Country Protection Manager

The Country Protection Manager provides technical leadership and management for protection programming in DR Congo, ensuring quality, strategic alignment, and effective coordination across protection subsectors. The role involves overseeing protection projects, managing staff, supporting partners, and leading protection analysis and strategy development.

Responsibilities

• Lead protection analysis efforts and the development and implementation of the country level protection strategy
• Technically responsible for the overall protection portfolio subsectors
• Oversee and lead the development, harmonization, adaptation and rollout of internal policies, and guidelines, protection related tools, Standard Operating Procedures, related to DRC’s protection interventions, also with local partners and their teams
• Serve as a technical reference point for other sectors’ colleagues on Protection Mainstreaming
• Promote technical consistency, quality standards and evidence-based adaptation across protection interventions implemented by DRC and its partners
• Provide technical oversight and quality assurance for protection projects implemented by DRC teams and partners, ensuring alignment with agreed strategies, principles, implementation plans, and donor requirements
• Support Area and Project Managers, field protection team and partner focal points to identify technical needs and gaps, define actions and strengthen the quality of implementation
• Lead and manage the Protection Specialist Team (including people planning, performance, well-being and development)
• Provide technical supervision and guidance to protection staff and contribute to strengthening field-level supervision systems to ensure adherence to work plans, technical standards and quality benchmarks
• Oversee recruitment, onboarding, and performance appraisal; set clear workplans and objectives and promote ongoing professional development through targeted capacity-building opportunities as well as on-the-job coaching
• Lead and contribute to the design and finalization of all protection sectoral interventions in proposals and projects, prioritizing opportunities with local civil society and ensuring co-design with local partners as relevant
• Provide technical review of all proposals that include protection interventions
• Oversee and technically validate protection-related internal and external reporting and communication products
• Maintain technical oversight of overall protection Programme performance, including progress against indicators, quality of implementation and alignment with strategic priorities, in close collaboration with HoP, Area Managers and Protection Managers, as well as local partners counterparts
• Participate in protection programme / project review meetings, including grant opening, grant review and close out meetings, ensuring equitable and meaningful participation of local partners
• Responsible for ensuring Age, Gender and Diversity (AGD) and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) is mainstreamed into protection projects and programme under their area of responsibility; support local partners in mainstreaming AGD and APP upon request
• Work closely with MEAL and PIM functions to strengthen the quality of monitoring, interpretation of results, analysis of findings and use of evidence to improve protection programming
• Represent DRC and actively contribute to protection sector coordination fora at the country level; support meaningful participation and visibility of DRC’s local partners in these fora
• Lead DRC’s and our partners’ protection sector coordination and collaboration efforts with relevant stakeholders including government, civil society, NGOs, and UN agencies
• Actively engage and contribute to DRC and partners’ protection related advocacy efforts, ensuring that advocacy messages are grounded in protection analysis and programme evidence
• Promote integrated programming and ensure internal coordination and harmonization of DRC protection interventions across sites and with other core sectors, as relevant
• Act as sector level focal point for technical engagement with donors and support recognition of local partners’ contributions in donor reports, meetings and external representation
• Ensure protection mainstreaming efforts across the sectors
• Maintain partner mapping of civil society actors engaged in the protection sector in collaboration with DRC's Partnership manager
• Act as the technical and management focal point for DRC's partners in the protection sector support clarification of roles and responsibilities between DRC and partners under both general partnership frameworks and project-specific agreements
• Participate in partners’ organizational capacity assessments and analyze findings to identify protection-specific capacity strengthening and organizational development needs
• Develop and provide and/or coordinate training and targeted capacity strengthening support to partner teams in line with their capacity sharing plan
• Support the quality assurance of partner-implemented protection activities through technical accompaniment, regular review and joint reflection on programme adaptation and improvement

Requirements

• University Bachelor degree (e.g. social work, law) or above
• Proven experience of at least 5 years working in the protection sector and management of protection programmes
• Proven experience in working with local partners in the protection sphere, and strong commitment to supporting local civil society.
• University degree, preferably in a field directly relevant to humanitarian protection, or appropriate level and combination of expertise and experience
• Expert knowledge of International Refugee Law, International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law
• Strong understanding of global protection sector standards, protection analysis, and Results-Based Protection
• Knowledge and experience designing, implementing, and monitoring and evaluating protection intervention within two or more of DRC’s Protection sector components: Gender-Based Violence, Child Protection, Protection Information Management, Community-Based Protection, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support, and/or Legal Aid.
• Proven communication, interpersonal, representation, negotiation, promotion, and diplomacy skills
• Strategic thinker with the ability to quickly develop good insight and understanding of humanitarian, political and human rights situation in the relevant context.
• Proven strong analytical thinker and problem solver
• Experience with technical management of teams
• Experience in providing technical guidance, mentoring, training and developing and providing learning activities
• Sound understanding and experience in protection mainstreaming and Age, Gender, and Diversity (AGD) mainstreaming, conflict sensitivity, and Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and abuse (PSEA)
• Experience in project development (including proposal writing), implementation and MEAL for protection programmes
• Experience in advocacy and policy development, and cluster / working group coordination in the humanitarian sector
• Cultural sensitivity and adaptability
• Previous experience working in DR Congo is an advantage
• Ability to manage a high workload and manage stress
• Languages: English (fluent), French (Fluent), Swahili (Advantage)

Skills

• Protection Program Management
• Local Partner Engagement
• International Refugee Law
• International Human Rights Law
• International Humanitarian Law
• Protection Sector
• Protection Analysis
• Results-based Protection
• Gender-Based Violence Programming
• Child Protection
• Protection Information Systems
• Community-Based Protection
• Mental Health and Psychosocial Support
• Legal Aid
• Communications Skills
• Negotiation Skills
• Diplomacy
• Strategic Thinking
• Analytical Thinking
• Team Management
• Technical Guidance
• Training and Mentoring
• Protection Mainstreaming
• Age Gender Diversity Mainstreaming
• Conflict Sensitivity
• Prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse
• Project Development
• Proposal Writing
• Monitoring Evaluation Accountability Learning
• Advocacy
• Policy Development
• Cluster Coordination

Languages

English, French, Swahili