Readvert - Peace Building Specialist

Danish Refugee Council, one of the world’s leading humanitarian NGOs, is currently looking for a highly qualified Peace Building Specialist.

About the job

The AHEAD Peace Building Specialist is responsible for ensuring that all anticipatory action (AA) planning and implementation within the AHEAD project is grounded in rigorous conflict analysis and adheres to "Do No Harm" principles. The primary focus is to integrate conflict sensitivity into the AHEAD forecasting model, trigger validation, and response packages to ensure that proactive aid does not inadvertently exacerbate local tensions. While the role supports the setup of early warning indicators, it is a technical advisory capacity for AA and does not serve as a focal point for new direct peacebuilding programming.

Your main duties and responsibilities will be:

1. Peacebuilding & Conflict Sensitivity in Anticipatory Action

• Conflict Analysis for AA Triggers: Lead the integration of political economy and conflict analysis into the validation of sub-national displacement triggers (e.g., the 36,000-person threshold in Belet-Hawa or 7,800 in Jalalaqsi) to ensure they reflect local conflict dynamics.
• "Do No Harm" Oversight: Apply DRC’s global conflict sensitivity toolkit throughout the AHEAD program cycle. Assess all shortlisted anticipatory actions to ensure they carry no risk of fueling conflict or elite capture, particularly in sensitive areas like Banadir or Gedo.
• Ground-Truthing and Early Warning: Manage the conflict early warning component of the forecasting model by validating AI-driven predictions against real-time local observations from peacebuilding and protection committees.
• AA-Linked De-escalation: Facilitate anticipatory community dialogues and mediation that are specifically linked to forecasted conflict shocks to promote collective preparedness and de-escalate tensions before they result in mass displacement.
• Institutional Capacity Building: Support the implementation of the MoU with SoDMA by training national authorities on conducting conflict analysis and integrating conflict sensitivity into national disaster risk management and AA protocols.
• Provide technical guidance to ensure peacebuilding and social cohesion principles are embedded within anticipatory action design, triggers, and response packages.
• Lead the integration of DRC’s global conflict sensitivity toolkit and ‘Do No Harm’ approach throughout the AHEAD program cycle, including during the analysis, planning, and implementation phases of anticipatory actions to ensure actions carrying too much risk are not shortlisted for uptake.
• Support the integration of conflict analysis and political economy analysis into anticipatory action planning, readiness activities, and trigger validation.
• Ensure anticipatory actions do not exacerbate tensions and contribute to violence prevention, trust-building, and inclusive community engagement.
• Advise on context-specific anticipatory protection and peace dividends, including dialogue facilitation, community mediation, and conflict de-escalation activities.

2. Early Warning and Local Systems Strengthening

• Develop and manage the conflict early warning system component within AHEAD’s displacement forecasting model, ensuring community-level early warning indicators are integrated to ground truth model predictions with local observations.
• Facilitate participatory workshops with local peacebuilding committees, traditional authorities, and community structures to involve them as frontline agents in designing, informing, and implementing anticipatory actions.
• Support community-based preparedness activities that strengthen local conflict prevention, early warning, and response mechanisms.
• Support the design and implementation of anticipatory community dialogues linked to forecasted shocks (e.g. drought, flooding, conflict escalation).
• Strengthening linkages between community early warning systems and national / humanitarian anticipatory action frameworks

3. Implementation and coordination

• Design and implement AA response activities focused on social cohesion, dialogue, and trust-building among diverse community groups to enhance resilience against conflict and reinforce existing conflict management/resolution techniques.
• Support Hard-to-Reach (H2R) analyses and access strategies by providing conflict analysis and ensuring interventions adhere to humanitarian principles (impartiality and neutrality) when working in complex or sensitive areas.
• Coordinate with local authorities, community structures, CSOs, and protection actors to align peacebuilding efforts with anticipatory action objectives.
• Support DRC’s engagement in AA, protection, and peacebuilding coordination platforms, ensuring conflict dynamics inform anticipatory decisions.
• Facilitate collaboration between peacebuilding, protection, and anticipatory action teams to ensure coherent implementation.
• Nexus Coordination: Act as the technical bridge between protection and emergency teams to ensure conflict dynamics inform rapid-disbursement decisions from the 10% AA seed fund

4. Learning, Evidence & Knowledge Management

• Contribute to evidence generation on how anticipatory action can reduce conflict risks and displacement drivers.
• Document lessons learned, good practices, and challenges related to integrating peacebuilding into anticipatory action.
• Support learning exchanges and contribute to national and global AHEAD knowledge products.
• Ensure that AA planning aligns with wider regional strategies, such as contributing to AUC’s wider peacebuilding and conflict management agenda where applicable

5. Compliance & Accountability

• Ensure adherence to DRC’s Protection, AGD, Conflict Sensitivity, and Do No Harm standards.
• Support compliance with DRC policies on safeguarding, accountability, and ethical engagement.

About you

To be successful in this role we expect you to have:

• Minimum bachelor’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies, International Development, Social Sciences, Political Science, or a related field.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in peacebuilding, conflict prevention, social cohesion, or protection programming.
• Demonstrated experience integrating conflict sensitivity into humanitarian or resilience programming.
• Experience working with community-based early warning, dialogue, or mediation mechanisms.
• Familiarity with anticipatory action, early warning, preparedness, or forecast-based approaches is a strong asset.
• Experience working with national and local partners in fragile and conflict-affected settings.
• Strong facilitation, analysis, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Experience in Somalia or similar contexts highly desirable.
• The position requires a high degree of collaboration with program staff and all relevant stakeholders to ensure effective communication and priority setting.
• Experience with programming related to climate resilience, preparedness, and conflict sensitivity.
• Demonstrated ability to innovate and take a flexible, problem-solving approach in complex humanitarian environments.
• Strong project management skills and experience with donor reporting and proposal writing.
• Familiar ity with humanitarian coordination mechanisms and key international standards.
• Commitment to humanitarian principles and values
• Commitment to and understanding of DRC’s aims, values and principles
• Languages: Proficiency in written & spoken both English and Somali

In this position, you are expected to demonstrate DRC’ five core competencies:

• Striving for excellence: You focus on reaching results while ensuring an efficient process.
• Collaborating: You involve relevant parties and encourage feedback.
• Taking the lead: You take ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.
• Communicating: You listen and speak effectively and honestly.
• Demonstrating integrity: You uphold and promote the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct in relation to our values and Code of Conduct, including safeguarding against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

We offer

• Contract length: 1 year with the possibility of extension, subject to funding and performance.
• Employment Band: NM-G2
• Work location: Mogadishu
• Start date: 1st July 2026
• Reporting to: Project Manager (AHEAD)

Salary and conditions will be in accordance with Danish Refugee Council’s Terms of Employment for employees on national contract.

Application process

• All Applicants must upload a cover letter and an updated CV (no longer than four pages) in English.
• Applications sent by email will not be considered
• Closing date for applications: 31st May 2026
• This Position is open to both internal and external candidates
• Qualified Female candidates are highly encouraged to apply