Social Cohesion Officer

About this role

The role is for a Social Cohesion Officer based in Borno, hired by INTERSOS, a humanitarian organisation focused on emergency relief and peacebuilding in crisis settings. The officer will analyse conflict context at each facility site, map stakeholders, and support governance and land tenure processes for facility sites. They will facilitate community dialogues, help establish and oversee community committees, and coordinate with government and traditional leaders to promote inclusive governance and peacebuilding. The position requires engaging with landowners, host communities, IDPs and returnees, and ensuring gender and inclusion targets are met. The role involves supervision of community mobilisers, monitoring social cohesion initiatives, and contributing to handover readiness and lessons learned for partners like WFP. The organisation operates across North-East Nigeria and works with partners including NGOs and government programmes.

What you would do

• Conduct conflict and do-no-harm analyses for each facility site and update quarterly.
• Map stakeholders for each facility and record interests and expectations.
• Advise the Project Manager on conflict risks affecting land, membership, and benefits.
• Lead ownership and tenure audits and coordinate consultations with stakeholders using free, prior and informed consent.
• Draft and coordinate land-use instruments and facility management agreements with legal advisers.
• Organise public validation meetings and ensure information is accessible in local languages.
• Facilitate transparent selection and elections of Facility Management Committees with protected seats for women, youth and landowners.
• Support groups to draft constitutions, bye-laws and governance procedures.
• Provide technical support to oversight committees and train on accountable decision-making and inclusivity.
• Mediate disputes and escalate unresolved cases through the agreed mediation pathway.

What they are asking for

• University degree in peace and conflict studies, sociology, political science, law, public administration, development studies or related social science (Masters desirable).
• At least 4 years of experience in social cohesion, peacebuilding, or conflict-sensitive programming.
• Experience facilitating community dialogues and mediating disputes, especially over land, water or shared resources.
• Experience setting up or strengthening community governance structures and elections.
• Experience working with traditional institutions and government authorities in North-East Nigeria.
• Experience with NGOs, UN agencies or government humanitarian or recovery programmes.
• Knowledge of land tenure concepts and, ideally, land use acts relevant to the area (Desirable).
• Skills in facilitation, negotiation, mediation and neutral, confidential handling of sensitive information.
• Strong written communication for agreements, meeting records and reports.
• Proficiency in MS Office or Google Workspace and fluency in English and Hausa (Kanuri desirable).

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