Programme Policy Officer (Head of Gender, Protection and Inclusion)

South Sudan has been in protracted crises since 2013. Independence in 2011 gave hope for national unity, peace, oil revenue and socio-economic development. Yet, by the end of 2013, the country descended into war again. After several violent incidents, ceasefires and peace attempts, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) was signed in 2018. The agreement has brought renewed hope, and there has not been a national-level violent incident. However, the implementation of R-ARCSS chapters has been delayed; thus, South Sudan remains in a fragile state, especially with growing levels of subnational and localized violence and uncertainty around postponed general elections.

The number of people in acute food insecurity has been on the rise since independence due to fragility, persistent communal violence, economic shocks linked to the devaluation of the South Sudanese Pound and supply chain challenges on a global scale, Sudan crisis, and extensive flooding along the Nile and other riverine systems. The situation of severe acute food insecurity is more pronounced in hard-to-reach areas, especially the Greater Upper Nile region.

The protection environment in South Sudan presents several challenges that limit access for both humanitarian workers and affected populations requiring assistance. Key concerns include limited-service provision, weak protection systems, low awareness of rights, and prevailing socio-cultural norms that may be discriminatory. These circumstances particularly affect women, children, older adults, and marginalized groups such as persons with disabilities.

The World Food Programme’s (WFP) vision in South Sudan is to address entrenched inequity and isolation, with the goal of fostering unified, interconnected and peaceful communities. This builds on the recognition that in pre- and post-independence, the regions of South Sudan have had different access to social and economic opportunities, with much of the country having been left out from resilience-building assistance. As a result, inequity and isolation remain a threat to achieving zero hunger and sustained peace and stability in South Sudan.

To achieve this vision, WFP has been co-locating and integrating its programs to increase their efficiency, quality and impact on targeted communities to restore livelihoods, strengthen resilience to shocks, and rebuild social cohesion and self-reliance increasingly in hard-to-reach areas. While continuing to deliver assistance directly to communities, WFP is also engaging the government to support national and subnational institutions to develop and or increase the coverage and quality of social services and resilience programs and stimulate economic activities over time.   

Under the supervision of the Head of Programme, the Head of Gender, Protection and Inclusion (GPI) will be responsible for providing strategic guidance, technical support and direction to WFP country operations and activities. The post is based in the South Sudan Country Office, as part of the Programme team, and will manage a team of existing gender, protection and inclusion staff. The purpose of this assignment is to support the Country Office and eight field offices by providing: 

• Technical guidance to overall programming (i.e., relief assistance, human capital development, resilience building) to ensure that gender, protection and inclusion considerations are appropriately integrated into programme adjustment planning and implementation. 

• Assistance to facilitate the safe continuation of inclusive humanitarian assistance, with consideration of WFP’s commitment to supporting full enjoyment of human rights including gender equality and disability inclusion.  

• Strategic and analytical support on gender and inclusion for programmes, with a future focus. 

• Support to Management on gender and disability inclusion within WFP’s own teams. 

• Adherence to normative frameworks: Provide technical advice and guidance to Senior Management to ensure WFP’s presence, operations and implementation are consistent with, and advance, humanitarian, human rights and gender equality frameworks. This includes ensuring consistency with WFP policies and procedures as well as development of localized interpretations and approach to meet normative standards.
• Centrality of protection and gender transformation: Support programmes and operational leads through technical advice and development of related tools to address issues such as Housing, Land and Property Rights, do no harm, and gender-based violence in the design, implementation and review of WFP programmes.
• Programmatic integrity and exit strategies: Support the Country Office, especially the Head of Programme, to develop and implement programmes that meaningfully facilitate community empowerment (across all demographics and abilities) to advance the capacity of WFP to achieve sustainable impact and independence from assistance for the people of South Sudan.
• Gender transformative programming: Lead the Country Office to action evidence-based and ambitious gender transformative programming across all areas of WFP operations in collaboration with key stakeholders, both internal to WFP, community and UN, development, government, national agencies, donors and others.
• Evidence based programming: Facilitate context specific research, data, analysis and data on protection and gender as aligned to the Country Strategic Plan and related programme and activity design and implementation. Coordination and Partnerships: Develop and maintain relationships with authorities (state-based and traditional) and communities, UN agencies, and other humanitarian actors and international stakeholders to promote WFP protection and gender priorities and concerns.
• Management: Lead the development, review and implementation of the Gender and Protection Unit Annual Plan, facilitate capacity and provide day-to-day supervisory support to the national and international staff within the Gender and Protection Unit.
• Safe delivery of assistance and conflict sensitivity: In collaboration with the Head of the Programme Unit, Access Unit, Head of Logistics and Head of Security provide advice, guidance and follow-up in relation to any protection problems related to the safe delivery of food, cash or vouchers to beneficiaries, either before, after or during distribution.
• Advocacy: Support Country Management to advocate and raise awareness on protection, conflict and gender issues, both emerging and protracted, as related to food and nutrition security. Audience may include UN General Assembly and/or Security Council, WFP HQ, Donors, Political audiences, South Sudan based interagency forums and agencies.
• Other duties: This includes providing technical support to the Country Director in preventing, protecting and responding to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.
• Occasional travel to field offices may be required to support operational needs.

Advanced University degree in Political Science, International Development, Development Economics, Social Sciences, Gender, or other relevant fields, or a First University degree with additional years of related work experience and/or training/courses

For master's degree holder or higher At least eight years of progressively responsible and relevant professional experience demonstrating high performance and leadership capacity in protection and gender programming, and establishing accountability mechanisms towards affected populations, in complex emergencies and/or hardship setting is required. For a candidate with a first university degree, a minimum of ten years of the above experience is required.

• Demonstrated field experience working on either protection, human rights or gender programming and in-depth knowledge of humanitarian protection, sexual- and other forms of gender-based violence, civil-military relations and other humanitarian policy issues, and its linkage with humanitarian assistance.

• Field experience within a range of contexts (emergency, conflict, and transition)

• Experience managing or working with Grievance Redress Mechanisms (Community Feedback Mechanisms)

• Knowledge of subsidiary and other cross-cutting issues including disability, access, gender, conflict sensitive programming, protection from sexual exploitation and abuse, and the humanitarian, development and peace nexus is highly desirable.

• Proven leadership and management capacity to build and foster inclusive and high performing teams in a multi-cultural environment

• Experience working with government or international agencies in policy development.

• Inter-agency experience

Understanding food assistance programming with previous experience from WFP or any of its cooperating partners is highly desirable.

•   Familiarity with the South Sudan context is an advantage

• Demonstrated knowledge of humanitarian programming in Gender, Protection and AAP.

• Able to supervise and support diverse teams.

• Knowledge of, or the ability to quickly assimilate, UN/WFP specific processes and systems. 

• Capacity to engage in strategic conversations at senior levels.

• Demonstrated strong analytical and writing skills, including the ability to write in an engaging and informative manner, and conceptualise and clearly synthesise information.

• Proficiency in the use of Microsoft Outlook, word and Excel

Fluency in oral and written English.

Remark: The recruitment / VA will also serve as a roster for the same or lower grade level, possible placement in different duty stations, in case of future operational need.