Desired start date: ASAP
Duration of the mission: 12 months
Location: Maiduguri with regular field visits when allowed
ABOUT THE MISSION
Since August 2016, Solidarités International (SI) has been working in North East Nigeria, mainly in Borno. The current political and military crisis has affected millions of lives in Nigeria and SI is answering the needs of displaced populations and host communities in Borno State. The targeted areas of intervention are WASH, shelter, logistics, RRM, food security and livelihood, through the current implementation of 6 programs.
This mission has potential to continue developing relevant and mandate-based interventions to cover the needs in the area and to ensure a humanitarian impact. The teams are well staffed with very diverse profiles, and there are some positions on turnover.
Here are the key numbers about the mission:
- 5 bases (Maiduguri, Dikwa, Ngala and Monguno) plus Coordination Office in Maiduguri.
- The number of expatriates is around 20
- The national staff are approximately 200
- The total budget of the mission is around 9 million euros
ABOUT THE JOB
In close collaboration with the Country Director (CD), the DCD’s prime objectives are to provide leadership and management of the strategic programming, overseeing the strengthening of SI’s program development, quality and accountability. The DCD ensures the internal coherence between program activities and is responsible for ensuring that programs are driven by needs, based on evidence, adaptable to contextual changes and conflict sensitive, monitored closely and resourced appropriately.
The DCD is part of SI Senior Management Team, the head of office of the program coordination office in Maiduguri, and has direct line-management of the Technical Coordinators (WaSH, Cholera Task Force, FSL and MEAL), Grant Manager and Emergency team.
Main Responsibilities:
- Strategic Development
- Program Development & Quality Management
- Institutional knowledge building
- Donor, Grant, Relationship management and external representation
- Head of Office Maiduguri – Human Resources, Finance and Logistics
- Staff Performance Management and Development
ORG CHART POSITION (reporting and functional relationships)
Line manager: Country Director
Line report(s): Technical Coordinators, Grant Manager, Emergency team
Functional manager: HQ Desk Manager and team
Functional report(s): Field coordinators
Main challenges for the position
This position has an extreme potential in terms of leading the development and impact creation for a relatively wide portfolio of activities, which has a strong principled program positioning in the context where SI operates. The opportunity to keep developing the mission programming towards increased sustainability, innovation and inclusion oriented approaches make the role fascinating and very challenging. At the same time, the continuously changing context and heavy workload as the mission grows and stabilizes present challenges to be addressed in practical and result-oriented ways.
In this sense, we are looking for a strong leader and manager, experienced and highly proficient in program management, innovative solution-finding, strategical analysis and external coordination/representation.
THE MAIN CHALLENGES
- Strategic Direction: Collaborate with the CD to develop a program strategy and related processes consistent with the association’s policies and population’s needs.
- Project Implementation: the DCD has to follow up programs team and monitor the activities to make sure they are implementing it on time. He is continuously in direct contact with the technical coordinators, the emergency PM and the field teams.
- Quality Follow-up: the DCD is in charge of ensuring and improving the quality of all activities with the support of the MEAL team and the technical department (WASH / FSL).
- Partnerships: the mission is working with many partners such as ALIMA, PUI, ACTED, REACH, INTERSOS and TDH. The coordination of these actors must be closely monitored and improved., Exploration of news strategic or innovative partnership should also be ensured.
- Representation: A regular participation in coordination meetings must also be ensured as well as external representation with the donors and local authorities.
- Reporting and proposal writing: the DCD is supervising the the Grants manager regarding the reporting to donors. S/he is the one responsible for the strategic direction of proposals and will support the development of the proposals in coordination with the Grants Manager.
- Structuration and internal coordination: The mission is young and has grown rapidly. In order to improve its structuration and considering the strategic position of the DCD, he/she has to ensure that all departments are communicating well and evolving together in the same direction. He/she will be in charge of the internal coordination mechanisms and processes implementation.
- Security: the volatile security context can reduce the access to the areas of implementation, which can sometimes causes delays. Furthermore, the regular clashes between the different stakeholders of the conflict are causing important movements of population. Thus, the programs, and more globally the mission, should show a strong adaptation and reactivity capacity.
- Contractors: SI’s activities are requiring strong technical skills and heavy machinery (borehole drillings). Thus, SI has to rely on contractors to conduct those works, and the DCD with the programs and support teams should closely monitored the contractors.
- Lack of coordination: the several organizations active on the field are not coordinating enough, which has an impact on the implementation of the activities.
- Management: the DCD has the direct management of six staffs: a grants manager, a WASH Coordinator, a MEAL Coordinator, an Emergency team, a FSL coordinator and the Cholera Task Force Coordinator. As functional manager of the program team at base level, the DCD should have regular exchanges with the Program managers, without overlapping the Field Coordinators.
- Communication channels: both the operational base and the coordination team are located in Maiduguri. It will be important to ensure that communication schemes are in place and that there is no confusion between base and coordination (decision-making, roles and responsibilities).
YOUR PROFILE
Qualifications :
- Masters’ degree or equivalent in related sectors
- Previous experience in similar senior positions, in terms of program volume and responsibilities
- Previous experiences in emergency contexts and high volatile environments
- Previous experiences in strategy and programming
- Ability to delegate, and at the same time, to follow up several projects in several areas.
- Ability to set up and orientate coordination mechanism in an operational way
- Strong leadership and ability to inspire and bring together various profiles, as well as management capacity
- Previous experiences in managing a consortium and strong partnerships with other NGOs.
- Strong interpersonal and communication skills;
- Strong organizational capacities;
- Ability to prior tasks and manage a large scope of work
- Ability to work rapidly under short deadlines
- Pro-activeness and autonomy
- Proven writing and spoken English are required;
SI WILL OFFER YOU
A salaried post: according to experience from 2640 euros gross per month (2400 base salary + 10% annual leave).
Per Diem: 600 USD / month.
Social and medical cover: Expatriates benefit from an insurance package which reimburses all healthcare expenses (including medical and surgical expenses, dental care and ophthalmological expenses, repatriation) and a welfare system including war risks. Essential vaccination and antimalarial treatment costs are refunded.
Vacation: During the assignment, a system of alternation between work and time off is implemented at the rate of one break every three months. Our policy was just modified: from now on, Solidarités offers you 7 working days ever three months, with a 850 USD allowance for each break. In addition to these regular break, SI adds a day off per worked month. These days off as well as the breaks are not deducted from the paid leaves that are paid every months with your salary as they are offered by the organization.
Living conditions
The DCD will be based in Maiduguri. He/she is living in a single bedroom with bathroom. The number of expatriates living in the guesthouse is quite high and various in terms of nationality: this is a chance but also requires adaptability and open-mindedness.
The DCD will travel regularly to areas of interventions. He/she has to respect the security measures in place, like curfew time and SI restrictions/rules. The environment is highly volatile, so he/she has to adapt him/herself to sudden changes.
More Information
- Job City Nigeria
