Background

Early Recovery is a key component of humanitarian crisis response. Early Recovery addresses recovery needs during the humanitarian phase, using humanitarian mechanisms in accordance with development principles. It is an integrated, inclusive, and coordinated approach to gradually turn the dividends of humanitarian action into sustainable crisis recovery, resilience building and development opportunities. Emergency relief addresses peoples’ survival and basic wellbeing. Early Recovery restores people’s capacities and supports communities’ first steps to recover from the crisis. The Global Cluster on Early Recovery (GCER) advocates for humanitarian actors to integrate approaches into their humanitarian work, where possible, that will mitigate the impact of a future crisis on a community. The Early Recovery approach presents important opportunities to promote gender equality, accountability to affected population and local participatory approaches.

Syria remains the largest and most complex humanitarian emergency on the global stage with 12.2 million people in need of assistance, of which 5 million are children. 10.8 million people have become displaced internally or have become refugees. An estimated 7.6 million people remain internally displaced. Against this backdrop, while the international humanitarian community and humanitarian actors have mobilized a significant response over the last four years, actors providing relief response activities inside Syria from Damascus or across the Turkish and Jordanian borders have run parallel operations, with limited or no interaction and coordination. 

As the scale of needs continues to grow, and following the adoption of resolutions 2139 and 2165 by the United Nations Security Council, humanitarian actors operating inside Syria from Damascus or across the Turkish and Jordanian borders met in Beirut on 3 September 2014 and decided to embark on a “Whole of Syria” (WOS) approach in an effort to improve the effectiveness and operational reach of their collective responses.

The cornerstone of the WOS approach is a commitment by all humanitarian partners to a coordinated response through the IASC sector/cluster approach to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their response through (1) developing a principled, predictable and systematic operational planning process; (2) ensuring greater coherence across the different operational modalities (i.e. cross-line, cross-border or regular programmes) through improved coordination; and (3) strengthening information-sharing and monitoring of response.

Since September 2014, humanitarian actors responding to the Syria crisis have been collectively working under the leadership of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria and the Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator on joint planning, programming and reporting mechanisms to ensure a harmonized and coordinated response under the WoS approach. This has already led to a more effective humanitarian response in Syria through reduced overlap, increased complementarity, and overall better information-sharing and joint planning. It has also provided a much better understanding of the gaps in various collective responses while underlining the urgent need to streamline and strengthen the coordination arrangements for the Whole of Syria, and ensuring that they are underpinned by sufficient capacity.

As the crisis is likely to continue to worsen and with no prospect for a political solution to end of the violence in sight, addressing the gaps in coordination is an important pre-requisite to continue delivering an effective and principled humanitarian response to prioritized humanitarian needs in Syria going forward. Al though the majority of the sectors have made progress over the past months in compiling Whole of Syria response information, there continues to be a need to bolster and standardize coordination structures in Syria, neighboring countries, southern Turkey and other staging areas for cross-border operations, to ensure maximal interoperability. While the majority of sectors/clusters have “Whole of Syria” mechanisms in place, the Early Recovery Sector led by UNDP Syria, the WoS coordination architecture is not fully in place yet. The Damascus based “WoS Early Recovery Coordinator” conducted exploration missions to Amman and Gaziantep to assess the need and possibility of establishing the ER sector under the WoS context. Findings of the mission clearly indicated the need for ER Coordinator to be placed in Gaziantep as a first step and another in Amman at later stages. This will help better understand the operational context from Gaziantep and Amman including programmatic opportunities for ER and lay the foundation for more ER work and capacity development of potential partners and stakeholders on mainstreaming ER into the operational sectors/clusters plans which will eventually set the basis for a complete whole of Syria response under the ER sector.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the overall guidance of the Deputy Country Director and the direct liaison with the WoS Early Recovery Coordinator, the Early Recovery Coordinator in Gaziantep will technically support UNDP in better understanding the operational context from Gaziantep and establish adequate ER coordination mechanisms under the WoS approach and ensure that ER is mainstreamed in the humanitarian response in sectors operating from Gaziantep.

