Senior Humanitarian Affairs Associate

The Senior Humanitarian Affairs Associate plays a pivotal role in supporting UNICEF’s humanitarian operations in Syrian refugee camps. The position ensures effective coordination with government authorities, partners, and community structures while strengthening UNICEF’s field presence and operational response. This role is essential for maintaining service continuity, enabling safe and timely access for staff and contractors, and ensuring accountability to affected populations. The Associate also contributes to emergency preparedness and response efforts, conducts data collection and reporting, and supports cross-sectoral interventions—making it a key operational backbone for UNICEF’s humanitarian work at the camp level.

The Senior Humanitarian Affairs Associate supports UNICEF’s humanitarian operations in refugee camps by ensuring effective coordination, timely service delivery, and strengthened field engagement. The role facilitates liaison with camp-level government authorities to enable access for UNICEF staff, visitors, and contractors, while maintaining strong communication with refugee committees, Interagency actors, and implementing partners. This ensures smooth planning, informationsharing, and operational coherence across sectors.

The Associate plays a key role in supporting programme delivery by following up on refugee access to UNICEF services, identifying bottlenecks, and monitoring adherence to IA Incentive Based Volunteering (IBV) SOPs. The role ensures Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) mechanisms are functional, accessible, and effectively used to strengthen community trust and responsiveness.

In emergencies, the Associate provides rapid operational support, conducts field assessments, and coordinates with partners to uphold UNICEF’s Core Commitments for Children. The position also contributes to data collection and timely reporting, enabling evidence-based decision-making and operational adjustments.

Additionally, the Associate provides cross-sectoral operational support and engages in ad-hoc tasks as needed to maintain continuity of field operations. Overall, the role contributes to coordinated, accountable, and effective humanitarian responses within camp settings.

The Senior Humanitarian Affairs Associate supports UNICEF’s humanitarian operations in Syrian refugee camps by ensuring effective coordination, timely service delivery, and strengthened field presence. The role exists to facilitate communication and operational alignment with government counterparts, partners, and refugee communities, while ensuring that children and families can safely and consistently access UNICEF services. The Associate plays a key part in identifying operational bottlenecks, supporting emergency preparedness and response, and ensuring Accountability to Affected Populations. By providing reliable field-level support, monitoring, and coordination, the role contributes directly to UNICEF’s ability to meet its humanitarian commitments and deliver quality, timely assistance to vulnerable children and communities.

1. Coordination and Liaison

• Serve as the primary focal point with camp-level government authorities to facilitate the entry and movement of UNICEF visitors, staff, and contractors.

• Maintain communication with refugee committees, community structures, and other stakeholders through designated coordination platforms.

• Facilitate regular communication with camp-based Inter-Agency (IA) actors, ensuring alignment of activities, information-sharing, and operational coordination.

• Coordinate with UNICEF sections, implementing partners, contractors, and other organizations on programmatic activities, interventions, and camp-related issues.

2. Programme Support and Monitoring

• Follow up on issues related to refugees’ access to UNICEF services, flagging urgent needs and ensuring timely resolution.

• Monitor compliance with IA Incentive-Based Volunteering (IBV) SOPs, including coordination of recruitment, documentation, and resolution of related complaints.

• Ensure Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) mechanisms are functional and consistently applied across all camp-level interventions.

• Identify operational bottlenecks, urgent needs, and risks related to UNICEF and partner interventions, proactively proposing mitigation measures.

3. Emergency Preparedness and Response

• Provide rapid operational support in emergency situations by: 

  • Coordinating field assessments

  • Executing priority operational tasks

  • Facilitating partner collaboration

• Support UNICEF’s commitments under the Core Commitments for Children in Emergencies (CCCs).

4. Data Collection and Reporting

• Support field-level data collection efforts for assessments, monitoring missions, and programmatic reviews.

• Produce ad-hoc reports and field updates on emerging issues, incidents, or specific interventions as requested.

5. Other Responsibilities

• Provide cross-sectoral support to UNICEF sections for ad-hoc interventions and operational activities.

• Perform any other duties assigned by the supervisor in alignment with programmatic and field operational needs.