Humanitarian Affairs Officer

The Humanitarian Affairs Officer supports the humanitarian response to floods in Rasuwa and surrounding areas of Nepal. The role involves field-level coordination with government authorities, UN agencies, NGOs, and humanitarian partners to ensure effective response and support to vulnerable communities.

Responsibilities

• Provide a visible and sustained OCHA /RCO coordination presence in Rasuwa and other designated flood-affected areas.
• Facilitate and support field coordination meetings with local authorities, UN agencies, NGOs, Red Cross/Red Crescent actors and other operational partners.
• Promote complementarity among responders, identify duplication and gaps, and support practical follow-up on agreed coordination actions.
• Maintain regular liaison with affected communities and relevant local structures so priority concerns can inform coordination discussions.
• Support field partners to steer a collective approach to Accountability to Affected People (AAP), including joint community consultations, harmonized messaging in local languages, and shared feedback and complaint mechanisms.
• Work with the PSEA Network and agency focal points to ensure safe and accessible channels for reporting sexual exploitation and abuse, and survivor-centred referral pathways.
• Monitor humanitarian conditions, priority needs, access constraints, emerging risks and response coverage through regular field visits and engagement with partners.
• Support or participate in inter-agency rapid assessments and field missions as required.
• Consolidate field observations and partner inputs into concise situation updates, analysis and recommendations for OCHA and humanitarian leadership.
• Flag critical gaps, underserved locations and operational bottlenecks requiring coordinated action.
• Promote timely coordination around immediate life-saving priorities and evolving operational requirements following the floods.
• Support contingency and preparedness discussions related to continuing rainfall, landslides, access disruption or other hazards.
• Encourage partners to integrate relevant humanitarian policies and principles, protection considerations, accountability to affected people and inclusion in field-level response planning.
• Maintain regular information exchange between responders in affected areas and coordination structures at national and regional levels.
• Support partners to engage women, persons with disabilities, older persons and marginalized groups in response decisions using safe and inclusive channels.
• Track how community feedback is acted upon across partners, and flag recurring concerns including SEA risks to coordination forums and the PSEA Network.
• Prepare meeting records, action points, field updates, briefing notes and inputs to humanitarian reporting products.
• Support mapping of operational presence, needs and response gaps in collaboration with information management colleagues and partners.
• Track agreed actions and follow up with responsible partners to support timely implementation.
• Build constructive working relationships with local and district authorities, humanitarian organizations, civil society and community representatives.
• Identify operational or coordination issues that may impede assistance and elevate them through appropriate channels.
• Provide field evidence and analysis to support advocacy on priority humanitarian needs, equitable assistance and effective response coverage.

Requirements

• Advanced University degree (master’s degree or equivalent) in Humanitarian, Environmental Science, Social Science, Climate Change, International Development, Business Administration, Public Administration, or related field is required, or; A first level university degree (bachelor’s degree or equivalent) in the above-mentioned fields with additional 2 years of relevant experience will be given due consideration in lieu of master’s degree.
• Minimum 2 years (with master’s degree) or 4 years (with bachelor’s degree) of relevant working experience at the national or international organization in disaster management, humanitarian or in related thematic area is required.
• Relevant experience with a UN agency or comparable humanitarian organisation is required.
• Experience in crisis/emergency relief management, and humanitarian/emergency field coordination is required.
• Excellent liaison, interpersonal and general communications skills; Ability to work with minimum supervision in a multi-cultural environment; Coordination and Information Management skills; Training and or capacity building skills; Presentation skills;
• Excellent command of MS Office suite applications (Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint).
• Excellent oral and written command of Nepali and English is required. Knowledge of another UN language is desirable.
• Experience coordinating field-based humanitarian response, including engagement with government authorities and humanitarian partners, is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of Nepal, including local institutions and coordination arrangements, is highly desirable.

Skills

• Disaster Management
• Humanitarian Response
• Crisis Management
• Emergency Relief Management
• Field Coordination
• Information Management
• Capacity Building
• Training Delivery
• Stakeholder Liaison
• Multicultural Environment Coordination
• Presentation Skills
• Microsoft Office Suite
• Word
• Excel
• Access
• Power Point
• Humanitarian Field Coordination
• Government Engagement
• Humanitarian Coordination

Languages

English, Nepali