Call for Applications: Programs Lead

 ▪  About HuMENA

HuMENA for Human Rights and Civic Engagement is a non-profit, non-partisan human rights organization rooted in the Middle East and North Africa and connected to its diasporas. Registered in Belgium and operating through its Brussels headquarters, Beirut office, and team members across the region, HuMENA works to defend and expand civic space, protect human rights defenders, and strengthen civil society actors working under repression, displacement, and shrinking public freedoms.

HuMENA places human rights defenders at the center of its work. The organization supports HRDs, activists, journalists, grassroots organizers, and marginalized civic actors through protection-oriented support, capacity-building, strategic communications, evidence-based advocacy, and international engagement. Its advocacy is conducted for and with human rights defenders, ensuring that their priorities, analysis, safety, and agency shape HuMENA’s public positions, policy recommendations, and engagement with regional and international actors.

HuMENA’s work focuses on the rights and conditions that make civic action possible: freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, digital civic space, access to public participation, and protection from reprisals. The organization combines documentation, research, policy analysis, capacity-building, protection-oriented support, strategic communications, and international advocacy to respond to patterns of repression affecting civic actors in the region and in exile.

Across its programs, HuMENA works on civic space monitoring and advocacy, protection of defenders, people power and movement support, and activism in exile. Its cross-cutting work addresses digital rights, transnational repression, gender and sexuality, and intersectional justice. HuMENA places particular emphasis on connecting local and regional realities with international advocacy spaces while ensuring that its work remains grounded in the experiences, priorities, and safety of affected communities and human rights defenders.

▪  About the Position                                                

As HuMENA expands its programs, partnerships, and team, the organization is seeking a Programs Lead to strengthen internal coordination, project delivery, and operational systems. The role is designed to help HuMENA build the structures that allow the organization to grow sustainably, and to ensure that projects, consultants, deliverables, donor obligations, and internal workflows are tracked and implemented consistently.

The Programs Lead will coordinate work across HuMENA’s Brussels headquarters, Beirut office, and team members based across the MENA region, and will work closely with the Executive Director to manage the day-to-day operational and programmatic life of the organization. Strategic decisions, external positioning, political representation, and final approvals remain at the leadership level.

▪  Who We Are Looking For

HuMENA is seeking an experienced coordinator who brings structure, consistency, and accountability to the day-to-day work of a growing human rights organization. The successful candidate will combine strong project management skills with sound political judgment, and will be comfortable working independently across multiple workstreams, deadlines, and stakeholders.

The role calls for someone who can build and maintain operational systems, anticipate risks before they escalate, and move work forward consistently across the team and external collaborators. Candidates should be confident operating within defined boundaries of authority, comfortable representing the organization in professional and public settings, exercising discretion in sensitive contexts, and contributing to a working culture grounded in care, accountability, and professionalism.

In short, HuMENA is looking for someone who turns scattered tasks into clear systems, follows up without being reminded, anticipates risks before they escalate, and moves work forward with discretion and care.

▪  Working Arrangement and Inclusion

This is a remote position. HuMENA strongly encourages applications from candidates based in the MENA region or from the Global South, with a clear preference for those who bring substantial professional experience working with MENA civil society and human rights organizations.

HuMENA builds its team around contextual knowledge, lived experience, professional integrity, and accountability to the communities and movements with which it works. Applications are particularly encouraged from:

• Women and LGBTQI+ persons
• People from marginalized communities and people with disabilities
• Refugees, migrants, and formerly exiled persons
• Individuals from communities directly affected by repression, displacement, discrimination, or shrinking civic space

HuMENA welcomes applications regardless of gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, disability, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, age, migration status, or socio-economic background, and values practical experience and demonstrated commitment to human rights work alongside formal academic credentials.

Because HuMENA works on sensitive human rights issues, candidates should be able to assess and manage the personal and operational risks associated with their location, communications, and association with the organization.

The role may include selected external engagement, such as representing HuMENA in coordination meetings, partner calls, donor check-ins, webinars, and professional events where appropriate. Candidates should be comfortable being identified with the organization in professional settings. Public-facing responsibilities will be agreed in advance and calibrated to the candidate’s safety context, role boundaries, and informed consent.

