Senior Coordinator Access, Safety and Security

Background/IRC Summary:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a private, non-political, non-profit, and non-religious organization. For over 90 years, we have been providing humanitarian assistance to communities affected by conflict and natural disasters in more than 40 countries. Since 2008, the IRC has been active in Myanmar, delivering humanitarian assistance in areas such as health, protection, water, and sanitation, specifically targeting families impacted by conflict and natural disasters.

Job Overview/Summary:

The Access Safety & Security Coordinator serves as the security and access focal point for IRC management in the Myanmar Country Program. The position holder is responsible for the overall management of access and security-related preparedness, prevention, and response in Myanmar.

He/she will develop and oversee the implementation of humanitarian access and security management systems and protocols in line with humanitarian principles, humanitarian needs, duty of care principles, and IRC’s strategy. In addition, to identify changes and trends in the humanitarian access and security environment in Myanmar, develop and oversee the implementation of responsive plans, standard operating procedures, and contingency plans, and facilitate training and capacity building of both management and field staff.

He/She will provide expert humanitarian access and security risk management advice to all levels of IRC staff in the country office on building relationships with stakeholders, negotiating and mediating humanitarian access, contextual understanding, managing critical incidents, and providing timely advisories.

Major Responsibilities:

Humanitarian Access Management

• Lead on developing and implementing humanitarian access strategies and approaches tailored to local contexts in the field sites throughout Myanmar
• Ensure humanitarian access approaches are responsive to local context and include overarching community engagement components.
• Ensure that the IRC field teams conduct principled and sustainable negotiations with relevant actors in line with humanitarian principles, humanitarian needs, duty of care principles, and the IRC’s strategy
• Provide technical input and advice in assessments to consider IRC programs in new geographic areas and regular assessment reviews for existing locations
• Ensure that Humanitarian access strategies in field locations are considerate of risks and opportunities for programs and locations including community engagement strategies that promote acceptance of IRC mission and enable durable programming.
• Support the Senior Management Team (SMT) in evaluating access constraints for IRC interventions in Myanmar, including input on new program development opportunities.
• Support the SMT with regular review and update of existing policies including, not limited to, on Remote Management, Relocation package, Firewalling approach, Post Relocation Review.

Safety and Security Risk Management

• Lead on the development and implementation of strategies to enhance the country program security culture both within the SMT and across the field by ensuring that the humanitarian access and security agenda remains front and centre for the country leadership team and by adopting an open and engaging approach to influencing others.
• Seek to develop an agile and flexible safety and security support system that focuses on delivery at the field level, employing appropriate change management approaches when required.
• Ensure safety and security protocols, reporting mechanisms, and capacity-building initiatives account for gender-specific risks, staff profiles, and background, and are sensitive to local contexts.
• Work with Field coordinators, sector leads and the Grants team to ensure security budgets and staffing levels are in alignment with the assessed levels of risk in each location.
• Ensure that all field staff are fully cognizant of prevailing security threats, report noticeable changes in threats through appropriate channels and receive timely advice on means to reduce their vulnerability to those threats.
• Conduct in-person and remote safety and security assessments with field teams on regular basis to assess the level of adherence to relevant security plans and procedures designed for each geographical area
• Codify a solid critical incident management plan and conduct exercises for management and field staff using various real-life scenarios and ensure that every individual knows their roles and responsibilities when plans fall to operational realities.
• Maintain a high level of preparedness vis-a-vis predicted contextual fluctuations operationally and programmatically by contributing to the development of operational and programmatic contingency plans
• Chair the weekly S & S meeting with field security focal(s)

Context Monitoring and Reporting

• Submit regular contextual updates as needed to the SMT and relevant field and program management staff.
• Work closely with IRC field management teams to ensure all incidents and accidents are regularly and systematically reported in line with IRC incident management procedures.
• Monitor the operating environment in the region, identify new threats, assess IRC vulnerabilities, and recommend possible responses.
• Contribute to local-level conflict sensitivity analysis and macro-level analysis of trends within the Myanmar conflict with the support of the Regional Humanitarian Context Analyst.
• Provide credible information and contextual understanding of localized, country-wide and regional (when relevant) security situations and incidents along with appropriate advice to IRC field and program management staff.
• Advise program and field management teams on context-specific risks about humanitarian access, safety, and security, and contribute to the development and implementation of mitigation measures and plans.

Networking and Liaison

• Maintaining a network of IRC security focal points in the country program
• Establish relationships with all functions within IRC to ensure smooth communication and coordination for the safe implementation of programs.
• Monitor and provide support and reporting on NGO field security initiatives as required.
• Identify, create, and maintain a network with NGO/UN and other humanitarian access and security specialists.

Partnership support

• Provide technical support to partner organizations on humanitarian access, safety, and security risk management to enable safe and principled program implementation.
• Work with the Partnership and Program teams to ensure that safety and security risk mitigation measures are integrated into partner capacity assessments and monitoring processes.
• Develop and/or review safety and access-related content in partner orientation packages, guidance notes, and templates.
• Support the co-development and contextualization of partner contingency plans and incident reporting procedures, if partner capacity is not in-place.
• Facilitate periodic training, workshops, or mentoring for partner staff on topics such as humanitarian negotiation and risk management and personal safety and security training relevant with partner capacity need assessment.
• Monitor and support the implementation of risk management plans, and flag gaps or concerns to relevant action points described in capacity need assessment. Provide quarterly report on partnership support progress to SMT.

Staff Performance Management, Learning & Development:

• In coordination with the Regional Safety and Security Director and relevant internal stakeholders, identify learning and development needs and lead on the implementation of a capacity development plan that may include training on humanitarian principles and safety and security preparedness.
• Liaise with partners to assess capacity-building needs and provide advice and support where feasible and necessary.
• Manage the performance of the Security and Access team including building capacity in relevant technical and management competencies through coaching, on-the-job learning, etc.
• Promote and monitor staff care and well-being of team members and maintain effective professional relationships.

Training

• Orient and train staff on preventive and reactive systems, policies, and procedures
• Identify need for and coordinate staff training with appropriate internal and external resources
• Provide READI training, First Aid training and information on systems, policies, and procedures

Common Duties

• Uphold the mission, values, and spirit of IRC
• Follow and enforce all IRC codes of conduct and policies (worldwide and in-country)
• Report any violations to appropriate IRC authority, and participate in preventative initiatives
• Actively seek opportunities that will complement ability to fulfil the position’s responsibilities as well as further professional development, such as taking part in internal and external trainings

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to: Country Director

Technical line management: Regional Safety & Security Director

Position directly supervises: Safety and Security Officer

Key Internal Contacts:

• Deputy Director of Operations, Deputy Director of Programs, Field Lead(s), Program Coordinators
• Region/Global: Team members in security, partnership, Global Crisis Analysis Team, Humanitarian Access Team, People and Culture, supply chain, monitoring and evaluation, and others

Key External Contacts:

• INGO humanitarian access and security focal points
• Relevant UN agencies: UNOCHA, UNHCR, WFP, WHO, UNDSS, etc.
• Relevant coordination forums, working groups, and clusters for Myanmar: Logistics cluster, HAWG
• Information sharing and analysis bodies: EXERA security briefing
• Community leaders and local powerbrokers