Humanitarian Access Officer (P4), a Swiss Secondment to UNOCHA, Ougadougou, Burkina Faso

 Operational environment

• As of June 2024, more than 2 million people have been displaced across the country. From January to December 2023, at least 700,000 people were newly displaced, including secondary displacement (N.B. this is not the official figure of the government). The country remains one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in the world, with Mozambique and Ukraine. An estimated 6.3 million people – one in every four people in Burkina Faso – need humanitarian assistance in 2024. Security incidents and other restrictions have made it difficult or impossible for humanitarian actors to reach several locations, primarily in the Sahel, Centre-Nord, Est, Nord and Boucle du Mouhoun regions. Armed conflicts have exacerbated chronic vulnerability to climatic variance (drought, flooding), leaving around 2,7 million people severely food insecure (IPC 3+) in the current lean season (June – Sept 2024). The need for humanitarian coordination is also growing rapidly; the OCHA Burkina office, established in 2019, has also expanded in the past years and requires capacity reinforcement.

Brief surge need 

• Humanitarian operation in Burkina Faso is highly political and complex. As of June 2024, there are at least 39 hard-to-reach areas where an estimated 1.1 million people are cut off from the rest of the country, relying on irregular resupply convoys organized by Burkinabè Defence and Security Forces (FDS), as well as humanitarian air operations which are extremely expensive. The imposition of military escort on most of the key axes in conflict-affected areas, as well as strict counter-terrorism measures of the host government (zero tolerance for engagement with armed groups), remains a principal access challenge for the humanitarian community. Adhering to humanitarian principles, the HCT has a position of non-use of armed escorts for humanitarian vehicles. Instead, the current practice is to contract private transporters (without any visibility of humanitarian actors) that join resupply convoys escorted by the FDS. However, in the past months, due to the increase in the number of human rights violations associated with the escorted resupply convoys, the HCT members (including donors) expressed serious concerns about the current modality of transportation of humanitarian supplies. One of the biggest donors has already announced in the HCT that if no measure is taken, they will suspend the use of resupply convoys to transport humanitarian assistance. If suspended, this significantly affects the current humanitarian operation, especially, food assistance. In this regard, an urgent scale-up of the capacity of the Access/CMCoord Unit of OCHA Burkina Faso office is necessary to provide strategic guidance/advice to the HCT and operationalize proposed solutions to ensure delivery of humanitarian supply to hard-to-reach areas.

OCHA’s role and key challenges

•  OCHA’s role in Burkina Faso is to support the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) and ensure coordination of principled humanitarian response, delivered by more than 150 UN and NGO partners in a highly political context, through advocacy, situational awareness and information management, etc. 

   

  Main tasks and duties to be executed 

• Negotiate access and protection issues with civilian and military authorities at national and sub-national levels.
• Provide qualitative and quantitative analysis on humanitarian access and draft reports/advocacy notes for both strategic and operational purposes.
• Provide strategic and operational advice to the HCT on humanitarian access/CM Coord issues, in particular, the question of humanitarian convoys.
• Reinforce the functionality of the Access Working Group in collaboration with various partners and actors in the field; in particular, the analysis of access severity of different axes and hard-to-reach areas.
• Reinforce CMCoord platforms at national and sub-national levels. • Ensure communication and engagement with government interlocutors (e.g. Ministry of Defense) and national militaries

• Ensure the linkages of the functions of humanitarian access and CMCoord while maintaining the distinction between the two. 

   Expected outcome of the deployment

• Negotiation with civilian and military authorities at the national and sub-national levels is reinforced to improve humanitarian access and protection of civilians
• Qualitative and quantitative analysis on humanitarian access, as well as related reports/advocacy notes are provided for both strategic and operational purposes
• Strategic and operational advice is provided to the HCT on humanitarian access/CM Coord issues, in particular, the question of humanitarian convoys
• The functionality of the Access Working Group is reinforced; in particular, the analysis of access severity of different axes
• CMCoord platforms at national and sub-national levels are reinforced. • Communication and engagement with government interlocutors (e.g. Ministry of Defense) and national militaries are ensured

• The linkage between the questions of humanitarian access and CM Coord is ensured while maintaining the distinction between the two.

   

   Specific required skills

• Fluency in French and English
• Knowledge of institutional mandates, policies and guidelines on humanitarian assistance, humanitarian access and CMCoord
• Excellent writing, analytical and communications skills.
• Proficiency in data analysis and report creation
• Ability to work in a stressful working environment and meet tight deadlines.
• Managerial experience of a unit/team is desirable
• Experience in humanitarian affairs/humanitarian coordination at sub-national/sub-office level is desirable

• Experience or strong knowledge of Sahel region is desirable 

   

  SWISS NATIONALITY OR SWISS WORK PERMIT (TYPE B)  REQUIRED

   

  Duty Station: Around 80% in Ouagadougou and 20 % in the field if necessary 

  RR cycle: 8 weeks and the destination is Accra, Ghana. 

  Timeframe: asap for 12 months 

   

  Thank you to send your application asap (email) to: Odete Mauron (odette.mauron@eda.admin.ch),  058 464 89 85

   Published: 2.9.24/MZI