Area Programme Manager - Syria

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, education, emergency food security, legal assistance, and water,sanitation and hygiene sectors.



The Norwegian Refugee Council has approximately 5000 committed and competent employees involved in projects across four continents. In addition, NRC runs one of the world’s largest standby rosters -NORCAP, with 650 professionals, ready to be deployed on 72 hours notice when a crisis occurs

In the Middle East, NRC has over 3000 staff dedicated to assisting people affected by conflict in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine. Its humanitarian interventions are based upon its programming expertise in the Core Competencies of Shelter, Education, Water and Sanitation Hygiene, Food Security, along with Information Counselling and legal Assistance (ICLA) to forcibly displaced people.  

The Syrian Crisis is well into its eight year, but the level and intensity of conflict in the country remains high.  Humanitarian and protection needs continue to grow inside of Syria as a result of the ongoing conflict and consequent complex emergency situation in which displacement is both massive and widespread.

Position Description:

The Area Programme Manager (APM) is responsible for implementing holistic and needs based programmes and representing NRC at coordination forums, as delegated from Area Manager. The APM is a member of the Area Senior Management Team.

General responsibilities

1. Line management for Core Competencies (CC) Project Manager
2. Compliance and adherence to NRC policies, guidance and procedures
3. Responsible for ensuring programme support to integrated programme, coordination and technical quality in the Area office
4. Provide area specific input relevant for Syria Response Office (SRO) and CC strategies
5. Compliance to donor standards, and grant management and regular reporting to donor in Area, within the SRO grants management structure
6. Identify funding opportunities and develop funding strategy and forecasts
7. Responsible for grants management and BPO allocations in Area
8. Ensure compliance with contractual commitments and extracting and implementing key learnings from project implementation
9. Coordinate emergency responses in Area
10. Ensure a capacity building plan for all technical staff is developed and implemented

Specific responsibilities

• Deputy AM when appointed
• Ensure systems for program quality control, monitoring and evaluation, and approach to identifying and acting on key learning in project implementation
• Contribute to SRO proposal development, identify donor needs / donor challenges, develop area protocol for go / no go decisions on funding opportunities
• Regular conference calls, assist with visits and coordination with Donors and other external stakeholders at the area level, in coordination with the AM
• Contribute to planning and implementation of needs assessments, with CC Specialists, including for new areas of operation 
• Work with CC PMs to develop programmatic strategy for both emergency and transitional/ durable solutions responses (with a focus on returns)
• Responsible for the implementation of the Project Cycle Management (PCM) system
• Oversight of implementation of projects, including targets and budgets, in coordination with all project managers 
• Coordinate with finance department to ensure effective and transparent project progress forecast
• Regular 1:1 meeting with direct line reports and completion of work and development plans for all direct reports.

Additional Information:

Candidates are encouraged to apply early, as applications may be screened prior to the vacancy deadline

Duty Station: Within Syria Response Offices' areas of operation

Duration: 12 months