HuMENA is committed to ensuring that working arrangements and external engagement are calibrated to each individual’s specific context, with attention to safety, discretion, and do-no-harm principles throughout the recruitment process and the assignment.

▪  Scope of Work

The Programs Lead will hold responsibility for five interconnected areas: project coordination and implementation tracking, team and consultant follow-up, operational systems and internal workflows, donor and reporting coordination support, and advocacy and communications coordination. The role is a coordination and management role and is not intended to replace existing finance, communications, or program staff. Its purpose is to ensure that work across the organization is planned, tracked, and completed reliably.

1. Project Coordination and Implementation

The Programs Lead will maintain a comprehensive overview of HuMENA’s active projects and ensure that implementation moves forward consistently. Specifically, the role will:

• Maintain an updated picture of all active projects, including activities, deliverables, deadlines, reporting requirements, and responsible persons
• Develop and maintain project workplans, implementation trackers, and internal calendars
• Identify delays, risks, and bottlenecks early, and bring proposed solutions rather than open questions
• Prepare concise weekly or biweekly progress updates covering status, risks, decisions needed, and pending follow-up
• Ensure that project deliverables are completed on time, properly documented, and filed according to organizational standards

2. Team and Consultant Coordination

The role will hold the operational coordination of the team and consultants, ensuring that meetings produce action and that work moves forward across collaborators. The role will:

• Coordinate regular internal check-ins and ensure meetings result in clear, tracked action points
• Follow up on assigned tasks, timelines, and deliverables across the team and consultants
• Support the drafting of consultant Terms of Reference and scopes of work
• Coordinate consultant onboarding, deliverable tracking, and completion
• Maintain a consultant tracker covering contract status, deliverables, deadlines, and payment milestones
• Coordinate recruitment processes for consultants and project-based positions, including organizing applications, conducting initial screening, coordinating interviews, and preparing shortlists

3. Operational Systems and Internal Workflows

The Programs Lead will build and maintain the systems that allow HuMENA to function as a coordinated organization. The role will:

• Build, improve, and maintain HuMENA’s internal trackers covering projects, deadlines, consultants, payments, and donor obligations
• Standardize basic templates for workplans, meeting notes, consultant follow-up, and project tracking
• Support file organization, documentation, and institutional memory
• Clarify workflows between programs, finance, communications, and consultants
• Ensure that pending tasks, responsible persons, and deadlines remain visible to the team and reviewed regularly

4. Donor and Reporting Coordination

The role will coordinate the operational side of donor obligations, working alongside the Executive Director and Finance Officer. The role will:

• Track donor reporting deadlines and required supporting documents
• Coordinate the collection of inputs from team members and consultants for narrative reports and donor updates
• Coordinate with the Finance Officer to ensure that financial documentation and programmatic records are aligned
• Maintain a grant obligations tracker covering reports, outputs, visibility requirements, and deadlines

This role does not draft full donor reports or proposals. Substantive writing of donor-facing documents remains with the Executive Director and relevant project leads. The Programs Lead may contribute through coordination, drafting of internal sections, or preparation of supporting materials when needed.

5. Advocacy and Communications Coordination

While HuMENA’s advocacy positioning and communications strategy remain with the Executive Director and the relevant team members, the Programs Lead

will support the coordination, review, and quality of advocacy and communications outputs. The role will:

• Coordinate the production timeline of advocacy products, statements, briefs, reports, and communications outputs across researchers, writers, designers, translators, and social media
• Review draft advocacy and communications materials for clarity, consistency, and alignment with HuMENA’s standards before they are submitted for final approval
• Track advocacy commitments, partner contributions, and external deadlines tied to coalitions, campaigns, or donor-supported advocacy work
• Support the Executive Director and team members in advocacy planning, content review, and the gathering of input from across the organization

6. Payment and Finance Follow-up

The Programs Lead does not manage finances or process payments. The role will:

• Track whether consultant deliverables linked to payment milestones have been submitted and reviewed
• Coordinate with the Finance Officer on missing invoices, contracts, or supporting documents
• Flag pending payments or documentation gaps to the Executive Director and Finance Officer
• Help ensure that payments are linked to approved scopes of work and completed deliverables

