Humanitarian Support Personnel – Security

Job details

DIVISION: International

TEAM: GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN TEAM (GHT)

LOCATION: HSPs: HSPs are globally roving and work away from their home base continuously to a particular location, from a few weeks up to six months’ duration per assignment. HSPs are typically deployed to country programmes up to nine months a year (pro rata for part-time posts). Our current emergency programmes are in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. When not deployed (or on annual leave) HSPs may be assigned project / proactive work. It may be possible to undertake such work from home or an Oxfam office, depending on circumstances.

CONTRACT TYPE: Open-ended

GRADE: C 1

JOB FAMILY: Programme

SALARY: £34,046

HOURS: Full-time

FLEXIBLE WORKING

We believe flexible working is key to building the Oxfam of the future, so we’re open to talking through the type of flexible arrangements which might work for you.

GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN TEAM PURPOSE: The Global Humanitarian Team (GHT) has designated responsibilities to support, coordinate and lead humanitarian response and policies to reduce the impact of, prepare for and respond to crises, harnessing the resources of the whole Oxfam confederation to deliver support for Oxfam’s strategic plan.

The GHT works across Oxfam countries and regions and in close coordination with others working on fragility, development and influencing to ensure Oxfam delivers quality work across the nexus.

· GHT will work with others to maximize the quality and impact of Oxfam’s humanitarian program by:

· Delivering rapid, safe and high-quality emergency surge capacity.

· Supporting program strategy, operational design, humanitarian preparedness and

· response.

· Promote greater local humanitarian leadership and collaborate on our approach to fragility and across the nexus

· Facilitate the development of humanitarian capacity across Oxfam and partner organizations through building and brokering a cross confederation network and community

· Supporting the gathering of evidence to enable learning, innovation and advocating for change across the sector.

· Working with Campaigns and Policy to influence for greater respect of the basic rights of crisis affected men and women.

· Working closely with affiliates in their roles as EAs and PAs for the best interests of the humanitarian program.

· Ensure connection with global and technical humanitarian system and coordination structures to share good practice, be informed of new developments, maintain Oxfam’s reputation and influence the system.

TEAM PURPOSE:

What is a Humanitarian Support Personnel (HSP)? The HSP Team is comprised of technical humanitarian experts from various fields across the globe, who bring their skills and experience to Oxfam’s country teams to help them respond to conflicts and natural disasters. HSPs are globally roving and work away from their home base continuously. Typically, they are deployed to a particular location from a few weeks up to six months’ duration per assignment. HSPs could expect to be deployed to country programmes up to nine months a year (pro-rata for part-time posts). Our current emergency programmes are in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Eastern Europe.

JOB PURPOSE:

To strengthen Oxfam’s response to humanitarian emergencies by providing security management support to country and regional offices, to which the post-holder is deployed, for periods of up to six months, including building security management capacity for the future. Be accountable for ensuring community participation shapes programme decisions, actively seek a partnership approach and worked following feminist principles including strong awareness of power dynamics. To, along with other technical staff, advisors and managers, promote safe-programming in all humanitarian responses. To be accountable for ensuring community participation shapes programme decisions, actively seek a partnership approach and worked following feminist principles including strong awareness of power dynamics.

POST HOLDER REPORTS TO

Global Security Advisor

JOBS REPORTING TO THIS POST

None

BUDGET RESPONSIBILITY

No

DIMENSIONS OF THE ROLE

· Has wider span of management control (number of people supervised during deployments).

· Deeper specialist expertise based on wider experience required.

· Higher degree of complexity in the analysis and problem solving required due to the nature of the area of activity.

· Government liaison.

· Impact is mainly in one deployment country/region per deployment

· Wide range of communication inside and outside affiliate.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

The post holder will undertake a series of assignments in a country or region for which specific Terms of Reference will be negotiated and agreed with relevant parties, prior to deployment and or revised in the early stages of the deployment. Assignments will normally include the following responsibilities:

Management

people, budgets, assets, projects and decision making

· To train staff on security management issues, both informally and within the context of formal training courses.

· To act, on occasions, as a Security Officer; this may include: design and implementation of a new security management system or review and modification of an existing system; management of staff; and representation and coordination.

· To recruit, train and supervise security staff when on deployment, and to build the capacity of other Oxfam staff.

· To carry out security management tasks or represent Oxfam in meetings, as requested by the Security Advisor.

· Support, with the rest of technical staff, advisors and managers, the understanding and use of key analytical tools and frameworks related to safe programming

Analysis and Problem Solving

Information, complexity, creativity and forward planning

To carry out security assessments and security management reviews in locations Oxfam is working or is considering working; either providing management with recommendations for action or working directly to implement the action plan.

Ensure programmes are safe, are sensitive to gender and other power dynamics and ensure that they are informed by the community to benefit from the work.

