Country Programme Manager

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a leading protection agency with a mandate is to promote and protect durable solutions to conflict and displacement affected populations on the basis of humanitarian principles and human rights. DRC is implementing a multi-sector response to support Ukraine refugees, IDPs and host populations both within Ukraine and in the neighboring countries of Poland, Romania and Moldova and wider Europe.  

DRC has been operating in Ukraine since 2014, following previous operations in the 1990’s and between 2007-2013. Over the years, DRC successfully maintained its presence in the government-controlled areas (GCA) and adapted its programmes to provide early recovery and durable solutions to people affected by the conflict including IDPs and communities living along the contact line, as well as reduce the threats of explosive ordnance with a growing humanitarian mine action programme.

Due to the ongoing conflict that began in Feb 22, DRC opened offices in Poland, Moldova and Romania to provide support to displaced populations through partnership with civil society organizations and national NGOs, duty bearers and other actors.  DRC continues to implement in these three countries through partnerships, technical assistance and capacity exchange, and direct implementation in some cases.   

Overall Purpose of the Role:

Reporting to the Country Director for Poland, Moldova and Romania, the Country Programme Manager’s prime objectives will be to manage the implementation of the country programme in Poland.

Your main responsibilities will be:

Program Management

• Programme management, ensuring that SoPs and implementation plans are developed, budgets and timelines are supervised and kept, results achieved, and reporting requirements are met.
• Liaise with the DRC partners and monitor the implementation of the DRC funded project activities.
• Overall responsibility for the financial viability of the operation.
• Ensure effective monitoring, evaluation and documentation of all activities and processes, and that the analysis of data collected (at various levels) is proactively used to inform activity changes to improve program quality.
• Ensure the development and implementation of all activities in line with Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) and DRC program policies especially gender, age, ethnic background, and disability.
• Seek funding opportunities to scale up and/or expand activities working closely with the protection, CD, PMR Head of Program and relevant technical specialists. This includes identifying and undertaking assessments as well as writing concept notes and proposals.
• Closely coordinate with the senior management team ensuring regular information flows.
• Conduct regular monitoring visits to all field offices.

Technical Program

• Engage strategically with all technical sectors and provide management and strategic input/oversight for all sectors of intervention.

• Oversee and provide strategic support to protection and programme teams.

Representation and Relations

• Represent DRC with the regional/local governments, state and municipality stakeholders, institutional donors, UN bodies and non-government organizations as required and in relevant for a related to the coordination of the Polish response.

• Represent DRC in the coordination of the response and keep the Country team updated.

• Ensure appropriate DRC staff members attend the ad hoc and regular coordination meetings, clusters, technical working groups as applicable to DRCs program and work in the country.

• Engage with all relevant stakeholders regularly, including local/refugee leadership, local/regional governmental bodies, donors, and partners.

• Ensure accurate and on time reporting internally and externally, including contributing to external donor reports and other required reporting.

Programme Development

• Lead the process of adapting DRC national strategy to the local context and circumstances.

• Provide regular analysis on the context and humanitarian situation in the area for the development of project proposals and safety assessments in cooperation with the Head of Programme.

Team Management

• Manage DRC Poland’s office in Warsaw, as well as all field offices in other areas of Poland.
• Lead regular staff and management meetings at Poland level and ensuring inter-department co-ordination.
• Manage direct reports to agreed job priorities and identify learning and development needs for program and support staff, under your direct and indirect supervision. Bring human resource/staff management issues to the Country Director for decisions.
• Ensure that DRCs code of conduct, reporting mechanism and complaint response mechanisms are well understood by staff and other stakeholders and are well functioning at the field level.
• With team leaders, coordinators, and officers to manage budgets; ensuring effective,efficient use of resources including financial, human and all assets.
• Ensure that program teams work closely with the support team to apply DRC policies and procedures in finance, procurement and logistics including effective planning weekly, monthly and quarterly.
• Ensure overall dissemination of and adherence to DRC policies, procedures, guidelines, systems and standard practices
• Overall responsibility for ensuring adherence to agreed security protocols, recommending changes to security protocols and delivering the agreed security action plan.

About You

To be successful in this position, we expect you to have a minimum of 7-10 years’ relevant experience in relevant field overseeing humanitarian and development multi-sector, multi-donor programmes- in complex environments. Moreover, we expect the following:

• A University level degree in relevant subject or relevant technical qualification.
• At least 2-3 years’ experience in managing humanitarian programmes at international level.
• Demonstrated, strong experience in team management and capacity building and training of staff and target groups.
• Proven experience working in complex emergency contexts, including provision of technical advice to field teams and programme development.
• Excellent planning, management and coordination skills, with the ability to organise a substantial workload comprised of complex, diverse tasks and responsibilities and to delegate.
• Practical and extensive financial, human resources and administration management.
• Excellent communication skills in English, including ability to present complex technical information in a simple way.
• Ability to understand and integrate protection issues.
• Detailed knowledge of humanitarian principles, guidelines and standards.
• Full professional proficiency in English. Polish/Ukrainian/Russian language skills will be considered an advantage.

All DRC roles require the post-holder to master DRC’s core competencies:

• Striving for excellence: Focusing on reaching results while ensuring efficient processes.
• Collaborating: Involving relevant parties and encouraging feedback.
• Taking the lead: Taking ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.
• Communicating: Listening and speaking effectively and honestly.
• Demonstrating integrity: Upholding and promoting the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct in relation to DRC’s values and Code of Conduct, including safeguarding against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

We Offer

Contract length:12 months (with the possibility of extension depending on funding)

Band: Managerial, E

Duty base: Warsaw

Base Salary Range: from 26800 to 28157 PLN gross per month, depending on experience 

Start date: April 2023

We offer a competitive salary and benefits in accordance with the Danish Refugee Council’s Terms of Employment for National Staff.  

Application Process

All applicants must upload a cover letter and an updated CV in English. Applications sent by email will not be considered. 

Closing date for applications:March 29th, 2023

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and we, therefore, encourage you to apply as soon as possible. 

For further information about the Danish Refugee Council, please consult our website drc.ngo.