▪  First 60 Days

During the first 60 days in the role, the Programs Lead is expected to establish the foundations on which the rest of the assignment will build. This means:

1. Mapping all active projects, deadlines, consultants, and donor obligations across the organization to produce a clear and accurate picture of where HuMENA stands operationally
2. Building and operationalizing the master project tracker and consultant tracker so that these become tools used weekly across the team rather than documents maintained in isolation
3. Establishing a regular internal follow-up routine — through structured check-ins, written progress updates, and clear action points — that strengthens coordination across the team and supports consistent project delivery

Further system improvements, template standardization, and process documentation will follow in the months that follow.

▪  Required Experience and Qualifications

Candidates should bring:

• A minimum of 6 years of relevant professional experience in program coordination, project management, operations, or grants management, with at least 3 of those years in roles requiring independent decision-making, preferably gained with a regional or international organization
• Direct experience working with MENA-based or MENA-focused human rights, civic space, or civil society organizations
• A demonstrated track record of building or improving internal systems, trackers, and workflows
• Experience managing multiple consultants, deliverables, and donor obligations simultaneously
• Fluency in Arabic and strong professional English, both written and spoken
• Strong remote coordination skills and the ability to handle sensitive information with discretion
• Authorisation to work in the country of residence
• Availability to travel occasionally for missions, meetings, and representation on behalf of HuMENA

▪  Preferred Experience

The following are considered assets:

• Experience working in small or growing organizations where systems had to be built or improved from the ground up — strongly preferred over experience in large institutions with fully developed systems
• Experience with donor reporting or grant coordination across multiple funders
• Experience supporting consultant recruitment and contracting processes
• Experience working on civic space, human rights defenders, exile and diaspora engagement, digital rights, or transnational repression
• French is an asset
• Familiarity with tools such as Google Workspace, Airtable, Notion, Asana, Trello, Slack, or equivalent platforms

▪  Key Competencies

The selected candidate will demonstrate:

• Initiative and ownership — the ability to identify and address operational issues without being instructed
• Follow-up discipline — consistently tracking and moving tasks toward completion
• Clear written communication — in both Arabic and English
• Political judgment and discretion — appropriate to the human rights environment in which HuMENA operates
• Coordination across teams — the ability to coordinate and influence work without relying on formal hierarchical authority

 ▪  Application Process

Interested candidates are invited to submit:

1. A CV (maximum three pages)
2. A cover letter of no more than one page addressing why they are suited to the role and what they would bring to it
3. Contact details for two professional references — HuMENA will only contact references after the final interview and with the candidate’s confirmation
4. One writing sample (see below)

For the writing sample, candidates may submit a relevant work document in Arabic or English — such as a project update, internal memo, donor report section, or similar piece — with any confidential information appropriately redacted. Candidates who are unable to share work documents due to confidentiality obligations may instead submit a short written piece of no more than one page, in Arabic or English, responding to the following prompt:

Drawing on your professional experience, describe one operational or coordination challenge you have faced in a civil society or human rights organization, the approach you took to address it, and what you learned from it.

Applications should be sent to [email protected] with the subject line Programs Lead — [Candidate Name] by 21 May 2026. Questions about the role or application process may be directed to the same address.

HuMENA will review applications on a rolling basis as they are received and will move strong candidates forward without waiting for the application deadline to close. Interested candidates are therefore encouraged to apply early.

HuMENA will acknowledge receipt of all complete applications.

▪  Assessment Process

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to:

• A first interview,
• A short practical assignment of approximately 90 minutes, designed to reflect the operational realities of the role
• A final interview, which may include additional team members
• Reference checks before any offer is made

Candidates will be assessed on their ability to identify priorities, propose decisions, and communicate clearly and professionally in writing. The nature and extent of public-facing engagement expected in the role will be discussed during the interview process to ensure mutual clarity on expectations and any safety considerations specific to the candidate’s context.

All candidates are assessed against the same criteria and through the same process, regardless of how they came to apply or whether they were referred by a current member of the HuMENA network.

The expected start date is 15 June 2026, or earlier if the selected candidate is available sooner.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interview.