1. Deploying members of a core team of up to 15 Senior Protection Officers on short-term missions to provide expertise in the strategic and operational policy, planning, coordination and implementation of the protection response.

2. Building protection knowledge and skills through the ProCap inter-agency training workshops, practitioner exchange and dissemination of the ProCap protection tools.

3. Supporting deployment from existing protection standby rosters and strengthening inter-agency coordination through regular meetings with partners, ProCap Online and 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 deploy to the Humanitarian Coordinator, UNHCR, UNICEF, OHCHR, OCHA, or other agencies with a particular protection mandate. 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. Between 2005-8, ProCap has deployed its Senior Protection Officers on a total of 46 assignments to 21 countries, and two regions.

Building Protection Standby Capacity
ProCap seeks to enhance the number, quality and effectiveness of protection personnel in existing rosters, to increase roster size and diversity, support skills and knowledge of current protection policy, and promote the appropriate and timely deployment of protection personnel.

ProCap works closely with a number of Standby Partners - Austcare, Canadem, the Danish Refugee Council, the Norwegian Refugee Council, RedR Australia, Save the Children Sweden, Denmark and Norway – to help build their protection capacity through its training programme for Protection Standby Experts. The mid-level experts (SPEs at UN P3/P4 equivalent) are members of the respective rosters – and are seconded through standing arrangements between UN agencies and Standby Partners.

Training for Protection
ProCap seeks to build protection knowledge and skills through a variety of mechanisms, including a 6-day residential training programme. The field-focused and skills-based ProCap Protection Training has already provided 187 participants from standby rosters, through nine training events, with the skills to undertake context-specific protection analysis, establish priorities, design and plan inter-agency responses and advocate for protection. It complements issue- and agency-specific protection training. The formalisation of the training modules and the integral Training of Trainers initiative extends the outreach and use of the training material within and beyond its primary target audience of roster personnel. ProCap is working closely with the PCWG Taskforce on Learning to develop and roll out its new training course on protection coordination.

Facilitating Information Exchange and Common Standards
ProCap seeks to strengthen common understandings and approaches to protection through all aspects of the project. Meetings with UN agencies and Standby Partners provide a forum to share and discuss common issues of concern in the management and deployment of surge and standby capacity, and feeds into broader discussions by the Protection Cluster on staffing. The ProCap Online interactive website at http://ocha.unog.ch/ProCapOnline not only enables the mapping of ProCap-trained personnel, but also makes available a forum to discuss and share protection information and a resource library of documents to support deployment, protection policy, training development and practice. The site also provides a portal for information on GenCap and a link to the Protection Cluster site and resources. Technical and operational ‘lessons learned’ from SPO deployments, as well as feedback into global processes to develop protection tools and guidance, are captured in Technical Workshops for the SPOs (March and December 2007, September 2008).

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/DPSS and ICVA. NRC and the PCWG have observer status.

The ProCap Support Unit, hosted by OCHA, acts as the secretariat for the Steering Committee, supports deployment of SPOs, liaises with standby partners and donors, and implements the training programme and manages ProCap Online.

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

The Project is evaluated on a regular basis through external evaluation (March 2007), 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.

Funding
ProCap is funded through the generous support of: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, USA.

How to request a Senior Protection Officer
Requests for should form part of a strategy to strengthen the overall collaborative response and should be made in consultation with the Humanitarian Coordinator. The criteria and minimum conditions for deployment are available from the addresses below.

A Request Form is available from the ProCap Support Unit and should be submitted to holdsworth@un.org or jennings@un.org once completed. The ProCap Support 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.