Protection Standby Capacity

PROCAP

PROTECTION STANDBY CAPACITY

ProCap seeks to enhance UN protection response and contribute to global protection capacity through the predictable and effective deployment of personnel with proven protection expertise. It reinforces the strategic and operational protection response for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable groups in emergencies and protracted complex crises. It is a critical part of the inter-agency global capacity building effort central to the Humanitarian Reform Agenda and supports the goals of the global Protection Cluster.

For further information on all aspects of ProCap, contact:
ProCap Support Unit, OCHA-United Nations, D601, 1211 Geneva 10, SWITZERLAND. Phone: +41 22 917 2148; Fax: +41 22 971 0608
Email: / To apply for Senior Protection Officer positions:
Applications should be sent with a covering letter to: . Terms of Reference and the application format are available at:

October 2007

PROCAP

PROTECTION STANDBY CAPACITY

ProCap is an inter-agency project that responds to priority gaps and needs in emergency protection response through three principal activities:

Deploying members of a core team of Senior Protection Officers on short-term missions to provide expertise in the strategic and operational policy, planning, coordination and implementation of the protection response.

Building protection knowledge and skills through the ProCap inter-agency training workshops, practitioner exchange and dissemination of the ProCap protection tools.

Supporting deployment from existing protection standby rosters and strengthening inter-agency coordination through ProCap Online and other fora.

Enhancing Strategic Support and Standby Capacity

Senior Protection Officers (Tier I):A small Core Team of senior, experienced Protection Officers (SPOs at UN P4/P5 equivalent) provide full-time protection surge capacity and are on permanent rotation in the field on deployments to UNHCR, UNICEF, OHCHR, or OCHA. Their role is to strengthen the strategic and operational response of the UN Country Team and/or the Protection Cluster lead agency at national or provincial levels, chair protection cluster working groups, guide the development of comprehensive protection strategies and build protection capacities in-country. In 2005-7, ProCap has deployed 12 Senior Protection Officers on a total of 26 assignments, to 15 different countries: Somalia, Georgia, DRC, Pakistan, Sudan, Uganda, Lebanon, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Chad, CAR, Jordan (for Iraq), Cote d’Ivoire, and Timor Leste.

Protection Standby Experts (Tier II):ProCap seeks to enhance the number, quality and effectiveness of protection personnel in existing rosters, increase roster size and diversity, support skills and knowledge of current protection policy, and promote, facilitate and streamline appropriate and timely deployment of protection personnel. The mid-level Protection Standby Experts (SPEs at UN P3/P4 equivalent) are members of ProCap Standby Partners - Austcare, the Danish Refugee Council, the Norwegian Refugee Council, RedR Australia, Save the Children Sweden and Save the Children Norway – and are deployed in accordance with existing mechanisms between UN agencies and Standby Partners. ProCap supports the protection capacity in rosters through training and coordination through an inter-active information and management tool, ProCap Online.

Training and Capacity Building for Protection

ProCap seeks to build protection knowledge and skills through a variety of mechanisms, including a 6-day residential training programme and an on-line discussion forum for practitioners. These tools will be expanded to the broader humanitarian community to strengthen common understandings and approaches to protection in the field in support of humanitarian reform.

ProCap Protection Training: The ProCap field-focused training package has already provided 89 participants from Standby Rosters, in five training events, with the skills to undertake context-specific protection analysis, establish priorities, design and plan inter-agency responses and conduct protection advocacy. 6 roster members have also completed a Training of Trainers. It complements issue- and agency-specific protection training. The planned release of the training modules, as well as the Training of Trainers initiative will support further availability, outreach and use of the training material within and beyond its primary target audience of roster personnel.

Facilitating Coordination and Deployment

ProCap Online: This inter-active website enables the mapping of protection capacity in rosters and provides an inter-active forum to discuss and share protection information, as well as an extensive resource library of documents to support deployment, protection policy development, training and practice. Available at:

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Management of the Project

The Inter-Agency Steering Committee meets on a monthly basis, providing project oversight and managing deployment of the Senior Protection Officers. It comprises OHCHR, UNHCR, UNICEF, OCHA/IDD and an NGO representative.

