Analyst, Disaster Risk and Vulnerability

Organizational Context

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 192-member National Societies. The overall aim of IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by National Societies with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.”  IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises. 

IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of the IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. 

IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas.  IFRC also has country cluster and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat.

Addressing climate and environmental crises is the first strategic priority of the IFRC’s Strategy 2030, which stresses the urgent need to massively scale-up climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, in view of increasing disasters and climate-related impacts on vulnerable people. Early warning and early/anticipatory action are acknowledged as a critical component of this work. Anticipatory action is increasingly recognized as a key solution to reduce the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events, these actions help organizations and people build resilience to future shocks by better understanding trends and highlighting the need to embed risk information for short-term shocks that informs long-term adaptation.

The Risk and Vulnerability Analyst provides strategic direction and supports Network action to reduce disaster risks and the impact of climate extremes by promoting and enhancing tools and approaches to analyse and disaster risks and country/community vulnerabilities, hence supporting increased anticipation (such as through forecast-based early action), mainstreaming risk and resilience across the risk reduction-preparedness-response-recovery cycle and promoting a focus on community resilience, especially in a changing climate and urbanising world. 
 
The R&V Analyst will be part of the Preparedness & Response unit within the Health, Disaster, Crisis and Climate department, and will more closely work with the Anticipatory action team.

Job Purpose

To provide a timely and reliable service to the IFRC Africa office through the development and maintenance of an effective risk information, analysis and alerting system for the IFRC Regional Office and Delegations. Specifically, the Risk & Vulnerability Analyst is accountable for the further development and maintenance of IFRC’s risk assessment and action planning, development of systems and tools which promote risk-informed action and managing partnerships with academic and technical partners to enhance digital risk analysis capacities. 
The R&V Analyst will also support the development of climate models and supporting the development of climate models and triggers for early warning and early action. The R&V analyst will support vulnerability capacity assessments at community level, to better tailor actions as per the existing vulnerabilities and coping capacities.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

Expand IFRC’s risk assessment and action planning, through:

• Set-up a system to identify and analyse risks with the Africa Region (seasonal and imminent)
• Strengthening the connection between community-, national- and global risk data/analysis (e.g. EVCA, national FbF (Forecast-based Financing) mapping and global INFORM WARNING) through enhancement of systems and risk data
• Supporting the training and roll out of eVCA tools across the region
• Integration of risk analysis, early warning and forecasting into National Society capacity strengthening initiatives, in particular Preparedness for Effective Response (PER) and DREF/Forecast based Action (FbA).
• Support the development of Climate models and triggers for early warning and early action
• review of Forecast-based Action EAPs, advising specifically around the use of risk data;
• Contribute to and advise the learning and feedback process for Forecast-based Action plans and implementation;
• Support the R&V team in effectively managing risk information generated through IFRC activities: Forecast based Action, Flood Resilience, Enhanced Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment, RoadMap to Community Resilience, etc.

Enhance the inclusion of risk and early warning capacities on the GO Platform:

• Support the development of the GO (phase 4) module for risk and early warning;
• Support the implementation of a system for collating and presenting existing hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity information (including simple mapping) based on Enhanced Vulnerability and Capacity Assessments, resilience measurements and other risk indices and relevant products/documents;
• Regularly maintain and update risk-related data sets for the country and region
• Maintain the implementation of the historic crisis databank, to include relevant data on seasonal risks, such as meteorological hazards, political events, historical crisis trends etc;

Development and maintenance of academic partnerships to enhance IFRC risk analysis capacities:

• Work with academic partners to develop research themes and projects to address humanitarian challenges;
• Engage with the Africa Union Continental Risk Watch, to cross-share risks, streamline systems and extend support

Collaboration with D&C colleagues:

• Work in close collaboration with the Information Management Team in Geneva on the overall workflow and use of risk data through GO platform and related analytical frameworks created by the IFRC;
• Work in close collaboration with R&V team in Geneva, in particular the two Resilience Coordinators, the FbF Senior Officer, Flood Resilience Senior Officer and Climate Change Coordinator.

Education

• Relevant post-graduate university degree in Disaster Risk Management or equivalent qualification. Required
• Basic Delegates Training Course (BTC), WORC, IMPACT or equivalent knowledge. Required

Experience

• At least 5 years of international experience in humanitarian sector technical level related to Disaster Risk Management programming, institutional preparedness capacity strengthening initiatives, emergency response operations or EWEA systems. Required
• Experience in developing emergency response plans, DREF applications or anticipatory action plans. Preferred
• Experience working with Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies. Preferred
• Experience working for a humanitarian or development organization in the Africa region. Preferred
• Good understanding of the IFRC policies, system, and procedures. Required
• Experience in coordinating with multiple stakeholders, including authorities and other humanitarian actors. Required
• Experience managing projects including programmatic and financial aspects. Required

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

• Excellent communication and facilitation skills. Required
• Well-organized, with very good planning and time management skills. Required
• Self-supporting in computers (MS Office, , spread sheets, word-processing, data analytics, presentations, etc.). Required
• Fluent spoken and written English. Required
• Good command of another IFRC official language (French). Preferred

Competencies, Values and Comments

• Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability.
• Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust.
• Functional competencies: Strategic orientation; Building alliances; Leadership; Empowering others.