Country Director

Addis Ababa

Organization: DRC - Danish Refugee Council
Location: Addis Ababa
Grade: Senior level - Senior
Occupational Groups:
- Project and Programme Management
- Managerial positions
Closing Date: Closed

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is an independent, non-profit organization (NGO), founded on the basis of humanitarian principles, and human rights based approach, to secure the protection of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and to promoting long term solutions to the problems of forced displacement.

Background

DRC has been providing relief and development services in the Horn of Africa since 1997. Using a human rights framework, the DRC East Africa and Yemen (EAY) operation focuses mainly on people who are affected by displacement, including refugees, internally displaced, and migrants in Djibouti, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Yemen. The EAY Regional office also supports non-operational initiatives, focusing on mixed migration issues, civil society engagement, and advocacy and policy initiatives related to displacement.

The Ethiopia/Djibouti operation falls under the EAY Regional Office based in Nairobi. There are currently over 200 national and 13 international staff working in 12 programme offices across both countries. Current programme sectors include protection, food security, WASH, shelter and NFI, livelihoods, and resilience. DRC Ethiopia also hosts the newly established Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat (ReDSS) unit and plays a key role in the INGO coordination of the refugee response in the country.

Purpose

DRC strives to be the leading displacement focused INGO in Ethiopia and Djibouti in terms of relevance, impact and quality. Current focus is both emergency programming to address critical needs resulting from conflict, as well as an increased pursuance for recovery programming, durable solutions and sustainable livelihood strategies for the displaced population while building better strategic, programmatic and operational coherence and synergy across Ethiopia and Djibouti.

In close collaboration with the Regional Director; along with DRC and DDG regional staff; CD colleagues and senior programme staff and technical experts, the incumbent’s prime objectives will be to provide leadership and strategic management to maintain DRCs position as a leading INGO in Ethiopia and Djibouti on protection of displaced populations, promotion of durable solutions, oversee the strengthening of DRC’s programme development, quality and accountability framework and be a pro-active partner in the wider regional strategic and programme development process.

The CD supervises the senior management team for Ethiopia and Djibouti including the DRC Head of Programmes, the Head of Support Services, and Area Managers. A close working relationship will be maintained with the regional senior management team. The CD Ethiopia-Djibouti reports to the Regional Director.

Key Responsibilities

Direct managerial oversight and support:

Ensure that the SMT and PMs have clear and realistic performance based management goals. Tasks include:

Direct line management of SMT, Consortium Managers, and country wide programme support team;
Support PMs to establish good management support for their teams;
Provide on-going support and coaching, and ensure that staff has the necessary capacity to fulfil their responsibilities.

Programme Strategy:

To develop and update the Ethiopia and Djibouti programme strategy, within DRC/DDG’s overall regional and global strategic frameworks. Tasks include:

Keeping abreast key conflict and displacement trends in the region impacting the two countries;
Identifying key developments and trends in refugee response in countries and position the organisation to best deal with these
Ensure that the key regional and global frameworks are contextualised and applied in the country program context and ensure that staff understand these,
Leading a consultative process for local strategy development,
Leading the Ethiopia and Djibouti annual programme portfolio analyses,
Playing a key role in fundraising and donor contract management.

Quality and Accountability:

To be responsible for ensuring that programmes comply with the organisational quality and accountability commitments. Tasks include:

Ensure that the Operations and Programme Handbooks are utilized throughout all offices,
Lead process of developing and updating the local Humanitarian Accountability Framework and Quality Management System,
Promote accountability concepts and practices.

Safety and Security:

To hold overall responsibility for ensuring that DRC’s Ethiopia and Djibouti programme is delivered in a safe and secure manner. Tasks include:

Working with DRC’s Regional Security Advisor and country safety specialists to ensure that all EAY security management protocols and procedures are updated, made locally relevant and applied consistently,
To be overall responsible for ensuring security analyses is being done collectively and regularly,
Ensuring compliance with risk mitigation against corruption, fraud and diversion.

