Safeguarding & Protection Advisor / Syria - Aleppo

General Description of the Programme/GOAL

GOAL is an international NGO dedicated to alleviating the suffering of the poorest and most vulnerable. GOAL was established in 1977. GOAL began operations in Syria in 2012 responding to the acute needs of conflict-affected communities. GOAL’s areas of operations include but not limited to Aleppo, and Idleb Governorates.

GOAL has been responding to the acute needs of conflict affected communities. The programme focuses on Food and Nutrition Security, WASH, Shelter, Livelihoods/ERMS and Emergency Response with a growing emphasis on cash and voucher modalities. GOAL Syria implements its programmes directly, with over 500 staff based in Syria, as well as through Syrian NGO partners. GOAL’s programme works at the household, community, and camp levels to improve community resilience and household’s coping strategies.

GOAL works to incorporate four pillars in its approach to programming: influencing systems, building resilience, fostering inclusion, and social and behavioural change. GOAL’s understanding of inclusion is that of a dynamic process that gives recognition, roles, influence and powers to individuals or groups in a particular system, counteracting the processes that create vulnerability, exclusion and discrimination. GOAL ensures that these processes are understood and used to inform programme design, with the aim of enabling people to participate in and shape their societies. Gender and age are key elements affecting inclusion and the change GOAL creates is with groups that are in some way marginalised, neglected or excluded. 

Job Purpose

The purpose of this role is to provide guidance across the GOAL Syria programme portfolio on safeguarding, gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), and protection mainstreaming. The incumbent will ensure the programme portfolio will be responsive to the specific needs of men, women, boys and girls, and sensitive to vulnerabilities. He/she will provide oversight of the protection team across GOAL Syria’s interventions, uphold the principle of ‘do no harm’ and minimum standards on protection, including child protection. The incumbent will drive the implementation of GOAL Syria’s Safeguarding and GESI Strategy and Action Plan to strengthen GESI integration in programming and supporting functions. The postholder will be responsible for working across a number of teams to provide safeguarding and GESI-related technical assistance, capacity strengthening and support to business development. The postholder will also engage with partners on GESI issues and will represent GOAL Syria on GESI issues in external networks and fora. 

The postholder will be part of the Programme Quality Team, reporting the Syria Programme Director and will work closely with GOAL’s Global Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Advisor.

Duties and responsibilities Technical Support

• Drive GOAL Syria’s approach to safeguarding and GESI through implementation, monitoring and review (as necessary) of GOAL Syria’s safeguarding and GESI Strategy, GESI Action Plan and Protection and Safeguarding annual action plan across programmes and activities.
• Engage with GOAL Syria’s Technical Coordinators and other relevant programme quality support teams to provide technical GESI and Protection support across programming and activities throughout the project cycle and recommend adjustments or new activities as required.
• Collaborate with the MEAL team to ensure the GESI, Protection and Child Protection perspective is included in data collection, monitoring, evaluation, analysis and learning processes to better understand and respond to the differentiated impacts of GOAL Syria’s programmes.
• Link with partners to support integration of safeguarding and GESI across activities as wells as tools and approaches.
• Provide GESI-related inputs to GOAL Syria’s annual planning, strategic planning and budgeting processes. Manage the budget for implementation of protection activities.
• Supervise and support GOAL Syria Safeguarding & Protection Manager ensuring that external service mapping and referral pathways are in functioning for Protection, Child protection or GESI issues within the communities in which GOAL operates.
• To ensure Complaints Response Mechanism (CRM) and whistleblowing procedures for sensitive cases are adapted to the context to ensure its access and availability to staff and project participants, including to the most vulnerable or under-represented such as children, women, displaced populations, other minority or marginalised groups.

Training & Capacity Strengthening:

• Strengthen staff capacity on Safeguarding, GESI and Protection to ensure a clear understanding of key concepts through the development and delivery of trainings and awareness raising activities.
• Support partners towards strengthening GESI and Protection capacity and approaches in programme delivery.
• Share good practices and latest resources on GESI and Protection Mainstreaming with staff to support the strengthening of GESI integration in programming.
• Review materials and oversee the implementation of awareness raising sessions to enhance Protection mainstreaming.
• Drive the establishment of and provide support to a Safeguarding and Protection focal point network across GOAL Syria.

Business Development:

• Provide support to proposal development and ensure that proposal design is informed by a sound GESI and Protection Mainstreaming analysis of the context while ensuring that a Protection Mainstreaming and Child Protection lens is applied appropriately.
• Ensure that GESI considerations are integrated in the development of project logical frameworks and resources are allocated as appropriate in budgets.
• Track and document project progress from the GESI perspective and contribute to project updates and periodic reporting.
• Represent GOAL Syria as a focal point for GESI and Protection in engagements with donors or other partners at the country level.

