Senior Operations Officer 162 views0 applications

Organizational context (where the job is located in the Organization)

The International Federation and Red Crescent Societies of the Red Cross (IFRC) ‘s Southern Africa Country Cluster office is in Pretoria, South Africa and serves ten countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

In recent years, there has been a growing recognition that strengthening resilience to disasters is not only about disaster management but an essential component of all emergency and development programming. Communities/households with sustainable livelihoods, good levels of health care are less susceptible to hazards and faster to recover. However, it is also important that these development gains are protected from disasters.

The International Federation has made it a priority to ensure that disaster risk reduction is an integral part of its development work and that all its programmes work towards disaster risk reduction in an integrated and mutually supportive way.

This JD summarizes the tasks related to the position of Senior Operations Officer.

Job Purpose

Under the supervision of the IFRC Southern Africa Operations Manager, the Senior Operations Officer will ensure timely, effective and efficient support in disaster risk management activities with National Societies. He/She will work in building national, regional and institutional (including secretariat) disaster and response preparedness capacities to enable them to improve their disaster management programming and be an advocate for IFRC’s Preparedness for Effective Response approach. **

He/She assures ongoing collaboration with all relevant partners in the region in the field of disaster risk management and will also work on further developing these relationships. He/She contributes to the quality improvement of the programme programmes of NS throughout the region. **

The Operations Officer will ensure a symbiotic process of development for the National Society operations management, with the ultimate goal of increasing their readiness, management, governance, and sustainability, eventually building National Societies autonomy on the medium-term. **

Thus, the Operations Officer will be deployed to the field 100% of his/her time in support to National Societies, working on three main objectives:

• Increasing preparedness for effective response (through PER or the Red Ready approach), working with NHQ and Branches to build response capacity prior to disasters, including contingency planning and EWS, forming Rapid Response Teams, Stock Prepositioning, and supply chains; **
• Supporting of timely and high-quality humanitarian response when a disaster strikes, ensuring sound operational management and coordination in the field.
• Support and increase the capacity of National Societies in project/proposal writing and management, including diversifying the donor portfolio and sources of funding in liaison with the PRD department.

Job duties and responsibilities

1. Build capacity and competencies in Southern African National Societies on Disaster Management and support them in becoming relevant partners for Disaster Risk Management in their respective countries.
2. Actively engage the National Societies on the scaling-up of ‘Preparedness for Effective Response’ approach and improving coordination and harmonisation of DRM capacity building approaches.
3. Provision of technical guidance and oversight to the National Societies in establishing preparedness systems, development of standard operating procedures for Forecast Based Financing (FbF) at national and district level and in establishing and managing of FbF partnerships and FbF networking.
4. Facilitate technical guidance for the National Societies on Cash Transfer preparedness and programming in different contexts.
5. Support the National Societies with the process of hazards mapping, development and review of Contingency Plans, SOPs at national and branch levels. **
6. Ensure National Societies are conversant with the various tools and guidelines for disaster risk management, interventions are managed and implemented in accordance with Federation’s strategic programme framework and agreed standards including Red Cross Red Crescent Code of Conduct and Humanitarian Accountability Partnership.
7. Promotes knowledge sharing and best practices among Red Cross Movement Partners and at international meetings and conferences and influences partners in stakeholder consultations.
8. Organize and facilitate training sessions for National Society technical staff and volunteers in various areas of disaster risk management.
9. Participate in relevant meetings with Red Cross Movement partners, Governments, donors, NGOs and UN Agencies co-financing and implementing initiatives for disaster risk management.
10. Strengthening community resilience by contextualising and localising Road Map to Community Resilience guide and ensure resilience approach is integrated across all NS programming areas.
11. Assume responsibility for the quality and timely planning, implementation and reporting of the IFRC support to the NS for the emergency operations;
12. Support the NSs to ensure effective monitoring of emergency operations against the key deliverables and milestones articulated in the response strategy and plan as per systems in place, while serving as link with the PMER officer in Pretoria.
13. Work closely with the NS team to ensure that timely and accurate financial and narrative reports are prepared and are in line with requirements specified in the project agreement or standard Federation reporting guidelines
14. Support NS to liaise with international humanitarian agencies and organisations when appropriate and participate in Inter Agency coordination and other NGO meetings.
15. Perform any other duties as requested by the Supervisor.

Duties applicable to all staff

1. Actively work towards the achievement of the Federation Secretariat’s goals
2. Abide by and work in accordance with the Red Cross and Red Crescent principles
3. Perform any other work-related duties and responsibilities that may be assigned by the line manager

Position Requirements

Education

• Advanced university degree in Development Studies, Project Management, Disaster Management or other relevant field. (Required )
• Professional training in disaster risk management ( Preferred )

Experience

• Experience of working for the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (preferred)
• Five years of relevant experience in the field of disaster risk management (Required)
• At least 2 years of working for a humanitarian aid organisation (Required)
• Experience in facilitating workshops and seminars (Required)
• Experience of planning and managing finances and budgets (Required)

Knowledge and Skills

• Strong and highly developed technical skills in disaster risk management international practices (Required)
• Self-supporting in computers (word processing, spreadsheets, internet and web-based searching etc.) ( Required)
• Solid and tested analytical skills (Required)
• Project management and reporting skills (Required)
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and networking skills (Require )

Languages

• Fluently spoken and written English

Competencies

• Accountability
• National Society Relations
• Teamwork-interpersonal skills
• Integrity and personal conduct
• Professionalism
• Communication Managerial effectiveness
• Initiative and direction
• Flexibility, Patience and adaptability-sensitivity to diversity