Afghanistan: Information Counseling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) Specialist

NRC Afghanistan established operations in 2003, and currently maintains four area offices in Balkh, Nangarhar, Herat, and Kandahar Provinces, as well as field offices in hard-to-reach provinces: Kunduz, Khost, Faryab, Sar-i-Pul and Badghis. NRC interventions are based on the humanitarian principles, which are promoted to increase the acceptance of humanitarian assistance amongst target populations, as well as, to facilitate and enable access. Afghanistan is a protracted and complex emergency in which conflict and recurrent natural disasters combine, set against a back drop of the continued return of Afghan Refugees from Pakistan and Iran; the humanitarian context is characterized by multiple localised emergencies, striking communities and populations with low resilience and/or high vulnerability.
The objective of the ‘Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance’ (ICLA) is to promote and facilitate durable solutions for conflict and natural-disaster affected IDPs and refugee-returnees in Afghanistan, assisting vulnerable displacement affected populations to claim and exercise their Housing, Land and Property (HLP) and civil documentation rights and reach durable solutions.
Therefore, NRC required an ICLA Specialist who would report to the Head of Program.

Job description

• Develop ICLA strategy, technical guidance and Macro LFAs


• Compliance with and adherence to NRC policies, guidance and procedures


• Contribute to fundraising, develop and revise funding proposal, budgets and donor reports


• Identify trends technical standards and donor priorities


• Follow up on compliance with contractual commitments within ICLA, ensure high technical quality and synergies in project implementation


• Provide technical direction and project implementation support


• Ensure that key learnings are extracted from ICLA implementation, and incorporate them in ICLA and staff development processes


• Provide systematic training and build capacity of technical staff


• Represent NRC in relevant forums/clusters, including with national authorities and donors


• Promote the rights of IDPs/returnees in line with the advocacy strategy


• Strengthen ICLA’s regional approach to programming, exchange of information and sharing of best practices


• In collaboration with the NRC Afghanistan protection and advocacy team, take steps to expand advocacy capacity to better build upon the demonstrated case expertise and information gathered by project staff


• Ensure programming is done in close coordination with other actors and consider expanding collaboration with national partners for service provision and advocacy / policy work


• Contribute to exploring alternative approaches to operating in insecure areas as part of the NRC Afghanistan humanitarian access work

Qualifications

• Minimum 4 years of experience within technical expertise area in a humanitarian / recovery context


• Law degree in the field of international humanitarian or human rights law OR other relevant educational background combined with relevant professional experience


• Political and cultural awareness and experience of working where insecurity is a major issue


• Very strong understanding of protection principles. Previous experience working with customary law systems is an asset


• Experience with IDP /refugee related programmes


• Experience from working in complex and volatile contexts


• Core competency expertise


• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities


• Knowledge about own leadership skills/profile


• Fluency in English, both written and verbal

Education level

• College / University, Master / Phd grade

We offer

• Commencement: September


• Contract period: 18 months


• Salary/benefits: According to NRC’s International or national general(Afghan nationalities) directions


• Duty station:The position will be based in Mazar e-Sharif or Kabul, with regular travels to the NRC field offices in Afghanistan. This is an unaccompanied post/non family duty station, with shared housing/accomodation of moderate standard.


• Due to the unstable security situation, recreational and social facilities are limited.


• All international staff working and residing in Afghanistan are obliged to pay income tax to the Afghanistan authorities.


• Approved health certificate will be requested before contract start.


• Selected candidate need to provide certified University diplomas prior to applying for visa to Afghanistan


• Application procedures and CV registration: Please note that you are required to enter the geographical location for all your previous positions while registering your CV. There is no specific field for this information in our CV form, but you can use the “Company name” field for both company and location