The ProCap Support Unit, hosted by OCHA, acts as the secretariat for the Steering Committee, liaises on and supports deployment of SPOs, works with OCHA on the training programme and tools and manages ProCap Online.

The Norwegian Refugee Council contractually administers the Senior Protection Officers.

Comprehensive project review and evaluation initiated by the Steering Committee took place in January – March 2007. Technical and operational ‘lessons learned’ from SPO deployments to date were captured in a Technical Workshop in March 2007.

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Funding

ProCap is currently funded through the generous support of the following donors: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, USA.

October 2007

ProCap Senior Protection Officers

Making a Difference

ProCap’s Senior Protection Officers deploy from one protection-mandated agency and one crisis to another on short-term missions of up to 6 months. They support the Humanitarian Coordinator, agencies and country teams at the senior level to develop and implement comprehensive protection strategies and mechanisms, particularly in situations of internal displacement. They help to develop a shared vision for improved and more widespread delivery of protection.

The high-level experts are all capable of providing strategic leadership at national or regional level, designing and im-plementing protection strategies in different contexts and of under-taking operational work such as opening field offices for protection-mandated agencies. ProCap Senior Protection Officers are currently deployed individually – but may in the future also be deployed in teams to priority countries as identified by the Global Protection Cluster Working Group (PCWG)

In 26 assignments to date, to 15 different countries, the SPOs have fulfilled a number of important and valuable roles: In Tbilisi, Georgia (UNHCR), Darfur, Sudan (UNMIS), Khartoum, Sudan (UNICEF), Lebanon (UNHCR), Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (UNHCR) required the senior protection officers to take a leadership role, providing policy guidance or task-specific advisory support, defining and developing protection strategies, establishing or redirecting coordination mechanisms.

In Bunia, DRC (UNHCR), Goma, DRC (UNHCR), Lubumbashi, DRC (UNICEF), Southern Blue Nile, Sudan (OCHA/UNHCR), Muzzafarabad, Pakistan (UNICEF), Somalia (OCHA/UNHCR) Senior Protection Officers have supported UN mandated agencies at a sub-national level, either in developing and implementing protection strategies or establishing coordination mechanisms. In other cases, as in Lira (UNHCR) and Gulu (OHCHR) in Uganda, and Kenya (UNICEF), they have also been involved in programme design and partner identification - all with a strong inter-agency focus.

Concrete achievements have included the establishment of protection working groups at national and provincial levels (Côte d’Ivoire); the development of an IDP monitoring framework (Somalia); establishment of provincial offices; the development of advocacy strategies (Bunia, DRC); framing an IDP returns strategy (Khartoum); and capacity-building and training on Guiding Principles, human rights and protection issues (Southern Blue Nile, Sudan, and Lubumbashi, DRC).

An external evaluation of ProCap, delivered in March 2007, strongly recommended that ProCap expand to include deployments to the HC’s office, or to OCHA, to undertake strategic, policy development roles of benefit to an inter-agency response. When an HC determines that additional protection capacity is required to support the inter-agency protection response, the evaluation recommends that an HC can request an SPO deployment to a protection-mandated agency or to the Cluster Lead to ensure strategic coordination.

How to request a Senior Protection Officer
Requests for should form part of a strategy to strengthen the overall collaborative response and should be made in consultation with the Humanitarian Coordinator.
A Request Form is available from the ProCap Support Unit and should be submitted to once completed. The ProCap Support Unit is happy to provide advice on its completion.
Decisions about deployment are made by an inter-agency steering committee composed of OCHA, UNHCR, OHCHR, UNICEF, and an NGO representative, and will depend on need and availability. Except in urgent cases, deployments are decided at regular meetings of the steering committee held each month. Requests to be considered at each meeting should preferably be received at least a week in advance, or before the last Friday of every month.
ProCap SPOs are deployed as gratis ‘experts on mission’ and remain employees of the Norwegian Refugee Council but requesting agencies are responsible for personnel during assignment and must provide all necessary administrative and operational support.

For further information on all aspects of ProCap, contact: ProCap Support Unit, OCHA-United Nations, D-623, 1211 Geneva 10, SWITZERLAND. Phone: +41 22 917 2148; Fax: +41 22 971 0608. Email: