Shelter Technical Advisor

Desired start date: ASAP

Duration of the mission: ideally 12 months but shorter assignment can be discussed
Location: Syria

Line Manager: LEARN Deputy Chief of Party

Position Summary

People in Need (PIN) is looking for Shelter Technical Advisor (STA) of the LEARN Consortium (Linking Emergency Assistance and Response in Northeast Syria). LEARN Consortium is a joint action of four partners led by Solidarites International (SI) and funded by OFDA, aiming to provide affected population with WASH, Shelter and Health assistance in Northeast Syria. PIN leads the Shelter sector in this joint action.

PIN has been working in Northern Syria since 2012, providing emergency relief and early recovery support to conflict-affected communities. Programmes for conflict-affected communities in Syria focus mainly on Emergency Food Assistance, WASH, Shelter and Education, in addition to Early Recovery and Livelihoods activities. PIN’s contribution to the Syria humanitarian response is amongst the largest, with an annual turnover of over $30 million, engaging over 350 full-time staff members across Northern Syria and cross-border response hubs in neighbouring countries. In Northeast Syria PIN operates from four offices.

The Shelter Technical Advisor will have a key role in ensuring quality and coherence of the Shelter & NFI programming implemented by PIN and SI. This will be achieved through identification of sectoral needs and gaps; field monitoring; provision of technical support to partners’ Shelter teams; leading on development of technical guidance documents and sector policies; and coordination and representing LEARN in all relevant Shelter & NFI coordination fora. The Shelter Technical Advisor will also contribute to and support joint sectoral or multi-sectoral assessments and evaluations, and contribute to potential Shelter components of LEARN’s Rapid Response Mechanism. The position requires a high mobility inside of the intervention areas and potentially also outside (e.g. meetings in Amman or Erbil). Reporting Relations & Interdependencies with Other Functions

The STA’s line manager is the LEARN’s Deputy Chief of Party who is based in Syria.

At the field level, the STA cooperates closely with PIN’s and SI’s Shelter Programme Managers and Field Coordinators, especially with PIN’s Field Coordinator as the STA is hosted by PIN. She/he is based in PIN’s office due to proximity to areas where most of the shelter activities are implemented with significant part of time spent in LEARN Consortium office together with other LEARN technical advisors with whom she/he closely cooperates, i.e. Protection Specialist, WASH Specialist, MEAL Specialist and others. At the consortium management level, she/he cooperates closely with LEARN’s Chief of Party and Deputy Chief of Party.

Duties & Responsibilities:

The LEARN’s Shelter Technical Advisor:

• Leads on the development of LEARN sector strategy in cooperation with LEARN Shelter partners (PIN and SI) and in coherence with partners’ strategic frameworks.
• Provides technical support to partners’ teams, develops their capacities and guarantees high technical quality of the Shelter outcomes and activities implemented by LEARN Shelter partners.
• Ensures relevance and appropriateness of the Shelter interventions vis a vis affected populations and supports identification of sectoral needs and gaps in target areas by proposing assessments, participating in the design of assessments and monitoring tools, and drawing recommendations based on the assessment/monitoring findings to LEARN Shelter partners.
• Takes part in field monitoring of partners’ activities and draws recommendations to LEARN Shelter partners.
• Leads on development of reporting mechanism, technical guidance documents and tools, sector policies and other technical documents with inputs from LEARN Shelter partners.
• Ensures that the Shelter intervention is in line with country specific Shelter guidance, global humanitarian standards, Global Shelter Cluster guidance, LEARN Technical application and donor’s standards.
• Strengthens coordination between the LEARN Shelter partners, leads coordination meetings and technical exchange meetings and ensures coherence of the programmatic and technical approaches.
• Together with the Shelter Programme Managers of PIN and SI, represents LEARN at Shelter coordination fora and enhances coordination with other stakeholders in the target areas.
• Ensures appropriate monitoring mechanisms are in place and indicators for the project (donor’s and internal) are relevant and followed up in cooperation with LEARN’s MEAL Specialist.
• Draws best practices and lessons learned based on the findings of monitoring and evaluations, and ensures they are capitalized on and reflected in programme design and implementation.
• Consolidates activity reports of LEARN’s Shelter intervention and contributes to reports to LEARN Steering Committee, Chief of Party, the donor and partners’ management.
• Ensures that all key topics such as Housing Land and Property (HLP), protection mainstreaming and DRR are adequately reflected in the design and implementation of LEARN’s Shelter intervention.
• Contributes to coordination and quality of Shelter intervention of LEARN’s Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM).
• Participates in the relevant meetings with partners, LEARN management and the donor including field visits and monthly review of the project.

Required profile:

• At least 5 years of professional experience within a humanitarian and/or development organization;
• Proven field experience in Shelter programming (at least 3 years);
• Experience working in a consortium setting would be an asset;
• Familiarity with Shelter technical guidelines of institutional donors, humanitarian standards and Global Shelter Cluster guidelines;
• Experience in building the capacity of national teams;
• Experience in representing an organisation in strategic meetings and coordination fora;
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills;
• Excellent command of English, knowledge of Arabic would be an advantage;
• Strong grasp of all stages of programme cycle management and quality standards in humanitarian programming, including safeguarding and accountability mechanisms;
• Strong organizational, critical analysis and problem solving skills;
• Experience of working in complex and volatile contexts, including familiarity with the humanitarian context of Syria or the Middle East, would be an advantage.

We offer:

• Working environment in a well-established and growing humanitarian organization;
• Salary according to PIN’s salary scale and HR policies, expected salary 3,000-3,400 EUR (including the monthly per diems) based on experience;
• Accommodation in PIN’s guesthouse in Northeast Syria on PIN’s expenses. In the main base, living conditions are comfortable with opportunities and places to socialize and spend free time, and without a curfew. Overnight stays in a field guesthouse to allow closer proximity to the implementation sites are also possible depending on current security situation. Security inside NES is volatile in general but has been relatively stable with direct access secured to all programme areas over the past year;
• 25 days of paid leave annually and R&R according to PIN’s policy;
• Reimbursement of travel expenses with travel to the country of residence (or other selected country) once per every 6 months of completed work, plus R&R benefits according to PIN’s policy;
• Pre-departure expenses - reimbursement of costs of visas and vaccinations; assistance with visa application procedure;
• Free medical helpdesk and psychological consultation available online;
• Travel health insurance.

HOW TO APPLY: 

Are you interested in this position? Send us your resume and motivation letter in English via following link (for this vacancy we are not accepting any other application).