The ProCap Project

ProCap seeks to enhance thehumanitarianprotection response and contribute to global protection capacity through the predictable and effective deployment of personnel with proven protection expertise. It reinforces the strategic and operational protection response for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and other vulnerable groups in natural disasters and protracted complex crises. It is a critical part of the inter-agency global capacity building effort central to the Humanitarian Reform Agenda and supports the goals of the global Protection Cluster.

For further information on all aspects of ProCap, contact:
Inter-Agency Standby Capacity Support, Humanitarian Coordination Support Section (HCSS), OCHA-United Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, SWITZERLAND. Phone: +41 22 917 1347; Fax: +41 22 971 0608
Email: or / To apply for Senior Protection Officer positions:
Applications should be composed of a covering letter to the Norwegian Refugee Council. Terms of Reference and the application format are available at:

January 2011

ProCap is an inter-agency project that responds to priority gaps and needs in emergency protection response through three principal activities:

Deploying members of a core team of up to 8 and a roster of up to 20 Senior Protection Officers on short-term missions to provide expertise in the strategic and operational policy, planning, coordination and implementation of the protection response.

Providing regular technical workshops and acting as custodian for learning materials for the ProCap inter-agency training workshops, encouraging practitioner exchange and disseminating the ProCap protection tools.

Strengthening coordination in humanitarian contexts throughshared debriefings of SPOs, postings including a library on One Response in other fora.

Enhancing Strategic Support

Senior Protection Officers:A small core team of senior, experienced, full-time Protection Officers (SPOs at UN P4/P5 equivalent) on permanent rotation in the field, and a parallel team of SPOs on rotation deploy to the Humanitarian Coordinator, UNHCR, UNICEF, OHCHR, OCHA, to other agencies with a particular protection mandate and to integrated missions. Their role is to strengthen the strategic and operational response of the Country Team and/or the Protection Cluster lead agency at national or provincial level; to chair protection cluster working groups, guide the development of comprehensive protection strategies and build protection capacities in-country. Since 2005, ProCaphas deployed its SPOs to 36countries on a total of 79 assignments, with 7 of these inregional positions.

Priorities for ProCap deployments remain support to protection coordination mechanisms, addressing continued systemic gaps in the protection response in natural disaster, providingspecific technical expertise and supporting protection mainstreaming within non-protection mandated agencies.

Building Protection Standby Capacity

Since 2006 has ProCap enhanced the number, quality and effectiveness of protection personnel on existing NGO rosters, promoted roster diversity, supported skills development and knowledge of current protection policies, and contributed to appropriate and timely deployment of protection personnel.

This is accomplished by working closely with a number of Standby Partners - ActionAid, Canadem, the Danish Refugee Council, the Norwegian Refugee Council, RedR Australia, Save the Children Sweden, Denmark and Norway, helping to build their protection capacity through a 6-day residentialtraining programme for Protection Standby Experts.

As many as 290 mid-level experts (UN P2-P4 equivalent) drawn from the respective rosters were provided with the skills to undertake context-specific protection analysis, establish priorities, design and plan inter-agency responses and advocate for protection, in preparation for secondment to protection-mandated UN agencies. The training modules have beenconsistently updated and a training-of-trainers programme has led to establishment of a team of experts capable of delivering the modules independently of the ProCap Support Unit as of 2011. As of 2011 Standby Partners will organize the training events themselves, while the Inter-Agency Standby Capacity Support Unit will remain as custodian of the materials, which are available in English and French.

Facilitating Information Exchange and Common Standards

ProCap seeks to strengthen common understandings and approaches to protection through all aspects of the project. The original ProCap Online interactive website has now been integrated into the OneResponse site at and includes a thematic protection library and a limited access tracking system for standby protection experts.Technical and operational lessons learned’from SPO deployments, as well as feedback into global processes for development of protection tools and guidance, are captured in annual Technical Workshops for the SPOs

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Management of the Project

The Inter-Agency Steering Committee meets and communicates regularly, providing project oversight and managing deployment of the Senior Protection Officers. It comprises OHCHR, UNHCR, UNICEF, OCHA/PDSB and ICVA. NRC and the PCWG have observer status.

The Inter-Agency Standby Capacity Support Unit (ProCap/GenCap), hosted by OCHA, acts as the secretariat for the Steering Committee, supports deployment of SPOs, liaises with donors, implements the SPO training programme , tracks project progress and manages evaluations and information related to deployments.

