Humanitarian Access, Safety and Security Advisor

International Rescue Committee

20d•£60,000 - £66,000

About The Position

The International Rescue Committee’s Emergency Unit (EmU) leads global emergency preparedness and response to sudden-onset crises, complex emergencies, and high-risk contexts. Within the Analysis, Security, Access and Preparedness (ASAP) team, the Humanitarian Access, Safety and Security Advisor provides strategic, technical, and operational support to country and emergency response teams so they can open, expand, and sustain programs in complex, volatile, and high-risk environments. The role works with country and emergency leadership, ASAP colleagues, and Regional Safety and Security Directors, helping teams reach the worst-affected and least-served populations through analysis, scenario planning, humanitarian access, and security management. The Advisor works alongside the Director and the Emergency Response Team Humanitarian Access, Safety and Security Coordinator, dividing responsibilities according to country portfolios, thematic needs, and complexity. The position supports crisis analysis and planning; develops access, acceptance, safety, and security approaches; strengthens emergency preparedness; and provides training, coaching, mentoring, and capacity sharing for IRC teams and partners. The role also contributes to technical resources, partnerships, organizational learning, and a collaborative, inclusive team culture. The position is open to national candidates or candidates with residency in Kenya, the UK, or Geneva. Candidates from other countries with an IRC office may also apply and be hosted in that country. Fluency in written and spoken French and English is required. Up to 40% international travel may be required, including to environments affected by armed conflict.

Requirements

At least 8 years of non-profit or NGO work experience in international humanitarian assistance programs, with demonstrated success planning, organizing, and managing safety and security in complex and volatile environments.
Significant practical experience in humanitarian access, humanitarian negotiation, civil-military coordination, security management, or related competencies.
Substantial documented experience as a facilitator, including developing, implementing, facilitating, and delivering learning to a wide range of audiences.
Experience collaboratively developing tools, guidance, and learning materials for or with practitioners.
Knowledge of legal and normative frameworks for humanitarian action and ability to apply humanitarian principles in practice.
Thorough familiarity with humanitarian access principles and current approaches, acceptance models, and security management, including demonstrated understanding and success in gender security management and gender equality.
Ability to understand local, regional, country, and international policies, operational positions, and interactions, and support analysis and its use in decision-making before and during emergencies and major crises.
Advanced skills in humanitarian negotiation, humanitarian-military relations, and/or engagement with armed groups.
Strong communication, diplomatic, relationship-building, and interpersonal skills, including the ability to influence and obtain cooperation from people outside the role’s supervisory control.
Ability to facilitate challenging conversations and challenge teams on strategic, technical, and operational issues to build shared understanding and inform decisions.
Proficiency in delivering training and coaching to individuals, teams, and/or partners.
Humility in analysis and ways of working, and willingness to learn with teams in complex settings.
Ability to work as part of a multinational team and manage internal and external relationships to achieve results.
Ability to produce user-centered, effective, and responsive guidance, tools, and materials.
Ability to summarize complex topics and information inclusively, clearly, and succinctly.
Demonstrated commitment to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in humanitarian settings.
Ability to identify and address barriers to inclusion for marginalized and underrepresented groups in emergency response.
Experience working with diverse teams and communities, including women, youth, persons with disabilities, and other groups at risk of exclusion.
Commitment to ongoing learning and reflection on personal and organizational biases, and willingness to adapt practices to promote inclusion.
Proficiency in written and spoken English and French.

Nice To Haves

Arabic language skills.
Spanish language skills.

Responsibilities

Plan and facilitate inclusive in-person and remote scenario-development workshops for frontline program teams responding to major crises, connecting scenarios to strategies that support programming for worst-affected and least-served populations.
Support frontline teams, when requested, to develop and track indicators for crisis developments and share relevant information with IRC colleagues.
Support country leadership in developing and implementing access and acceptance strategies that enable principled, secure, and sustained humanitarian access, including approaches such as broader risk management and remote management.
Ensure access strategies address relationship-building, engagement, and negotiation with authorities, power brokers, security actors, and community stakeholders, including state and non-state actors.
Build and maintain an internal and inter-organizational network of humanitarian access and security staff; stay current on relevant professional developments and represent IRC in global forums as needed.
Support country leadership and access, safety, and security teams to identify, analyze, and mitigate risks across emergency responses in alignment with IRC Security Minimum Standards, Duty of Care, GEDI, and PEERS principles.
Support implementation of safety and security standards and approaches that strengthen humanitarian access, and align preparedness and contingency planning with program ambitions.
Support country and response teams in incident management when relevant.
Work with ASAP and the Director, Emergency Performance and Quality, to help country programs integrate humanitarian access, safety, and security into emergency preparedness and contingency plans through mentoring, training, and technical support.
Support EmU in developing and adapting humanitarian access, safety, and security systems, practices, resources, and centralized knowledge management.
Co-develop a humanitarian access framework with consortium partners that partners can use to define access ambitions and strategies.
Support development, revision, and adoption of technical resources for analysis, security, access, and preparedness, drawing on operational experience, global trends, and good practice.
Guide, train, coach, and mentor country leaders and frontline staff on humanitarian access, safety and security, Security Risk Management (SRM), and partner capacity strengthening, including gender-sensitive approaches to gender-specific risks.
Design, deliver, and track capacity-strengthening activities for EmU and priority country teams, including READI, humanitarian negotiation, context analysis, and scenario-planning training, coaching, and peer learning.
Promote exchange of learning and good practice in ASAP methods with partners and deliver capacity-sharing activities on analysis, access, and security where relevant and prioritized.
Contribute access, safety, and security content to EmU trainings and conferences, cross-learning, and global Safety and Security resources as relevant.
Promote effective and respectful partnerships across EmU and support country and emergency teams to provide technical or operational support to partners.
Ensure partners are central to developing access, security, and engagement strategies and related capacity-sharing approaches.
Work with EmU Partnerships focal points to adapt or orient technical resources for partner use and support partner uptake and cross-context learning.
Design and deliver capacity-sharing activities with partners when identified as a priority by country programs and ASAP support, including peer-to-peer exchange and humanitarian negotiation.
Collaborate with consortium partners on shared delivery of analysis, security, access, and preparedness approaches, including grant reporting and case studies.
Build working relationships across EmU, the Global Safety and Security Department, and regional and country colleagues to promote partnership, collaboration, and One IRC.
Help maintain a positive, collaborative, safe, and protective work environment and model One IRC ways of working.
Contribute to safe, diverse, and inclusive culture and ways of working across programming; foster learning, honest dialogue, reflection, safeguarding, GEDI commitments, and IRC values.