Justice Rapid Response is seeking to recruit a Civil Society Programme Officer (100%) - Switzerland (2024)

Organization and position within the organization

Justice Rapid Response (JRR) is an intergovernmental initiative that partners with international, national and civil society actors by providing them with prompt, impartial and professional expertise, tailored to each context, to investigate international crimes and serious human rights violations and to promote the rights and access to justice of victims and survivors. The JRR Secretariat team carries out JRR’s activities under the direction of the JRR Executive Director and it is based in Geneva, Switzerland with an office in New York. For further information, please visit our website http://www.justicerapidresponse.org

The position

Justice Rapid Response is currently looking for a full-time Programme Officer to join our team in Geneva or New York, starting as soon as possible. The Programme Officer will be a member of Justice Rapid Response’s Civil Society Programme (CSP) and will be under the supervision of the CSP Head of Programme.

CSP partners with civil society organizations (CSOs) that seek to hold perpetrators of international crimes and serious human rights violations accountable or to address such crimes through transitional justice processes. In order to do so, CSP provides highly specialized expertise and tailors the support to every civil society organization CSP engages with. The CSP Programme Officer is responsible for the implementation of the programme strategy and for contributing to reaching the programme objectives and targets as set out in JRR’s Plan of Work. The Programme Officer would cover JRR’s support in for example DPRK, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Sudan, Syria, and potentially other country situations.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the Head of Programme, the Programme Officer:

Project Management:

- Support the management and be responsible for the implementation of self-contained CSP projects. This includes the scoping, planning, implementation and reporting with a particular focus on the monitoring and evaluation of the impact/outcome of the activities;

- Lead and coordinate, with the support of the Head of Programme and Director of Operations, the development of JRR’s organizational wide activities in relation to Iraq and Syria under its 4-year strategy;

Fundraising & Partnership:

- Identify potential new partners for the programme and, in consultation with the Head of Programme, reach out to them to find synergies and opportunities for future deployments and collaboration;

- Under the supervision of the Head of Programme, develop and manage new and existing partnerships with entities falling within the remit of the CSP with whom JRR could develop joint projects or other forms of partnership;

- Contribute to identifying set of activities to be funded, and in consultation with the Head of Programme, develop concept notes and eventually full project proposal with the support of the fundraising and finance teams;

- Support the Head of Programme in the management of CSP-related grants and/or in the active participation of CSP in the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliation (GIJTR) and other relevant Consortiums;

Communications & Outreach:

- Identify and proactively report to the Head of Programme activities which could be used to illustrate the achievements of the programme. Collaborate with the Communications Officer to turn these into communication products (events, updates, blogs, etc.);

- Draft speaking point and briefing notes for the Head of Programme or other staff in preparation for events or meetings;

- Represent JRR in events and workshops relevant to the CSP activities;

Deployment Management:

- Contribute to the assessment of new inquiries for expertise coming from CSOs (“requesting entities”). This will include researching contextual and security-related information;

- Draft terms of reference for deployments in consultation with the requesting entity;

- Identify JRR roster experts for deployments and prepare the documentation for the requesting Entity on experts’ profiles;

- Coordinate and contribute to the implementation of the JRR security framework with the support of the Operations Officer and the Director of Operations;

- Work with the requesting Entity through the selection process and with the expert(s) and their employers on availability and release process;

- Facilitate communications between all internal and external parties through the administrative and contracting phase as well as throughout the deployment;

- Monitor and maintain records on the assigned inquiries and deployments including by updating the information in the roster management system as well as providing information for reporting and financial reporting on deployments;

- Organize the debriefing of experts and ensure the implementation of recommendations made by experts and/or requesting entities;

- Gather monitoring and evaluation data for each deployment, and draft narrative segments on Programme activities for interim and final narrative reports to donors;

- Perform other tasks as may be required to ensure the continuation of CSP activities.

Qualifications

• Masters in Public and/or Non-Profit Management, International Relations, Human Rights or related field.

• Minimum 4 years of relevant professional experience in project management, project design (incl proposal writing), and monitoring and evaluation, including experience with US State Department grants and/or Consortiums.

• Experience in the field of human rights, transitional justice and/or international law.

• Fluency in written and oral English. Fluency in Arabic or Russian/Ukrainian is an asset.

• Strong research, analytical and writing skills.

• Strong diplomatic skills.

• Ability to work independently with limited supervision.

• Strong computer skills including working with databases.

Sought Competencies

• Creativity: Actively seeks to improve activities or services including by reaching out to key stakeholders and/or potential new partners and prospective experts.

• Flexibility: Comfortable working in highly flexible, decentralized environment in which autonomy, accountability and innovation are supported and valued;

• Teamwork: Ability to work in collaboration with colleagues in view of reaching organizational goals; to proactively solicit input and value colleagues’ ideas and expertise; to be willing to learn from others; to place team agenda before personal agenda;

• Planning & Organizing: Identifies priority activities and assignments; adjusts priorities as required. Allocates appropriate amount of time and resources for completing work. Able to run all aspects of a project, including planning activities and managing budget;