The Norwegian Refugee Council contractually administers the Team of Senior Protection Officers.

The Project is evaluated on a regular basis through external evaluation (March 2007 and planned for July 2011), internal evaluation (November 2010) as well as through reviews undertaken by the Steering Committee, with Donor Stakeholders, with the Senior Protection Officers themselves and through field assessment and advocacy missions.

ProCap’s Senior Protection Officers deploy from one protection-mandated agency and one crisis to another on short-term missions of up to and sometimes beyond 6 months. They support the Humanitarian Coordinator, agencies and country teams at the senior level to develop and implement comprehensive protection strategies and mechanisms, particularly in situations of internal displacement. They help to develop a shared vision for improved and more widespread delivery of protection.

The high-level experts are all capable of providing strategic leadership at national or regional level, designing and implementing protection strategies in different contexts and undertaking operational work such as opening field offices for protection-mandated agencies. ProCap Senior Protection Officers are currently deployed individually – but may in the future also be deployed in teams to priority countries as identified by the Global Protection Cluster Working Group (PCWG) .

How to request a Senior Protection Officer
Requests for ProCap support should form part of a strategy to strengthen the overall collaborative protection response and should be made in consultation with the Humanitarian Coordinator and country team. The criteria and minimum conditions for deployment are available from the addresses below.
A Request Form is available from the Inter-Agency Standby Capacity Support Unit and should be submitted to or once completed. The Unit is happy to provide advice on its completion.
Decisions about deployment are made by an inter-agency steering committee composed of OCHA, UNHCR, OHCHR, UNICEF, and ICVA, and will depend on need and availability.
ProCap SPOs are deployed as gratis ‘experts on mission’ and remain employees of the Norwegian Refugee Council. Requesting agencies are responsible for personnel during assignment and must provide all necessary administrative and operational support.

In the last two years SPOs deployed to 25 countries on 31 assignments lasting from two to twelve months. They were seconded to the agencies that launched ProCap: UNHCR (15 missions), UNICEF (6), OCHA (6) and through other agencies in support of OHCHR (4), but also to support the work of Humanitarian Coordinators (3) or UN Peacekeeping Missions (UNAMA, UNMIT, MONUC). The majority of the missions were to zones of conflict or civil unrest or to areas emerging from civil unrest, and in a few instances to cases of potential civil unrest; three deployments were to provide a protection response in natural disasters. In 17 of the deployments establishing the Protection Cluster was a major task; in 14 deployments, a focus was on protection of civilians endangered by conflict, including IDPs, and the development of strategies to provide greater protection to civilians and address displacement; in four deployments the focus was the protection of children; three were with improving monitoring of human rights violations/abuses; one focused on the issue of statelessness; and two highlighted housing, land and property rights. In almost all of the deployments, SPOs were engaged in capacity-building and/or mentoring UN agency staff, government officials and other humanitarians.

Recent concrete achievementsin the last two years have

included the opening up of protection space in Ethiopia and Zimbabwe; help in developing information systems for better monitoring and responding to gross violations of the rights of children in war (under SC Res 1612) in Colombia, Iraq and the occupied Palestinian territory, and bringing to light and recommending measures to address serious protection concerns of children at risk in the Mt. Elgon and the Rift Valley areas in Kenya; documenting human rights violations in Karamoja so as to advocate for change with the Ugandan Government; making recommendations to make the Joint Protection Teams in Eastern Congo more effective protection instruments and helping establish and nurture a landmine group in Myanmar. ProCap has been instrumental in regional as well as national contingency planning for disaster (Pacific, Namibia), and is increasingly called on to step up the protection response in the event of natural disasters (Pakistan floods, Haiti storms, hurricane in Myanmar, tsunami in Samoa).

Funding

ProCap has been funded to date through the generous support of: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA.

IDPs from Helmand Province, Afghanistan arriving in a Kabul slum

© Laurie Wiseberg 2008

For further information on all aspects of ProCap, contact Inter-Agency Standby Capacity Support, Humanitarian Coordination Support Section (HCSS), OCHA-United Nations, 1211 Geneva 10, SWITZERLAND. Phone: +41 22 917 2148; Fax: +41 22 971 0608. Email: