Negotiation Advisor

**Context & Mission
***:
Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) is an independent humanitarian organization providing medical aid to victims of man-made or natural disasters, epidemics, and endemics. Its Operational Centre in Geneva is responsible for medical assistance programmes in 24 countries.

In many contexts where we intervene, our ability to assist people adequately and to secure access to them and for them has been a constant challenge for MSF. Our working space is not a given and must be negotiated on a consistent and regular basis. It depends largely on the ability of humanitarian agencies and organizations to negotiate their presence and terms of operations with various state and non-state actors.

As specified in the OCG strategic plan 2020-2023: _“Analysis, Negotiation, Communication & Positioning are part of MSF social mission and shall be considered as an integrated pillar of MSF OCG broader operational strategies.”_ Over this strategic cycle MSF OCG will _“Continue to develop and train field teams in the art of negotiation that includes the understanding of complex environment, the geopolitical landscape, the increasing regulatory and administrative constraints, risk analysis, security management.”_

To fulfil this ambition, the position of Negotiation Advisor positions was opened with the aim to develop and provide our own negotiating capacity to support our social mission whether internally or via external partnership through direct support to our teams in the field. This position will also contribute to the design of trainings and tools as well as workshops/trainings and coaching/mentoring in situ or through webinar to support our field teams in elaborating their contextualized negotiation strategy. In addition, he will provide an advisory service and peer support when necessary.

**Responsibilities**:
**_ Contribute to the humanitarian negotiations activities in OCG_**
- Participates to the development of the Strategic Plan and Annual Plan initiatives linked to negotiation.

**_ Provision of Support_**
- Provide direct support, as requested by field teams, operational cells or via the Negotiation Platform, to missions facing particularly complex access challenges or difficult negotiations.
- Provide technical legal expertise in support of the OCG missions
- Provide support to ensure the facilitation of administrative procedures, ensure consistency between units and departments in OCG (ILD, Supply, Pharma, HR, and Medical)
- Provide strategic risk analysis including all the legal and administrative blockages that OCG could face
- Provide guidance in policy dialogue with governments, national and local administrations, humanitarian organizations or development of tactical tools and methods related to humanitarian negotiations

**_ Coordination and management _**
- Coordinate the liaison between units and department involved in the management and negotiation bureaucratic and administrative impediment face by OCG missions (via a dedicated Negotiation Platform).
- Ensure that the proposed strategy in in the best interest of OCG, assesses the risk and proposes alternatives solutions.

**_ Learning and Development_**
- Contribute to organisational learning, knowledge sharing, and peer exchange about negotiation.
- Participate to the implementation of the learning strategy, as part of the broader Operational Learning Strategy on the Negotiation Pillar:

- Contribute to the design of e-learning trainings (self-learning and webinar/virtual class)
- Participate to the deployment of the different negotiation trainings for our staffs
- Contribute to the elaboration and dissemination thematic negotiation frameworks (EPREP, HCA, access & security, protection of the medical mission, medical protocol, and portfolio, etc)
- Stimulate the reflexion, capitalization and debate on the operational negotiation and stakes at HQ and fields level

**_Education_**
- Higher education or University Master’s in international relations, law or equivalent.

**_ Experience_**
- At least 15 years experiences in humanitarian intervention and management
- Solid experience in implementing trainings and workshops
- Experience as an in-house lawyer or as an attorney including an experience in an NGO
- Experience coaching and mentoring others.
- Experience working with (or for) other international organisations.

**_ Languages_**
- Fluent in English and French

**_Personal Abilities_**
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills including good public presentation skills, capacity to work effectively in team and to set up and maintain a wide network of expert
- Excellent writing, editing and analytical skills.
- Ability to translate complex questions into policy options leading to practical recommendations.
- Available for frequent travels.

**_ Skills/ Technical competencies_**
- Good understanding of the humanitarian system and trends affecting humanitarian affairs
- Established practice in humanitarian negotiation
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