Associate External Engagement

Since 1863, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked to preserve human dignity and relieve suffering caused by war and armed violence.

In collaboration with our Red Cross and Red Crescent partners around the world, we do everything we can to deliver life-saving aid, reconnect families and locate missing people – helping those who need it most, regardless of who they are and what side of the front line they are on.

We engage with authorities and armed forces on all sides, often confidentially, pressing for access to detainees to improve their living conditions and urging compliance with international humanitarian law to protect non-combatants, including from digital threats.

The ICRC’s Strategy and External Engagement team is part of the office of the Director of the Department of Operations and plays a central role in setting internal strategy and policy underpinning the ICRC’s efforts to protect and assist victims of conflict and other forms of violence.

The External Engagement team supports the design and delivery of effective diplomatic strategies to influence states in relation to IHL compliance as well as ensuring coherent messaging grounded in operational realities to support the ICRC’s engagement with third states in relation to armed conflicts, including at ICRC leadership-level. The External Engagement team also works closely with other departments such as Policy, Legal, Resource Mobilization, and Communications – together with the Humanitarian Affairs Advisor (HAA) network in the field - to support the ICRC’s bilateral and multilateral engagement on humanitarian contexts and cross-cutting issues that stem from the organization’s operational responses across the globe.

Humanitarian diplomacy in the ICRC consists of the activities undertaken to influence decision makers and opinion leaders to act in the best interest of the people affected by humanitarian crisis and conflicts, in line with international humanitarian law and principles. It is about building and sustaining high-level diplomatic relationships, gaining and leveraging influence in international relations to secure support for ICRC’s operations, IHL and humanitarian objectives more generally.

Members of the team need to be able to interact effectively with the ICRC’s operations, while being diplomatically skilled with good political instincts.

External Engagement Adviser

The Associate spends one year with the Department of Operations and works as an integral part of the team and the wider organization. Associates are specially selected for their mix of intellectual, practical and inter-personal skills.

A primary function of the Associate is to support the Operations External Engagement Advisors in their work facilitating the Humanitarian Affairs (HAA) network. As part of this function, the Associate will be tasked with ensuring the Operational Engagement Knowledge Space is kept up to date with context and thematic updates for diplomatic engagements in the field and will support the team in developing the content and user experience of the platform.

Other tasks in support of the HAA network will include:

• Providing substantive support to the review of operational updates shared by regions for individual operations;
• Moderating HAA network Teams chats to ensure smooth exchange of information across the network;
• Assisting in the preparation of events for the HAA network, such as the annual HAA gathering.

Another key role of the Associate will be to provide support to UN engagements in Geneva, and specifically to support the External Engagement Adviser in their role as focal point for the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC)…