The Early Recovery Coordinator in Gaziantep will take conduct the following tasks:

ER sector coordination, planning, reporting and monitoring:

• Establish the ER sector working group in Gaziantep in close collaboration with other sector coordinators, OCHA and operational partners (INGOs, Syrian NGOs);
• Define the operational context for cross border operations with particular focus on ER and resilience based programming in Northern Syria;
• Map the ongoing activities focusing on ER related activities from Gaziantep (Including infrastructure rehabilitation works implemented through cross border operations/support) and identify active implementing partners. Maintaining a 4W (who, where, what, when…) matrix to ensure collected information is updated and used for informed decision making and planning processes;
• Map the overlapping activities within other sectors particularly with Food Security sector regarding the livelihoods activities and advise on complementarity of actions with relevant sectors and WoS ER coordinator;
• Support the WoS ER coordination architecture and recommend a streamlined ER&L structure to plan, report and deliver on UNDP ER&L coordination mandate;
• Prepare needs assessments and analysis of gaps (across and within sectors, using information management tools as needed): Humanitarian needs overview, livelihoods and damage assessments, governorates profiles from Gaziantep perspective in close liaison with the WoS ER coordinator;
• Identify and establish contact with all relevant stakeholders, including representatives of affected populations and ensure utilization of participatory and community based approaches in sectoral needs assessments, analysis, planning, monitoring and response;
• Work with sector members to formulate sector priorities on the basis of analysis, and develop ER sector response plan, objectives, activities and indicators that directly support realization of the response’s strategic priorities;
• Ensure the application and adherence to common standards and guidelines;
• Maintain a proper financial management and tracking of ER projects contributing to the sector strategy in Gaziantep;
• Maintain a monitoring mechanism to track the progress of ER sector strategy by:  monitoring and reporting on activities and needs, measuring performance against the sector strategy and agreed results and recommending corrective action where necessary. 

ER advocacy:

• Liaise with operational clusters/sectors in Gaziantep to advocate for mainstreaming ER and resilience building approaches in their respective plans. More specifically ensure that the early recovery and resilience building approach is incorporated in the Humanitarian Programme Cycle developed from Gaziantep including needs assessments, humanitarian response plans and other sector response plans;
• Participate in the High Level Group (HLG) in Gaziantep representing UNDP and the ER sector to ensure mainstreaming of ER approaches;
• Support the Inter Sector Coordination group to ensure that ER and resilience approaches including accountability to the affected people are mainstreamed;
• Provide practical support to humanitarian actors and identifying opportunities and constraints for expanding ER and resilience building programming: lending technical support to NGOs and agencies in programme development to strengthen the elements of early recovery;
• Provide guidance and context-sensitive advice on ER&L practices and standards in Gaziantep in close coordination with the WoS ER Coordinator and identify capacity and knowledge gaps and needs;
• Support consultation and reporting on policy papers development (on resilience or other related topic) and provide facilitation services as needed to relevant events in Gaziantep.

Capacity development of partners on ER and related matters:

• Identify Syrian NGOs working from Gaziantep on projects related to ER in Northern Syrian, assess their capacities and develop a capacity development strategy for implementation in close coordination with WoS ER coordinator;
• Develop the capacity of local partners, sector members and other agencies’ staff  on ER&L and resilience programming in close collaboration with WoS ER coordinator relying on existing UNDP best practices and expertise;
• Liaise with other sector coordinators based in Gaziantep to identify potential collaboration and complementarity in the capacity development activities, particularly the curriculum and materials development and other innovative ideas.

Support the WoS Humanitarian Coordination Architecture:

• Maintain close liaison and communication with the ER WoS Sector Coordinator to ensure efficient and coordinated planning, programming and collaboration mechanisms;
• Liaise with NGO forum in Gaziantep (for INGOs and NGOs) to ensure close participation and information sharing concerning the ER sector strategy, plans and projects.

