Senior Liaison Officer at United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

Before submitting an application, UNHCR staff members intending to apply to this Job Opening are requested to consult the Recruitment and Assignments Policy (RAP, UNHCR/HCP/2017/2 and the Recruitment and Assignments Administrative Instruction (RAAI), UNHCR/AI/2017/7 OF 15 August 2017.

Duties and Qualifications

Organizational Setting and Work Relationships

The Senior Government Liaison Officer is usually located in country operations. S/he plays a crucial role in ensuring UNHCR’s approach to the Government is consistent, strategic and coherent. UNHCR assists the Government on coordination, response delivery and protection issues. Typically, this involves joint coordination arrangements, partnership with various government departments in service delivery, and regular dialogue at all levels on refugee protection issues. The main aim is to ensure that UNHCR can fulfil its role to support the Government to lead the refugee response ensuring the protection of refugees and – in line with the GCR – promote the inclusion of refugees into national systems by coordinating with other actors – including development actors at the early stages of a refugee response and in mixed situations supporting the Government to prevent, respond to and resolve internal displacement while complementing and reinforcing national response efforts. This should be done in line with UNHCR’s Mandate, the Global Compact for Refugees, the IDP policy, and agreed inter-agency commitments. More specifically, the incumbent advises the senior management on issues and processes concerning the relationship with the Government and related positioning, coordination, advocacy, information, resource allocation, fundraising, reporting, and communication with other UN agencies, NGOs, civil society actors, private sector, media and other relevant actors through strong engagement in humanitarian inter-agency processes, but also with a focus on development processes as they impact on UNHCR. The overall goal of the position is to strengthen and enhance the effectiveness of UNHCR’s leadership roles and responses to situations affecting people of concern to UNHCR (refugees, asylum-seekers, IDPs, stateless persons, returnees, host communities) through an open and transparent partnership approach with the Government.

All UNHCR staff members are accountable to perform their duties as reflected in their job description. They do so within their delegated authorities, in line with the regulatory framework of UNHCR which includes the UN Charter, UN Staff Regulations and Rules, UNHCR Policies and Administrative Instructions as well as relevant accountability frameworks. In addition, staff members are required to discharge their responsibilities in a manner consistent with the core, functional, cross-functional and managerial competencies and UNHCR’s core values of professionalism, integrity and respect for diversity.

Duties

• Proactively lead and/or participate in meetings with the Government to ensure that refugee protection and assistance as well as inclusion of refugees into national systems is given due attention and is reflected within inter-governmental fora.
• Formulate UNHCR positions on protection, assistance and inclusion of refugees; in particular by following up developments in asylum procedures and ensure senior management endorsement for internal and external consumption by providing briefing notes, talking points and issue papers for relevant discussions with the Government, and in inter-governmental fora.
• Promote UNHCR’s policies and liaise with Government authorities as well as with regional intergovernmental fora (IGAD, ASEAN, ECOWAS, etc) on issues related to latest humanitarian and development processes.
• Establish and coordinate country-specific coordination mechanisms for situations co-led by UNHCR and the Government. Where applicable, coordinate the development of country-specific refugee response plans (or refugee and migration response plan and refugee and resilience plan) and comprehensive responses.
• Participate and ensure the coherence of the work of the Multi-sector group (MSG) in accordance with the Government.
• Analyse protection issues relating to refugees and asylum seekers and entry points for the inclusion of refugees into national systems and make proposals to the competent authorities for improvements.
• Provide protection for persons of concern to UNHCR by ensuring the observance by the local authorities of the recognised principles of refugee law.
• Intervene with the authorities in the event of refoulement or other legal action against refugees if/when necessary.
• Develop, propose and implement seminars or training programmes for target groups (e.g. government, judiciary, law enforcement and academic institutions) with the aim of promoting refugee law; invest in capacity-building initiatives that strengthen the ability of host government systems and national services for coordinated refugee response and inclusion of refugees into national systems.
• Maintain relations with the press and develop public information activities to ensure greater knowledge in public opinion of refugee and asylum issues and promote UNHCR objectives.
• Promote the deeper understanding within UNHCR on Government-related issues and priorities.
• Maintain frequent formal and informal contacts with counterparts in other organisations.
• Maintain close contact with the regional bureau and HQ on emerging issues.
• Perform other related duties as required.

Minimum Qualifications

Years of Experience / Degree Level

For P4/NOD – 9 years relevant experience with Undergraduate degree; or 8 years relevant experience with Graduate degree; or 7 years relevant experience with Doctorate degree

Field(s) of Education

• Law/International Law;
• Political/Social Science;
• Economics;
• Business Administration
• or other relevant field.
• (Field(s) of Education marked with an asterisk