About the role: This is a 24 month, new role based in Nairobi Kenya.  The role provides support to the Regional Director in all aspects of the work but with specific focus on the programmes functions in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.  The role will involve approximately 30% travel to programme locations in the region. 

You will report to the Regional Director, Horn of Africa and work closely with the Country Directors (CD), Programme Directors (PD), Country Financial Controllers (CFC) and Operations Directors (OD); and relevant departments in Dublin. 

Your purpose: You will be deputising for the Regional Director Horn of Africa as required and responsible for providing support to the countries in the region in the management of programme functions and resource mobilisation.  You will provide support remotely and in-country when on visits to the Country Directors and Programme Directors.  You will ensure appropriate systems are in place to facilitate learning and knowledge development.

You will be responsible for:

Strategic programmatic support to country teams

• Advise, guide, and provide substantive inputs to the formulation of relevant, high quality, results-based country programmes and projects;
• Prepare policy documents, briefs and other strategic papers/materials for use in the development and presentation of a coherent regional strategy;
• Working closely with the emergency directorate, strengthen the region's readiness to respond to new emergencies in line with the organisation’s emergency response and preparedness guidelines.
• Serve as a member of the Regional Office (RO) senior management team.

 Programme oversight and monitoring of the projects/programmes in the region

• Provide support to the country programs’ Programme Directors.
• Provide leadership to increase cross country programmes’ coordination, collaboration, communication and harmonization of programming.
• Drive coordination between programmes and operations and across sectors, with the objective of improving the quality of programs and impact on the programme participants. 
• Manage and monitor the development of systems, processes and mechanisms to support effective programme planning, implementation, monitoring and timely progress reporting;
• Oversee the implementation of regional programmes;
• Lead the monitoring of progress on mutually agreed results frameworks and performance indicators and timely action/decision and/or provide timely support; Identify areas that may require improvement and capture best practices/lessons learned;
• Ensure partners (local and international) are integrated into program design, implementation and evaluations at a country and regional level.
• Manage the timely allocation of funds to regional programmes/initiatives. Monitor and ensure the appropriate utilization of resources approved and allocated to regional programmes and projects;
• Review and evaluate proposals submitted to the RO and finalize donor proposals and reports. 

Strategic partnership building and resource mobilization support to the Regional Director

• Provide strategic support to the development of regional resource mobilization efforts to the RO and country-level offices as necessary;
• Review donor reports from country-level offices for quality assurance and compliance; with commitment met and accountability framework established and to ensure that donors are duly informed on a timely basis.
• Remain abreast of ongoing humanitarian and development response and funding trends in the region and the country and provide regular updates on these trends and analysis of how they may affect programming.

 Knowledge management and capacity building efforts

• Ensure regular assessments of regional and country strategic and implementation plans. Identify lessons learned and areas of emphasis to guide programme improvements and future strategic development plan;
• Manage the process of collecting and sharing lessons learned to build knowledge and capacity of partners and stakeholders;
• Design and implement capacity building training activities to enhance skills and knowledge in Results Based Management, results based budgeting, and systematic quality assurance.

Other

• Any other related duties as assigned by the Regional Director
• Provide gap-filling support to country programmes particularly at the CMT level
• Contribute to organisational accountability initiatives
• Adhere fully to the commitments and rules of Concern’s Programme Participant Protection Policy and Code of Conduct (P4 and CoC), including the respect of confidentiality.

Skills and Experience Required:

Essential:

• Masters in development/management or equivalent
• A minimum of 10 years in a developing country with at least 5 years’ experience in a senior management role in a substantially complex country programme.
• Emergency, development and advocacy experience
• Programming and resource mobilisation experience
• Strong management, analytical financial and communication skills
• Strategic thinking
• Ability to lead and work in a team
• Flexibility – willingness to travel, sometimes at short notice.
• Empathy with organisational goals

All applications should be submitted through our website at https://jobs.concern.net by closing date. CV’s should be no more than 4 pages in length. 

Due to the urgency of this position, applications will be short listed on a regular basis and we may offer posts before the closing date.

Concern Worldwide is an Irish-based non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries. 

Concern has an organizational Code of Conduct (CCoC) with three Associated Policies; the Programme Participant Protection Policy (P4), the Child Safeguarding Policy and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy accessible here. These have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organization, and the standards of behavior expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organization to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Concern Staff Code of Conduct and Associated Policies as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the content of both the Concern Code of Conduct and the Associated Policies and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these policies. Additionally, Concern is committed to the safeguarding and protection of vulnerable adults and children in our work. We will do everything possible to ensure that only those who are suitable to work or volunteer with vulnerable adults and children are recruited by us for such roles. Subsequently, working or volunteering with Concern is subject to a range of vetting checks, including criminal background checking. 

Your Personal Data 

During this job application, you will provide Concern with your personal data. Concern takes its responsibilities towards this personal data very seriously and is committed to complying with all relevant data protection legislation. 

For additional information please consult our web site or contact the Human Resource Division in our Head Office. 

You have certain rights under data protection legislation. For more information on how to exercise those rights please visit www.concern.net/about/privacy 

Concern Worldwide is an Irish-based non-governmental, international, humanitarian organisation dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of extreme poverty in the world’s poorest countries.