Safeguarding Lead – Safeguarding Unit

safeguardingsupporthub; Brussel Hoofdstad; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Operational Centre Brussels (OCB) invites applications for the Safeguarding Lead role. You will provide expertise, strategic leadership and direction for the ongoing development of OCB's safeguarding strategy, policy and culture.

You will have overall responsibility for implementing the safeguarding strategy, achieving set goals, and ensuring coordination, consistency and oversight of MSF-wide safeguarding efforts.

Job description

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders is an international medical humanitarian organization that helps people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries. Our work is guided by medical ethics and the principles of impartiality, independence, and neutrality. We are a non-profit, self-governed, member-based organization.

In 2023, MSF Operational Centre Brussels (OCB) decided to transform its ethics and behaviour management function, previously carried out by the Group for Advice and Research in Ethics and Conduct, into a Safeguarding Unit, in line with the advancement of safeguarding across the MSF movement. Through the Safeguarding Unit Transition project launched in 2024, OCB is establishing a Safeguarding Unit embedded within the General Directorate and accountable to the MSF Board, with responsibility for prevention, case management and investigations, and safeguarding policy and strategy across headquarters and programmes. The project also supports the transition from the existing ethics and conduct structure to a dedicated safeguarding function aligned with MSF standards. The development of the OCB Safeguarding Unit is an ongoing process that will continue throughout the OCB 2026-2031 Strategic Orientations, with the ambition of progressively strengthening integration, synergies, processes and procedures across OCB.

The Safeguarding Lead reports hierarchically to the Directorate General on strategy, results, budget and operational status, while maintaining appropriate confidentiality regarding investigations on a need-to-know basis. The role also reports to the MSF OCB Board on Safeguarding Unit activities and advises on complex case management matters.
The Safeguarding Lead directly manages the Safeguarding Manager, Case Management Manager and Safeguarding Unit Policy Advisor.

As OCB Safeguarding Lead, you will provide expertise, strategic leadership and direction for the continuous development of OCB's safeguarding strategy, policy and culture, based on OCB principles and core values. You will have overall responsibility for implementing the safeguarding strategy, achieving set goals, and ensuring coordination, consistency and oversight of MSF-wide safeguarding efforts.