Position Objective: The Deputy Head of Programs– Gender & Protection provides strategic, technical, and operational leadership to strengthen gender equality, protection, inclusion, and safeguarding across the International NGO’s programs. The role leads organizational efforts to mainstream gender and protection, develops and strengthens internal systems and guidance, and builds the capacities of INGO teams and partners. It also provides technical oversight of integrated protection activities implemented by the International NGO and partners, ensuring that all interventions are safe, inclusive, context‑appropriate, and aligned with the International NGO’s global policies, national frameworks, and donor requirements.

Relevant Experience:

• Master’s degree in Gender Studies, Protection, Social Sciences, Human Rights, International Development or related field.
• Minimum 7 years of overall experience with 5 years of relevant field experience in gender, protection, inclusion or safe programming in humanitarian/development settings.

Job Description:

Mission 1: Strategic Leadership in Gender and Protection Mainstreaming: The DHOP – Gender & Protection provides strategic and technical leadership to ensure gender equality and protection expertise are available, understood, and effectively applied across program. Sector leads, project managers, and senior management remain responsible for integrating these principles into their respective programs.

The DHOP Gender & Protection is responsible for:

• Analyse the gender and protection context in Country Offices, including key challenges, risks, and opportunities across sectors and programs. This includes analysis of INGO‑ and partner‑implemented activities to inform risk management and strategic planning.
• Provide specialist advice and technical guidance to program teams to support effective integration of gender and protection considerations throughout the project cycle.
• Support Country Offices in integrating gender and protection into their strategies, ensuring alignment with the INGO’s strategic frameworks, policies, and guidelines; monitor progress on Gender, Inclusion, and Protection (GIP).
• Develop, update, and disseminate technical tools and guidance that strengthen gender and protection mainstreaming across all sectors.
• Ensure gender and protection components are integrated into proposals and aligned with donor requirements (technical quality, indicators, timelines, and earmarked budgets); support grant kick‑off and close‑out processes to ensure commitments are feasible and clearly communicated. This includes the review and validation of partner workplans, indicators, and gender and protection‑related budget lines for coherence with donor contracts and INGO policies, flagging gaps and solutions during grant kick‑off and revisions.
• Provide technical inputs to strategic documents, including risk analyses, GIP actions, mainstreaming strategies, indicators, and budget lines, while ensuring sector leads embed these actions in their program designs.
• Advise MEAL teams to ensure monitoring systems, indicators, and accountability mechanisms can effectively measure and track gender and protection mainstreaming.
• Identify relevant local partners and define effective collaboration modalities to strengthen gender and protection outcomes.
• Establish structured feedback loops with Grants, Finance, Compliance, and MEAL on partner delivery of gender and protection commitments (quality notes, risks, mitigation, and follow‑up), ensuring issues are escalated promptly to senior management.
• Develop and maintain collaborative relationships with national authorities, partners, donors, and other NGOs to advance the INGO’s gender and protection priorities.
• Support gender and protection integration in emergency responses, liaising with key donors, stakeholders, and communication teams (including media and social media) in coordination with relevant INGO departments.

Mission 2: Strengthen Gender and Protection Mainstreaming Through Technical Support, Capacity Building, and Referral Systems: While all staff and sector teams are responsible for mainstreaming gender and protection — and senior management is responsible for ensuring compliance — the DHOP Gender & Protection strengthens organizational capacity by developing tools, systems, training, and operational support that enable safe, inclusive, and gender‑sensitive programming.

The DHOP Gender & Protection is responsible for:

• Develop and disseminate tools, guides, protocols, workflows, and training modules (e.g., checklists, key messages, safe programming guidance) to support the integration of gender and protection into program activities.
• Strengthen the capacities of INGO and partner staff through structured training, coaching, mentoring, and technical accompaniment on gender equality, protection principles, safe identification, and safe referral practices.
• Assess and define the training needs of Country Office teams and partners and design tailored capacity‑building plans.
• Provide technical advice to program teams on identifying gender and protection risks within sectoral activities and proposing feasible mitigation strategies, while implementation remains the responsibility of sector teams.
• Support MEAL and sector teams by providing gender and protection inputs to improve monitoring tools, program‑quality assessments, and feedback mechanisms, while MEAL retains responsibility for AAP systems.
• Establish, operationalise, and maintain safe and dignified referral systems, including the development of SOPs, service mapping, consent procedures, quality‑assurance measures, and training on referral pathways for staff and partners. Support partners to strengthen the use of referral systems and verify their practical functionality in partner‑operated locations.
• Draft gender and protection components of project proposals and donor reports, ensuring alignment with standards and communicating progress clearly.
• Identify systemic gaps, recurring challenges, and capacity needs related to gender and protection integration and provide actionable recommendations to senior management to strengthen compliance and organisational performance. Provide institutional support to partner organisations by identifying systemic capacity gaps (policies, tools, skills) and coordinating tailored technical assistance that complements Mission 2 trainings.
• Document and capitalise on best practices, lessons learned, and effective approaches in gender and protection mainstreaming across both INGO and partner interventions.

