Protection Officer - AHEAD

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC), one of the world’s leading humanitarian NGOs, is currently seeking a highly qualified candidate for the position of Protection Officer, based in Abyei. If you are a skilled and motivated professional ready to make a difference, we encourage you to apply. Together, we will deliver impactful humanitarian solutions in complex and challenging environments.

Overall Purpose of the Role

The Protection Officer will support anticipatory protection interventions by ensuring that vulnerable populations are safe and that their rights are respected before a crisis fully unfolds. The role focuses on identifying and analyzing protection risks linked to conflict escalation or displacement, and designing early actions to prevent harm before situations deteriorate.

The Protection Officer will ensure that all anticipatory actions are fair, inclusive, and reach those most at risk, including women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities, and marginalized groups. The role will work closely with communities to strengthen awareness of rights and safe preparedness measures, and coordinate with humanitarian actors, local authorities, and community structures to reduce harm and uphold dignity.

This position ensures that anticipatory action is grounded in a rights-based, inclusive, and risk-informed approach, aligned with the Core Humanitarian Standard and Core Protection Standards.

Key Responsibilities

1. Protection Mainstreaming and Risk Analysis

• Conduct protection risk analyses linked to anticipatory triggers, including conflict escalation and displacement.
• Ensure protection considerations are integrated throughout all stages of anticipatory action, including targeting, cash/in-kind assistance, early warning dissemination, and community mobilization.
• Monitor and advise on potential protection risks associated with project interventions.
• Apply harmonized protection frameworks (e.g., Protection Analytical Framework, 15 Global Protection Risks) and integrate protection-sensitive indicators into anticipatory action risk models.

2. Community Engagement and Accountability

• Facilitate meaningful participation of at-risk groups, ensuring inclusion of women, children, older persons, and persons with disabilities.
• Strengthen community feedback and complaints mechanisms aligned with the AHEAD project and DRC accountability approach.
• Support community awareness sessions on rights, entitlements, and available services during project activation.
• Conduct stakeholder mapping, including community-based protection actors (women’s groups, OPDs, youth groups), to strengthen inclusive participation in planning and implementation.

3. Capacity Building and Technical Support

• Train community structures and partners on protection principles, Do No Harm, gender sensitivity, and safe referral pathways.
• Provide guidance on ethical data use and ensure staff apply Protection Information Management principles in anticipatory action processes.
• Provide technical support to sectoral teams in Abyei to ensure the centrality of protection is maintained across interventions.
• Support the development of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for protection-sensitive anticipatory interventions.

4. Coordination and Advocacy

• Represent the AHEAD project in protection and anticipatory action coordination forums (Protection Cluster, AA Working Groups).
• Liaise with local authorities, community-based organizations, and humanitarian actors to strengthen referral pathways.
• Advocate for the inclusion of protection priorities in sub-national and local anticipatory action frameworks.

5. Monitoring, Evaluation, and Reporting

• Develop and apply protection indicators for monitoring anticipatory interventions.
• Document protection outcomes, lessons learned, and good practices.
• Contribute to donor reports, project proposals, and knowledge products related to protection and anticipatory action.
• Ensure monitoring frameworks integrate prioritized risks, continuous validation of triggers, and evidence to influence policy and donor dialogue.

Qualifications & Experience

• University degree in Law, Social Sciences, or an equivalent relevant field.
• Minimum of 2 years of experience in protection programming, including community-based training experience.
• Proven technical knowledge of protection, including GBV, Child Protection, human rights, and relevant South Sudan legal frameworks.
• Experience in project implementation, including basic budget management.
• Familiarity with Rule of Law principles.
• Understanding of coordination mechanisms, including engagement in the cluster system in IDP sites.
• Strong analytical and decision-making skills, with the ability to translate program learning into operational strategies.
• Excellent interpersonal and cross-cultural communication skills, with experience managing diverse teams.
• Strong leadership, conflict resolution, and team-building skills, with adaptability in dynamic environments.
• Patience and commitment to capacity building of national staff.
• Ability to deliver work under tight deadlines.
• Strong computer, IT, communication, and report-writing skills.
• Fluency in written and spoken English and at least one local language.
• Ability and willingness to work in remote and isolated locations with limited access to services and changing security conditions.
• Familiarity with anticipatory action approaches and ethical use of protection data systems (e.g., GBVIMS+, CPIMS+, MRM).

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