
- Experience: Minimum of 3 years of experience in a relevant field, such as Protection, in NGO\INGOs and/or with community engagement.
- Skills: Excellent understanding of Ukrainian social benefit systems, civil documentation, and HLP rights.
- Language: Upper-Intermediate level of English or higher and fluency in Ukrainian.
- Other: Ability to work independently and as part of a team. Strong organisational and problem-solving skills.
- Collaborative Culture: We foster a collaborative and inclusive work environment where every team member is valued.
- Diverse and Inclusive Workplace: We welcome all people of different races, genders, religions, colours, national or ethnic origins, languages, marital statuses, sexual orientations, ages, socio-economic statuses, (dis)abilities, political convictions, or any other distinguishing feature in our workplace.
- Good Benefits: We have a cosy office in the city centre, +4 vacation days, health insurance, life insurance..
Please note: This is a rolling recruitment process and may close earlier if a suitable candidate is found.
Important: Applications sent by email will not be considered. Please apply through the designated platform.