Mission 3: Provide Technical Oversight and Coordination for Integrated Protection Programming: The DHOP Gender & Protection is responsible for providing technical leadership, oversight, and representation for all integrated protection activities directly implemented by the organization in Pakistan. This mission focuses exclusively on operational protection components—not mainstreaming, which remains the responsibility of all staff.

The DHOP Gender & Protection is responsible for:

• Provide technical oversight for INGO‑implemented integrated protection activities, including community‑level protection awareness sessions, early‑identification actions, and protection risk‑mitigation components implemented jointly with WASH, Health/Nutrition, FSL, or MHPSS teams. Where integrated protection components are delivered jointly with partners, provide technical oversight to ensure alignment with protection principles and operational standards.
• Coordinate closely with the other DHOPs and sector leads to schedule, resource, and quality‑assure integrated protection components within joint interventions, ensuring clear division of roles and adherence to protection principles.
• Support field teams in planning, delivering, and documenting integrated protection interventions, ensuring safe programming, appropriate messaging, and adherence to protection principles (dignity, safety, non‑discrimination, informed consent). Conduct joint monitoring or support visits with partners, when relevant, to assess technical quality, safety, inclusion, and adherence to referral SOPs.
• Conduct regular technical support missions and monitoring visits to assess the quality, relevance, and safety of integrated protection activities, and provide concrete field‑level recommendations for improvement.
• Ensure that integrated protection activities are linked to the mission’s referral pathways, including appropriate identification, confidential referral, and follow‑up procedures in coordination with service providers. Ensure partner‑implemented integrated protection activities are linked to organizational referral pathways, with clear roles and procedures.
• Represent the organization in external protection‑related coordination platforms (Protection Cluster, GBV AoR, CP AoR, technical working groups) when related to the organizational integrated protection programming, ensuring the organizational operational experience informs inter‑agency approaches.
• Document lessons learned, operational risks, and good practices from organization implemented integrated protection activities and share them with senior management and program teams to improve practice and inform adaptation of interventions.

Mission 4: Proactively support organizational commitments to gender equality and child protection sensitivity

• Read and ensure a full understanding and promotion of organization’s Gender Minimum Standards & Child Protection Policies
• Implement all work related activities with a gender, inclusion and child protection lens, taking into account the different needs, concerns and ideas of our staff and beneficiaries
• Ensure and encourage the incorporation of gender equity principles in all policies and activities
• Help build an inclusive office environment where people do not feel disadvantaged or judged according to their gender or limited due to manageable disability

Skills needed to perform the function:

• Demonstrated experience establishing and maintaining safe referral systems (SOPs, service mapping, consent, confidentiality).
• Experience providing technical support (not operational leadership) to multi‑sector teams on gender and protection.
• Experience supporting partner‑led implementation, including technical oversight, feedback, and quality review.
• Ability to design and deliver training, coaching and mentoring for staff and partners.
• Strong understanding of protection principles, gender equality concepts, GBV risk mitigation (for non‑specialists), and inclusion.
• Ability to produce practical tools and guidance (checklists, workflows, job aids, safe programming tools).
• Experience providing technical inputs to proposals, budgets, indicators, and donor compliance related to gender and protection.
• Strong analytical skills for conducting gender and protection assessments and translating findings into actionable recommendations.
• Understanding of ethical data management and confidentiality requirements for handling sensitive information.
• Strong communication, facilitation, and interpersonal skills for influencing without direct authority.
• Ability to coordinate effectively with multiple departments (MEAL, HR, Grants, DHOPs, field teams) and external actors.
• Ability to work under pressure, manage competing priorities, and adapt to evolving contexts.
• Fluency in English; Urdu or regional languages is an asset.