SENIOR STRATEGIST, HUMANITARIAN

CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from agriculture and climate change to disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARE.

CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in 100 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from disaster response to food and nutrition to education and work for women and girls to healthy mothers and children.

Since the start of CARE’s Turkey established operations in 2013, CARE has been responding across the border into NW Syria. With the gradual growth in the CARE Turkey portfolio, , there is a need for two complementary positions to support the cross border operation, with the Senior Humanitarian Strategist position being more focused on analysis, policy positioning, advocacy and leading on CARE Turkey’s overarching future humanitarian strategy.

This position holder will report to the Country Director and is a member of the CO Core Team. The overall purpose of this role is to maintain CARE Turkey’s strategic position amongst the humanitarian community in Turkey and the region, on cross border humanitarian strategy, policy positioning, advocacy on critical issues such as humanitarian access and overall strategically directing the CO’s humanitarian vision over the course of the next 2-3 years.

In light of CARE Turkey’s growth in portfolio in 2022, CARE needs to substantially increase its strategic analysis of the humanitarian context, share analysis and policy positions amongst the wider humanitarian community, engage in high level discussions, direct the position of humanitarian actors, including current donors, the UN agencies operating across the border into Syria, INGOs and Syrian NGOs, as well as guide CARE Turkey and (CARE Syria where necessary and possible) in the direction of greater advocacy, influencing and strategic presence.

This role helps set our overall humanitarian strategy, coordinates and influences internal and external policy discussions, leads on developing strong policy positions to reflect CARE’s humanitarian mandate and principles, and advocates on behalf of CARE Turkey with key external actors (mentioned above).

Job Responsibilities:

Lead Humanitarian Strategy Development

• Within the 2022 process of overall CO strategy development, lead the NW Syria Cross-Border Program Strategy the involvement of staff and partners as well as donors and other external stakeholders
• Work with CARE Turkey ACDs to align NW Syria Cross-Border Program Strategy with overarching CARE Turkey country office strategy
• Provide strategy support to CARE Syria as needed, within the WoS approach, including providing hands on strategy development for CARE’s program in North West Syria.

Develop Transition and Scale Up plans for CARE Turkey

• Advise on CARE Cross Border Strategy, to support transition and CARE scale up as UN-agencies withdraw. Advise on appropriate/strategic positioning of CARE in the Syria response.
• Develop up-to-date analyses and policy towards donors, NGO Forum and CARE in transitioning and scaling up operations.
• Brief donors, UN Agencies and CARE on policy and advocacy issues. Represent CARE at regional and international fora, as necessary.

Lead CARE Access and Presence Analysis in NWS

• Facilitate the development of an operational presence review
• Review presence options to include stakeholder mapping, humanitarian access, local stakeholder engagement, considerations of delivery modality (direct, partnerships and hybrid), considerations of physical presence (including the continued use and management of consultants at field level), program presence, humanitarian principles and programmatic/operational red lines
• Advise and make recommendations on overall possibility and opportunity to scale up operations in the North West;
• Formulate a CO key set of transition requirements for scale-up and geographic expansion (re: resources, operational changes, structural changes).

Program Policy and Advocacy

• Lead the development of key program policy papers providing analysis and recommendations for external advocacy and fundraising.
• Focus CARE’s policy and advocacy efforts on Cash, Transitional Infrastructure, or new settlements approaches, Gender in the context of the NW

Inform CARE’s Approach and Policies on Humanitarian Risk

• Regularly develop risk analysis papers for internal and external use associated with humanitarian access, given increased CARE program portfolio and potentially more exposed delivery chains with less UN support and oversight.
• Present policy papers, analysis in high level external meetings to inform decisions on humanitarian access, counter-terrorism policy, policies related to armed combatants etc.
• Develop analysis humanitarian risks’ such as aid diversion, terrorist financing for programming, risks of supply chain and financial transfers, armed opposition groups and humanitarian operations.

Education

• Required: Advanced degree in relevant humanitarian policy, and management equivalent combination of education and work experience.
• Desired: Masters or PhD in Social Policy, International HR or International Humanitarian Law.

Experience/Technical Skills

• Min. 10 year’s development/ humanitarian relief management experience in complex environments, advanced managerial experience, including complex humanitarian operations.
• High level of expertise in representation and negotiation UN Agencies, governments and donors.
• Strong understanding of the humanitarian emergency operating context, including Sphere, the humanitarian system, donors, security, civil military liaison and program management.
• At least 5 years of Experience on the Syria response is required.