Representation, Coordination and Stakeholder management:

To ensure that DRC/DDG maintains excellent and productive relations with all key stakeholders, especially beneficiaries, local authorities, the humanitarian community and donors. Tasks include:

Representing DRC/DDG at relevant and senior forums/ meetings,
Ensuring other staff are appropriately representing DRC/DDG at relevant forums/ meetings,
Maintaining agreed profile of DRC/DDG at country level,
Conducting regular stakeholder analyses to ensure that DRC/DDG has good understanding of dynamics/ relationships,
Engaging in, and where effective, leading coordination processes amongst key stakeholders.

Advocacy and communication:

To lead the Ethiopia and Djibouti team’s advocacy in all DRC/DDG key messages. Tasks include:

With Regional Office to prepare and implement an advocacy and communication strategy,
Guiding staff to advocate clearly, appropriately and strategically.

Financial accountability:

Ensure that the different programmes deliver financial accountability. Tasks include:

Playing an active and coordinating role in linking finance teams with the Regional finance teams, and financial management itself,
Ensuring that financial systems are followed by FOs and that financial reports submitted are accurate,
Ensuring the finance and programme teams have a productive engagement.

About you

To be successful in this role, we expect you to be a positive, mature leader with a proven track record of developing effective initiatives, programmes, and impact. You thrive in managing a wide range of responsibilities, and can effectively communicate and lead the country team. You are an effective people manager and enjoy working with teams of committed staff to build collaboration and capacity within the Ethiopia and Djibouti programmes and building strong relationships with the regional team.

In this position, you are expected to demonstrate each of DRC’ five core competencies:

Striving for excellence: You focus on reaching results through the country team both to position DRC and ensure excellence in all deliverables.
Collaborating: You lead initiatives at country operation level by involving relevant parties and encouraging feedback.
Taking the lead: You take ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.
Communicating: You listen to beneficiaries, staff and other stakeholders; and you communicate concisely and persuasively
Demonstrating integrity: You act in line with DRC’s vision and values and set a very clear standard for your country team members.

Moreover, we also expect the following:

Qualifications

Essential:

A Master’s degree in a relevant field
Five years management experience, as head or senior member of humanitarian or development programme/organisation
Significant experience with conflict related displacement issues
Good communicator and proven diplomacy with all types of stakeholders
Proven commitment to accountable practices and knowledgeable of quality assurance systems
Hands on experience in managing staff in insecure locations and strong human resource management skills in general.
Experience of managing budgets and multiple donor contracts
Experience in donor contact, fundraising and networking.
Fluency in spoken and written English required; proficiency in French is an advantage

Preferable:

Experienced with conflict related displacement issues
Experience of humanitarian advocacy

DRC encourages all qualified candidates to apply, irrespective of nationality, race, gender or age.

Conditions

Availability: 1 July 2018

Duty station: Addis Ababa with frequent travel to programme locations within Ethiopia and Djibouti

Duration: Two years with possibility of extension, subject to funding.

Contract: This is an accompanied post. Salary, benefits and other conditions are offered in accordance with DRC’s Terms of Employment for Expatriates at Grade A6; please refer to www.drc.ngo under Vacancies. For national candidates, competitive salary and benefits are offered in accordance with the Ethiopia and Djibouti National staff salary scale and terms of employment.

Further information

For more information about the position, please contact the Regional Director, Ms Heather Amstutz Ferrao at h.amstutz@drceay.org . For general information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult www.drc.dk.

Commitments

DRC has a Humanitarian Accountability Framework, outlining its global accountability commitments. All staff are required to contribute to the achievement of this framework.

Application

Qualified candidates are invited to access the full job description and the requirements for this position under vacancies at www.drc.ngo. Please submit applications online using this link by 28 May 2018.

Only motivated applications that address the stipulated duties and meet the required qualifications, sent together with a CV, will be considered. CV-only applications will not be considered and email applications sent directly to Ms Heather Amstutz will not be considered.

If you have questions or are facing problems with the online application process, please contact job@drc.dk

This vacancy is now closed.
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