Humanitarian Access and Safety & Security Advisor – HQ

Lieu
Any INTERSOS office or home-based, with field visits

Fonctions
INTERSOS is an independent humanitarian organization that assists the victims of natural disasters, armed conflicts and exclusion. Its activities are based on the principles of solidarity, justice, human dignity, equality of rights and opportunities, respect for diversity and coexistence, paying special attention to the most vulnerable people.

Terms of reference

Job Title:

Humanitarian Access and Safety & Security Advisor

Code:  SR-00-10198

Duty station:  Any INTERSOS office or home-based, with field visits

Reporting to:  Deputy Director General

Functional Supervisor:  Access and security coordinators/managers in mission

Type of Duty Station:  Family duty station

General context of the project
For over 30 years, INTERSOS has been working in emergency and crisis situations, supporting individuals whose lives are threatened by conflict, poverty, and disasters with a hands‑on approach to assist the most vulnerable in challenging and hard‑to‑reach contexts. INTERSOS delivers a comprehensive multi‑sectoral package of services to provide lifesaving and life‑sustaining assistance. Because the delivery of aid has become increasingly constrained globally by violence, armed conflict, and bureaucratic impediments, navigating these complex environments to maintain access is a high priority.

General purpose of the position
The Humanitarian Access and Safety & Security Advisor is a senior position that combines a strong humanitarian access focus with safety and security management and deep analytical reflection. The Advisor will support INTERSOS country teams to navigate complex operating environments, enabling safe humanitarian access, operational presence, and programme continuity in high‑risk areas. The Advisor also acts as the functional supervisor for access and security senior personnel at the country level, overseeing technical recruitment, performance evaluations, as well as the mandatory access and security induction and compulsory training cycle for all deployments.

A core component of this role is extending technical expertise and capacity‑strengthening support to INTERSOS’s local partners to ensure a unified and principled approach to risk and access. The Humanitarian Access and Safety & Security Advisor is included in the Frontline Initiative funded by The Netherlands Refugee Foundation and maintains the responsibility of project management on the initiative.

Main responsibilities and tasks
Humanitarian context analysis

Monitor INTERSOS operating environments, identify new threats, assess operational vulnerabilities, and recommend proactive responses;

Support regional and country teams in major crises on producing analysis or scenarios linked to strategic and operational decisions and, if needed, will deploy to field to carry out the analysis or support on negotiation or other;

Proactively keep abreast of INTERSOS priority contexts and have a good working knowledge of INTERSOS operational dilemmas;

Take on assigned leads of specific in-depth analysis and reflection papers/dossiers as required by the Deputy Director General and the Director General.

Humanitarian Access management

Facilitate and support the regional and country teams in the development and delivery of strategies to advance humanitarian access;

Lead the development and uptake of internal guidance, tools, and context‑specific guidelines for humanitarian access and engagement;

Advise and support country teams on principled access strategies, including negotiations with line‑ministries, security forces, and armed groups, in coordination with the regional offices;

Develop and deliver humanitarian access trainings to a diverse audience including frontline staff and key decision‑makers (i.e. senior management, local partner staff, etc.);

Document and share learning with colleagues and partners, and contribute to the internal community of practice and culture of learning and reflection and to cross‑organizational learning between Frontline partners SV and IRC;

Maintain currency with methods, approaches and professional developments in humanitarian access and related topics;

Represent INTERSOS…