MENA Protection Service Internship – Job Opening ID: 34557

Organizational Unit: MENA Protection Service (MPS)

Duty station: Amman, Jordan

Duration of the internship: 6 months

Expected start date: 15 May 2022

Background information/Organizational Context **

The internship is located within the MENA Protection Service (MPS), MENA Bureau in Amman. The intern will be under the supervision of the Senior Registration and Identity Management Officer with dotted-line reporting to the Senior Education Officer.

The Middle East and North Africa region continues to face multiple complex emergency situations. In 2022, UNHCR protection efforts will focus on advocating for access to territory, protection from refoulment, registration, perseveration of protection space and available solutions, and protection from violence and exploitation. Despite insecurity and constrained access, UNHCR will continue to strengthen its presence and emergency response capacity to provide millions of refugees and IDPs in the region with lifesaving, multi-sectoral assistance. At the same time, it will seek to strengthen strategic partnerships with governments, development actors, international financial institutions, UN agencies, civil society, academia, and private sector for a whole-of-society response.

In 2022, mixed population movements are expected to continue through North Africa, and UNHCR will continue to cooperate with governments and partners to improve access to safety, protection from refoulment, and solutions within existing migration frameworks. UNHCR will continue working closely with national and local authorities to develop and implement national asylum systems, as well as expand people of concerns’ access to public service and livelihood opportunities.

To ensure effective protection it is important that POCs can contact and access UNHCR, including via email to follow up on their concerns. Additionally, other stakeholders may also need to contact UNHCR to seek information and address their queries. To meet such needs, the MENA Bureau operates a dedicated mailbox (MENA Individual Case Management Mailbox), which receives substantial communication each week directly from persons of concern, external actors, or other stakeholder, sometimes as a matter of urgency and/or of a sensitive nature. The queries often relate to requests for protection and solutions interventions or relate to other forms of interventions such as material/financial assistance.

To respect the trust POCs and other actors place by writing to UNHCR via the mailbox, it is important that MPS regularly checks and filters the communication received and refers these as needed. This ensures a clear overview of the concerns being raised by our POCs, while also ensuring that relevant feedback is provided where possible.

The intern will focus on managing the mailbox by screening and following up on individual queries received from persons of concern addressed to the mailbox. The intern will also screen and refer communication from external actors and other stake holders and refer these as needed. Moreover, under the close supervision of the Snr Registration and Identity Management Officer, and in consultation with country operations, the intern will also explore options for making the mailbox system more effective (i.e. more meaningful for POCs and country operations).

The intern will also work closely with the Senior Education Officer on developing, compiling, and updating regional education practices, creating a resource repository to improve the capacity, interventions across the region; creatively engaging with the audience on dissemination of the compiled materials; and assist in the preparation and organization of thematic webinars on education, and where possible assist in compiling records, reports and summary of key interventions with protection stakeholders.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Senior Registration and Identity Management Officer and dotted-line reporting to the Senior Education Officer, the Intern will be required to undertake the following:

• Ensure the mailbox is checked regularly each day and emails are filtered and referred, in line with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Refer the emails to the relevant operations/units, as appropriate, for their intervention.
• Respond to queries, in line with the SOPs.
• Share urgent requests with the Registration and Identity Management Officer Focal Point for the Mailbox, for necessary action.
• Ensure the Protection Contacts focal points is kept updated for each operation, to reflect any relevant changes in staffing and/or functions.
• Follow-up on queries for appropriate response, in coordination with relevant protection teams, raising issues with relevant regional officers if required.
• Update on a regular basis the Tracking Tool excel sheet for the received e-mails.
• Draft Weekly and Monthly reports as pe the guidance provided by the Registration Unit’s practice.
• Respond to queries from UNHCR operations and partners regarding their communications.
• Develop/draft proposals for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the mailbox management.
• Compile and update the regional protection practices, maintain the resource depository to improve regional capacity and interventions across the region.
• Assist in compiling records, reports and summaries of the key interventions with protection stakeholders, external agencies and donor organizations in the thematic areas of protection.
• Support other MPS staff with compiling and organizing thematic guidance documents into the common resource folder.
• Take part in online and in-house trainings.
• Support protection projects within MPS as required.

Minimum qualifications required

• Have completed at least two years of undergraduate studies in a field relevant or of interest to the work of the Organization particularly in law, political science or human rights;
• Demonstrated interest in humanitarian work, forced displacement, development, and related fields;
• Fluence in both Arabic and English languages is essential.

Desirable

• Previous experience in the field of forced displacement.
• Good knowledge of and experience working with Microsoft office tools;
• Knowledge of a third language.

Eligibility

In order to be considered for an internship, candidates must meet the following eligibility criteria:**

• Recent graduate (those persons who completed their studies within one year of applying) or current student in a graduate/undergraduate school programme from a university or higher education facility accredited by UNESCO; and
• Have completed at least two years of undergraduate studies in a field relevant or of interest to the work of the Organization.

An individual whose father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister is a staff member of UNHCR, including a Temporary Appointment holder or a member of the Affiliate Workforce, is not eligible for an internship.

Allowance

Interns who do not receive financial support from an outside party will receive an allowance to partially help to cover the cost of food, local transportation and living expenses.

The UNHCR workforce consists of many diverse nationalities, cultures, languages and opinions. UNHCR seeks to sustain and strengthen this diversity to ensure equal opportunities as well as an inclusive working environment for its entire workforce. Applications are encouraged from all qualified candidates without distinction on grounds of race, colour, sex, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity