Senior Protection Manager

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world's largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you're a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.

Job Overview:

The Protection and Rule of Law (PRoL) Senior Manager will play a central role in the strategic and technical leadership of the ProL program in Lebanon, extending beyond program implementation.

The Senior Manager will provide overall programmatic oversight of assigned multi-location protection projects — spanning legal aid, protection case management, emergency cash assistance, protection monitoring, and advocacy — ensuring timely, quality implementation in line with approved objectives, workplans, targets, budgets, and donor requirements. This includes coordinating with field teams, technical leads, implementing partners, MEAL, Grants, Finance, and Supply Chain to track progress, expenditure, procurement, and staffing; proactively identifying implementation risks and delays; and driving corrective actions so that project commitments and reporting requirements are met on time. In close collaboration with donors, government counterparts, sector working groups, and implementing partners, the Senior Manager will represent the program's objectives and support strategic planning at both national and governorate levels.

The Senior Manager will lead capacity-building initiatives for PRoL staff, legal service providers, partner organizations, and other stakeholders — designing and facilitating training workshops, coaching sessions, and knowledge-sharing platforms such as monthly technical meetings and bi-monthly strategic reviews.

The Senior Manager will also technically supervise MEAL for PRoL activities, working with the MEAL team to ensure high-quality data collection, analysis, and timely donor reporting, while providing strategic guidance and performance management to strengthen program quality and impact.

Internally, the Senior Manager will coordinate closely with the Protection sub-streams (CP and WPE) and other units — Early Recovery and Development (ERD), Health, Education/ECD, and Advocacy — to ensure protection risks are identified and addressed across all program components.

Externally, the Senior Manager will lead engagement with ProL actors across the broader protection system, including Protection Cluster/Working Groups, ProL Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), INGOs, and government counterparts, to build opportunities for collaboration, coordination, and linkages.

The Senior Manager will ensure protection programming remains responsive to shifts in the humanitarian context — including displacement and sudden-onset emergencies — supporting timely adaptation, scale-up, and operational readiness, and maintaining strong linkages across case management, legal assistance, monitoring, and cash assistance during emergency response.

Bringing these efforts together, the Senior Manager will work closely with the Protection Senior Coordinator and other team members to keep the ProL program aligned with, and responsive to, evolving risks, needs, and contextual changes.

Primary Responsibilities

1. Program & Technical Leadership

• Lead development of the ProL program, coordinating with other IRC sector leads (e.g., Health, ERD) to mainstream protection across all programs.
• Provide technical oversight across PRoL activities — protection monitoring, legal services, case management, cash-for-protection, and community-based protection approaches.
• Provide overall programmatic oversight of assigned protection projects, ensuring on-time, in-budget delivery against approved workplans, targets, and donor requirements.
• Ensure preparedness and timely adaptation of protection activities in response to displacement, conflict escalation, and other sudden-onset emergencies.
• Manage budgets, grant deliverables, and multi-donor compliance, with robust planning and timely re-alignment as needed.
• Ensure consistency in tools, methodologies, and approaches across locations; adapt systems to improve intervention effectiveness.
• Provide technical support for complex legal cases and coordinate service delivery between legal and protection teams.

2. Strategy & Program Design

• Feed into IRC's Integrated Protection Strategy and represent/contextualize the PRoL strategy in Lebanon, ensuring adaptive relevance to evolving protection challenges.
• Lead the Protection Risk Analysis and design of community-based protection assessments to guide evidence-based, context-relevant program design.
• Lead design of area-based, risk-focused, and integrated protection concept notes, proposals, and assessments in collaboration with grant teams and the Sr. IP Coordinator.
• Lead development and implementation of IRC's legal aid and access to justice (A2J) strategy, aligned with PRoL objectives.
• Identify system-strengthening opportunities within juvenile justice, civil documentation, HLP, and legal protection.
• Design and update tools, SOPs, referral protocols, and client empowerment materials adapted to local legal and crisis contexts.

3. Representation, Coordination & Partnership

• Represent IRC in national-level forums: Protection Working Group, Core Protection Working Group, Legal Aid Group, and other relevant task forces.
• Engage government ministries, UN agencies, local NGOs, donors, and other stakeholders on PRoL goals; build and maintain relationships with judges, police, municipalities, and civil society actors.
• Lead and coordinate the Access to Justice for Children consortium, facilitating joint work planning with partners.
• In partnership with the Partnerships Unit, foster linkages with local NGOs and justice stakeholders; provide technical guidance and capacity building to partner organizations.
• Work with the Advocacy & Communications team to translate protection and legal trend analysis — including monthly Protection Monitoring Reports — into policy briefs and advocacy positioning.

4. Staff Management & Capacity Building

• Mentor field-level Senior Protection Managers and technical staff, ensuring performance management, staff development, and inclusive remote support.
• Provide technical guidance and capacity building for direct staff and IRC teams.

5. Quality Assurance & Compliance

• Ensure all activities conform to IRC's strategic action plans, theories of change, protection frameworks, and international/national law.
• Oversee legal case tracking systems (e.g., CommCare), referral pathways, and SOP compliance across locations.
• Oversee M&E for legal and protection programming, including pre/post-tests, FGDs, and case audits, ensuring data informs continuous quality improvement.
• Oversee donor reporting and ensure quality outputs for internal and external documentation.
• Uphold IRC's code of conduct and ethical principles, including confidentiality, anti-corruption, and PSEA.
• Undertake additional tasks as assigned by the IP Senior Coordinator to strengthen PRoL programming.

Job Requirements:

Required:

• Bachelor's degree (Advanced degree in Law, International Human Rights, or related field preferred).
• 5+ years of progressively responsible experience in PRoL programming and technical management, including case management, protection monitoring, and legal services.
• Minimum 3 years in managerial roles, preferably in emergency/post-conflict settings.
• Strong understanding of the Lebanese protection context — refugee situation, gender-based violence, documentation, and legal services.
• Demonstrated experience in multi-donor project design, budgeting, M&E integration, and donor reporting.
• Experience working with integrated protection programs or leading cross-sectoral protection programming.
• Demonstrated experience working with local partners.
• Fluency in English; Arabic is essential.

Preferred:

• Formal background in international human rights law, access to justice, or legal empowerment.
• Track record in advocacy and external stakeholder representation.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Strong leadership, staff management, coordination, and capacity-building skills.
• Demonstrated experience implementing capacity-sharing programs in emergency or post-conflict settings using participatory approaches.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to build trust and relationships across diverse and new communities; cultural sensitivity and flexibility.
• Strong understanding of International Human Rights and Refugee Law.
• Basic computer skills, including Microsoft Word.
• Experience in regular report writing.
• Strong interpersonal skills, with the ability to work independently and as part of a team in a dynamic environment.

Working Environment:

Located in Beirut, standard working environment, with travel to other IRC Offices in Beirut, Zahle, Aarsal, Tripoli and Qobayat. It is estimated that this position will be approximately 60% office based and 40% field based.

Professional Standards: All International Rescue Committee workers must adhere to the core values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. Our Standards are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Safeguarding, Conflicts of Interest, Fiscal Integrity, and Reporting Wrongdoing and Protection from Retaliation. IRC is committed to take all necessary preventive measures and create an environment where people feel safe, and to take all necessary actions and corrective measures when harm occurs. IRC builds teams of professionals who promote critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity to deliver the best possible services to our clients.

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