Impact

contacts, communication, advice, and consequences

· To promote and ensure that programmes respect the NGO/Red Cross Code of Conduct, SPHERE, the People in Aid Code, Oxfam International procedures and other regulatory codes.

· To assist managers in developing high quality security management systems in line with Oxfam security policy and security management approach.

· To prepare regular reports and summaries of work and recommendations to Oxfam including a short final report at the end of each assignment and to ensure that relevant information is documented and shared with country office, Regional office and the Global Security Team (GST).

· To foster an appropriate working culture built on Oxfam’s values, respectful and cognisant of power imbalances internally and between Oxfam, our partners and the communities we serve.

When not on assignment, the post holder will:

Undertake written assignments and research work to document experience and build up institutional learning on aspects of security management; assist the Security Advisor with discreet work such as development of the security tool kit and training modules; and cover for the Security Advisor as necessary.

Other

· Eager and required to adhere to Oxfam’s principles and values (click here) as well as the promotion of gender justice and women’s rights (click here).

· Understanding of and commitment to adhere to equity, diversity, gender, child safety and staff health and wellbeing principles.

person specification

Most importantly, every individual at Oxfam GB needs to be able to:

· Live our values of INCLUSION, ACCOUNTABILITY and EMPOWERMENT (read more about these here).

· Ensure you commit to our ORGANISATIONAL ATTRIBUTES (including adhering to the Code of Conduct):

1. Be committed to our feminist principles, and to applying them in your day-to-day behaviour and your work. Be ready to keep learning, with accountability to those who experience oppression as a result of their identities, such as their gender, race/ethnicity, disability, class, or LGBTQIA identity.”

2. Be committed to undertaking Oxfam’s safeguarding training and adhering to relevant policies, to ensure all people who come into Oxfam are as safe as possible.

Experience, Knowledge & Competencies

Minimum requirements all HSP members are expected to fulfil:

· Ability to deploy at short notice to areas affected by crisis and support the rapid scale up of humanitarian programmes to meet life-saving needs of affected people.

· Demonstrate Oxfam values and behavioural competencies.

· Management skills: HSP deployments usually involve managing a team to deliver the work, HSP members will need to demonstrate management competencies, of international and multi-cultural teams, in difficult and stressful environments.

· Behavioural skills; all HSP deployments require the individual to successfully work with and mentor others, often under challenging circumstances. HSP members should demonstrate competencies around, “listening and creating dialogue” and, “working with others” as well as networking skills

Essential

· Knowledge of and demonstrated commitment to Oxfam’s values, mission and work.

· Knowledge and understanding of global justice, social change, women’s rights and gender equality and commitment to delivering humanitarian work through feminist principles.

· Considerable practical experience of security assessment, planning and implementation of procedures in the context of UN or NGO humanitarian operations

· Proven influencing and negotiating skills with internal and external audiences including in complex and stressful circumstances

· Proven experience of field based training

· Ability to advise and support field staff in a consultative manner

· Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, together with the capacity to remain calm under pressure and not lose sight of strategic priorities. Must be organised and efficient.

· Sensitivity to cultural differences and the ability to work in a wide variety of cultural contexts

· Willingness to travel at short notice, and often in difficult circumstances

· Sympathy with the aims and objectives of Oxfam

· Committed to humanitarian principles and emergency response work

· Excellent written and spoken English

For this role, we have selected the most relevant feminist leadership practices which we will use for assessment purposes (which you can read more about here):

• Self awareness – we are able to develop a high degree of self-awareness around our own strengths and weaknesses and our impact on others. Our self-awareness enables us to moderate and self-regulate our behaviours to control and channel our impulses for good purposes.
• Enabling – We all work to effectively empower and enable others to deliver the organisations goals through creating conditions of success. We passionately invest in others by developing their careers, not only their skills for the job. We provide freedom; demonstrate belief and trust provide appropriate support. We provide more freedom and demonstrate belief and trust, underpinned with appropriate support.
• Agility, Complexity and Ambiguity – We scan the environment, anticipate changes, are comfortable with lack of clarity and deal with a large number of elements interacting in diverse and unpredictable ways

In addition:

Key Attributes:

• Ability to demonstrate sensitivity to cultural differences and gender issues, as well as the commitment to equal opportunities.
• Ability to demonstrate an openness and willingness to learn about the application of gender/gender mainstreaming, women’s rights, and diversity for all aspects of development work.
• Commitment to Oxfam’s safeguarding policies to ensure all people who come into contact with Oxfam are as safe as possible

Desirable

• Written and spoken French to a good working standard
• Other languages including Arabic and Spanish

Safer recruitment: All offers of employment are subject to satisfactory references and appropriate screening checks (which can include counterterrorism, safeguarding and criminal records checks). You can find out what this means here.