Access Officer, Seconded to UNOCHA, Bamako, Mali  

This position is exclusively open to Swiss citizens. Candidates who do not fulfil this condition will not receive response.

Brief Description of Emergency Outbreak/Upsurge and the Consequences for OCHA:

After the suspension of the 2015 Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation by the Government in November 2023, the country continues to face a deteriorating security environment, with armed conflict and intercommunal violence expanding from the northern regions to the central areas and increasingly affecting parts of the south. This geographic spread has led to rising humanitarian needs, heightened civilian vulnerability, and growing access constraints. Humanitarian operations are conducted in a highly volatile context marked by insecurity, the use of improvised explosive devices, increased criminality, and heightened risks to humanitarian acceptance. These challenges are compounded by recurrent fuel shortages, which significantly disrupt logistics, field movements, supply chains, and the delivery of life-saving assistance. In parallel, the ongoing Humanitarian Reset requires the humanitarian community to prioritize life-saving interventions, enhance operational efficiency, and adapt coordination and response modalities to reduced resources and access constraints. In this context, the humanitarian community will revise the Humanitarian Planning Cycle to better align response objectives with evolving needs and operational realities, while the Humanitarian Country Team seeks to improve transparency and efficiency of the HNRP through Area Based Coordination and the establishment of a pooled fund envelope for Mali. To mitigate access constraints and improve response effectiveness, negociation efforts will be deployed and conducted on the field.

Brief Surge Need Justification:

OCHA Mali's operational capacity has been significantly reduced following the downsizing process and the departure of most staff from the Access Unit and the CMCoord function. This reduction has occurred at a time when demands from humanitarian partners continue to increase, within an operating environment marked by persistent blockades imposed by armed actors along key routes, increased attacks on trucks transporting humanitarian inputs, and a growing need for strengthened coordination among all actors in the field. In this context, the reorganization of the Unit requires the immediate deployment of additional specialized capacity to address emerging challenges, consolidate existing achievements, and provide technical advice to humanitarian actors on recommended practices. To meet OCHA's commitments under the IASC framework on humanitarian access and civil–military coordination, the Head of Access (HAO) is required to support capacity-building efforts for both the office and partners, particularly in monitoring access constraints, mitigating risks, and promoting principled engagement. This reinforcement will enable OCHA to more effectively support the Humanitarian Country Team in implementing its access strategy, delivering on the 2026–2027 work plan, and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance to hard-to-reach and severely affected areas.

OCHA's Role and Key Challenges:

In line with the commitments endorsed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) and the Grand Bargain, OCHA Mali will continue to fulfil its mandated, non-programmatic coordination role across key priority areas, including inter-cluster coordination, cash coordination, humanitarian access and civil–military coordination (CMCoord), and accountability to affected populations (AAP). OCHA will also support the implementation of localization commitments, community-based coordination approaches, and the systematic inclusion of persons with disabilities. The effective delivery of these functions in Mali is, however, constrained by a highly volatile operating environment characterized by expanding insecurity, the proliferation of armed actors, and recurrent access constraints, including road blockades and movement restrictions. These challenges are compounded by reduced humanitarian space, increasing administrative and regulatory impediments, limited presence of partners in hard-to-reach areas, and shrinking operational capacities following recent downsizing. In this context, OCHA's ability to foster an enabling humanitarian operating environment, strengthen humanitarian access, and ensure the effective functioning of the Access/CMCoord Working Group at both strategic and operational levels remains critical but increasingly resource intensive.

Main Tasks and Duties to be executed:

· Develops and supports a country wide access and access network to promote principled, coordinated approach to outreach, interactions with key stakeholders, coordinated approaches to access, sharing best practices with partners and stakeholders to ensure tailored and effective humanitarian access strategies across the country.

· Monitors, analyzes and reports on conflict trends, humanitarian access challenges and opportunities, as well as humanitarian developments, disaster relief/management programmes or emergency situations in assigned country/area.

· Encourages and facilitates the development of frameworks of engagement of humanitarian actors with relevant stakeholders on humanitarian access and other engagement issues (e.g. joint operating standards), including for advocacy purposes.

· Advises the country office leadership on overall direction on humanitarian access and other engagement related issues, including facilitating the Humanitarian Access Working Group.

· Analyzes and assists in introducing new mechanisms for analyzing humanitarian access in line with the OCHA Access Monitoring Framework and promote CMCOORD principles.

· Assists or leads, as appropriate, in the preparation of OCHA reports, studies, background papers, policy guidelines, correspondence, presentations, background papers, policy guidelines. •Partners with other humanitarian agencies to plan and evaluate complex humanitarian and emergency assistance programmes; helps ensure that latest findings, lessons learned, policy guidelines, etc. are incorporated into these activities, including gender-related considerations. •Organizes and participates in work groups, meetings, conferences, consultations with other agencies and partners humanitarian and emergency relief-related matters. Organizes workshops on humanitarian access, with relevant stakeholders.

Expected Outcome of the Deployment:

· A functional, country-wide humanitarian access coordination mechanism is established and maintained, ensuring principled, coherent, and coordinated engagement with relevant stakeholders and supporting tailored humanitarian access strategies across Mali.

· Regular, high-quality analysis and reporting on conflict dynamics, humanitarian access constraints, and emerging opportunities are produced, informing senior management, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), clusters, and partners, and supporting evidence-based decision-making and advocacy.

· Collective frameworks of engagement and joint operating standards are developed and promoted among humanitarian actors, strengthening common positioning, risk mitigation, and coordinated advocacy on humanitarian access and engagement issues.

· Strategic advice on humanitarian access and engagement issues is provided to OCHA country office leadership, including support to and facilitation of the Humanitarian Access Working Group at strategic and operational levels.

· OCHA's Access Monitoring Framework and CMCoord principles are effectively applied and institutionalized, improving the consistency, quality, and use of access-related data and analysis. - High-quality written and analytical products (including reports, briefs, policy notes, guidance, and presentations) are prepared, contributing to OCHA's leadership and visibility on humanitarian access and coordination.

· Strong inter-agency collaboration is fostered in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of humanitarian response activities, ensuring that lessons learned, policy guidance, protection, gender, and context-specific considerations are integrated.

· Capacity of humanitarian partners on access, principled engagement, and coordination is strengthened, through the organization and facilitation of coordination fora, technical working groups, consultations, and targeted workshops.

Language(s) Required:

French

Language(s) Desired:

English

Specific Required Skills:

· Solid humanitarian coordination experience and expertise in diverse and complex humanitarian settings

· Multi-sectoral coordination expertise in emergency settings.

· Three years progressive experience in a humanitarian and/or development role, of which at least two years on, Access and CMCOORD activities.

· Analytical skills with respect to context, technical options and application of best practice within the operating environment.

· Ability to liaise with Military , local leaders , cluster/sector coordinators and to work in partnership to build consensus on mutually supportive objectives.

· Good communication skills in French (oral & written) are required

Starting date and duration: asap for 6 months

Duty station: Bamako, Mali (Non-Family duty station)

Miscellaneous

For reasons of duty of care (increased risks due to other privileges and immunities) and to avoid conflicts of interest and potential bias, employees and their accompanying persons who hold dual or multiple citizenships shall, as a matter of principle, not be assigned to countries of which they are nationals.

Deadline for application: 10.08.2026

Contact/Application:

Please send your application, including a short description of your motivation, to:

Odette Mauron

Field Resources H

odette.mauron@eda.admin.ch