Protection from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (PSEA) Officer
Organizational Context
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, dedicated to saving lives in emergencies and building pathways to peace and prosperity. WFP operates in environments recovering from conflict, disasters, and extreme weather, with a vision for a diverse, skilled, and high-performing workforce committed to its core values of Integrity, Collaboration, Commitment, Humanity, and Inclusion.
Job Purpose
The Protection from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (PSEA) Officer will be instrumental in supporting WFP DRC's implementation of the Zero Tolerance to SEA Policy. This role involves developing and executing a comprehensive PSEA Action Plan focused on enhancing prevention and response efforts. Key responsibilities include conceptualizing and implementing PSEA prevention activities, managing and responding to alleged SEA cases, ensuring survivor-centered support, and actively engaging with inter-agency bodies and senior management on PSEA matters. The officer will also design and deliver targeted capacity-building initiatives for staff and partners, produce relevant guidance, and contribute to mainstreaming PSEA across all WFP operations, ensuring alignment with protection, gender, and accountability to affected populations principles.
Responsibilities
The responsibilities outlined focus on establishing and strengthening a robust framework for Protection from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (PSEA) within the World Food Programme (WFP) operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This involves conducting comprehensive risk assessments to identify and mitigate potential threats to WFP presence and activities, integrating these findings into operational and human resource strategies. A key task is updating the PSEA Action Plan and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to align with the current country context, WFP capacities, and survivor-centered principles, ensuring clear roles, resources, and feedback mechanisms are in place. The role also emphasizes interagency collaboration, representing WFP in strategic forums to ensure affected populations' needs are addressed and aligning WFP practices with interagency standards. This includes overseeing partner capacity assessments and developing support plans. Furthermore, the responsibilities include mainstreaming PSEA across all WFP programs, developing innovative awareness-raising strategies for staff, partners, and communities, and establishing a network of trained PSEA Focal Points. Finally, the role requires advising management on reporting SEA allegations, ensuring all complaints are handled strictly according to established protocols, and supporting the development of community-based complaint mechanisms.
Work Experience
Requires at least eight years of experience in PSEA, gender, Protection, GBV, or related fields. Must possess demonstrated knowledge of working with communities in deep-field locations, proven integrity, and sensitivity to cultural diversity and gender issues. Strong familiarity with UN policies on these topics is essential, along with excellent research, analytical, writing, and interpersonal skills. The ability to lead and motivate diverse teams is also required.
Skills
Protection from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (PSEA), Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Risk Assessment, Action Planning, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Survivor-Centered Approaches, Interagency Collaboration, Capacity Building, Awareness Raising, Reporting Mechanisms, Research and Analysis, Interpersonal Skills, Team Leadership, Cultural Sensitivity, French Language Proficiency, English Language Proficiency