Perform other tasks as deemed necessary by the supervisor, UNDP Syria Country Director and Deputy Country Director.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of the UN;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Specific Knowledge Competencies:

Humanitarian Response:

• Exceptional knowledge of humanitarian response systems, coordination mechanisms, and humanitarian policy. This includes coordinated needs assessments (MIRA, PDNA), and the Humanitarian Programme Cycle.

People Centered Approach:

• Understands that a people-centered approach to humanitarian action brings together the universal determinants of age, gender, and other specific diversity  characteristics for analysis that informs an effective response which includes; disability, HIV  AIDS, mental health, socio-economic status, religion, nationality, the environment and ethnic origins.

 Recovery Programming:

Strong knowledge of one or several of the early recovery programmatic areas:  

• Livelihoods: Emergency Employment, Economic Recovery, Government Employment, Cash Coordination;
• Governance: Rule of Law, Peace and Reconciliation, Community Stability, Social Cohesion, Local Governance, Civil Society;
• Basic Infrastructure repairs and rehabilitation: Waste Management, Utility systems, Local Government buildings, Community buildings, Mine Awareness and Clearance.

 Transition Planning:

• Comprehensive understanding of the challenges and experience of countries transitioning from humanitarian assistance to recovery and development.

Functional Competencies:

Professionalism:

• Advanced knowledge of the use of information management in humanitarian response and recovery environments;
• Highly developed conceptual, analytical and innovative ability to identify and articulate the information management requirements of complex situations requiring a coordinated response between disparate actors;
• Demonstrated problem-solving skills and ability to use sound judgment to ensure the effective and timely completion of complex tasks;
• Ability to work under extreme pressure, on occasion in a highly stressful environment (e.g. civil strife, natural disasters).

Communication:

• Excellent communication and training (spoken and written) skills including the ability to convey complex information management concepts and recommendations to staff at all levels, both orally and in writing, in a clear, concise style that can be readily understood by non-information management practitioners.

Teamwork:

• Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals;
• Places team agenda before personal agenda; supports and acts in accordance with final group decision. 

 Planning and Organization:

• Develops clear goals that are consistent with agreed strategies;
• Identifies priority activities and assignments;
• Adjusts priorities as required;
• Foresees risks and allows for contingencies when planning;
• Monitors and adjusts plans and actions as necessary;
• Uses time efficiently.

Accountability:

• Takes ownership of all responsibilities and honors commitments;
• Operates in compliance with organizational regulations and rules;
• Supports subordinates and peers, provides oversight and takes responsibility for delegated assignments;
• Takes personal responsibility for his/her own shortcomings and those of the work unit, where applicable. 

Client Orientation:

• Considers all those to whom services are provided to be “clients” and seeks to see things from clients’ point of view;
• Designs solutions and basis recommendations on the principles of usability;
• Establishes and maintains productive partnerships with clients by gaining their trust and respect;
• Monitors ongoing developments inside and outside the clients’ environment to keep informed and anticipate problems;
• Keeps clients’ informed of progress or setbacks in projects;
• Meets timeline for delivery of products or services to clients. 

Judgment/Decision-making:

• Identifies the key issues in a complex situation, gathers relevant information before making a decision;
• Considers positive and negative impacts of decisions prior to making them;
• Proposes a course of action or makes a recommendation based on all available information;
• Checks assumptions against facts;
• Determines that the actions proposed will satisfy the expressed and underlying needs for the decision.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s Degree or equivalent) in Social Sciences (International Development, International Relations) Social Science, or a related field;
• (Bachelors' degree or equivalent in combination with (9) years of experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree);

Experience:

• Minimum of (7) years of progressively responsible experience in humanitarian coordination or a related field;
• Experience both at the national level and international level in large organizations with dispersed operations;
• Experience working within the UN system, preferably in an operational UN Agency or INGO;
• Experience in humanitarian response and recovery operations (complex emergencies and/or natural disasters) are desirable;
• Knowledge of and experience working on the Syria Crisis is an asset.

Language:

• Fluency in written and spoken English is essential;
• Fluency in Arabic is desirable.