Collaboration & Representation:

• Provide strategic leadership, guidance and oversight to the Protection team in Syria, including setting goal, identifying priorities and planning implementation.
• Represent GOAL Syria in GESI and Protection-related meetings, fora, working groups and networks.
• Work with MEAL Coordinator to capture GESI and Protection-related success stories that can be communicated internally and externally to various audiences.
• Collaborate and build/maintain relationships with local GESI-focused organisations and groups in the project areas.
• Collaborate and engage with GOAL’s Global GESI Advisor, and GESI focal points from across GOAL teams globally.

The duties and responsibilities set out above are not exhaustive and the postholder may be required to carry out additional duties, within reason, and proportionate to their level of skill and experience.

Behaviours

• Act as a representative of GOAL and demonstrate the highest standards of behaviour towards children and vulnerable adults both in your private and professional lives.
• Collaboration: collaborative team player with the ability to work across teams and with partners.
• Adaptability and flexibility: Ability to manage a large workload and multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment with tight deadlines, and to continually reprioritise multiple tasks as a result of new information.
• Work style: Highly organized team player, pro-active and with demonstrated strong personal initiative. Proven solid analytical, and communication skills.
• Communication: Skilled communicator and ability to work effectively across multiple cultures, both inperson and remotely with diverse colleagues and stakeholders. Ability to communicate concepts and ideas in accessible formats for a variety of audiences.
• Self-motivation: proactive and results-oriented individual who can work on personal drive and initiative.
• Travel: Ability and willingness to travel within Syria to the field and GOAL offices in Aleppo, Idleb, and Damascus.

Requirements (Person Specification) Essential 

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field, such as gender/inclusion studies, development or humanitarian studies, social sciences or a related field.
• At least five years of progressively responsible experience working on GESI in an advisory role, with a focus on planning, implementing and monitoring of programmes – ideally in an NGO environment.
• Experience of working with and/or developing GESI tools, approaches and methodologies, including working with data, analyses and assessments.
• Experience in designing and/or delivering GESI training and capacity strengthening workshops for various stakeholders and audiences.
• Experience of driving GESI initiatives across teams and departments.
• Fluency in English and Arabic as GOAL Syria working language.
• Ability and willingness to travel within Syria to the field and GOAL offices in Aleppo, Idleb, and Damascus.

Desirable

• Postgraduate degree in an area related to gender and/or inclusion.
• Understanding of or previous experience working within the Syria crisis, and the context of Idleb, Aleppo, and other governorates.
• Skilled in GESI research design, trend analysis and development of learning materials.
• Experience in resource mobilisation for GESI activities and programming.
• Technical knowledge of GOAL Syria programming areas, e.g. emergency response, cash and vouchers, WASH, shelter, etc.
• Experience representing an organisation externally with technical networks, donors, academia and in other contexts, and building relationships with stakeholders.
• Strong IT skills, including Microsoft Outlook and Office package.

Interested? Then apply for this position via clicking on the "apply now" button and fill out the application form. All applicants must send a cover letter and an updated CV (no longer than four pages). Both must be in English. Please note that only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

Females are strongly encouraged to apply. Application deadline is 13th August 2025 COB.  

General terms and conditions

Safeguarding

Children and vulnerable adults a must be safeguarded to the maximum possible extent from deliberate or inadvertent actions and failings that place them at risk of abuse, sexual exploitation, injury and any other harm. One of the ways that GOAL shows this on-going commitment to safeguarding is to include rigorous background and reference checks in the selection process for all candidates.

Accountability within GOAL

Alongside our safeguarding policy, GOAL is an equal opportunities employer and has a set of integrity policies. Any candidate offered a job with GOAL will be expected to adhere to the following key areas of accountability:

• Comply with GOAL’s policies and procedures with respect to safeguarding, Code of Conduct, health and safety, data protection and confidentiality, do no harm principles and unacceptable behaviour protocols.
• Report any concerns about the welfare of a child or vulnerable adult or any wrongdoings within our programming area.
• Report any concerns about inappropriate behaviour of a GOAL staff or partner.

This Job Description only serves as a guide for the position available. GOAL reserves the right to change this document. Any published closing dates are estimated.  Due to the nature of GOAL’s work we aim to fill vacancies as quickly as possible.  This means that we will close adverts as soon as we have found the right candidate and this may be before the published closing date.  We would therefore advise interested applicants to submit an application as early as possible.

Thank you.