Roving Operations Manager - Africa. at Norwegian Red Cross

Job Details

As a member of the Disaster and Crisis team in Africa, the Roving Operations Manager will strengthen the region’s work in providing operational leadership when launching a new operation or when a crucial need for operational management is needed by ensuring a physical presence at and deployment within 48 hours to various crisis locations. The Roving Operations Manager will deploy to operational epi-centres as much as 75% FTE to promote a holistic and integrated approach to disaster management through the provision of timely and high-quality management on the field. Specifically, the Roving Operations Manager will be based in Nairobi within the D&C Team. S/He can be deployed within 48 hours of any request to provide first-phase strategic leadership and coordination in various cases of emergency and operations led by the IFRC. Individual deployments will be up to three months and shall not exceed seven to eight months a year. Subject to confirmation of funding, the Roving Ops Manager will supervise and direct the deployment of two Junior Roving Ops Managers. In “peace time” the function contributes to the Africa efforts to build operational management skills through training but also remote coaching to existing Operations Manager based on the field.

Main responsibilities:

• Upon deployment, and as tasked through terms of reference, assume responsibility for leading the operation on behalf of the IFRC in the affected country, ensuring appropriate links with IFRC structure, especially within Africa Region.
• Act as the link between the affected National Society (NS) requiring assistance and the support mechanisms offered by the IFRC regional and global structure to ensure efficient use of Movement resources in responding to an emergency.
• Develop, with the NS, and communicate a clear plan of action and operational strategy for the emergency response with clear, measurable objectives, ensuring that this is appropriate to the humanitarian needs, makes optimal use of RC/RC capacities and is properly aligned with the strategies of other actors and the UN clusters.
• In close collaboration with the NS, oversee all aspects of the emergency operations, including operational planning, the writing of Emergency Plan of Action for DREF and appeals, financial management, performance management and reporting;
• Ensure the maintenance of existing processes and effective working relationships for the coordination and collaboration with Country Office (CO) or Country Cluster Support Team (CCST), the Regional Office and Global technical units.
• Ensure the implementation of the EPoA and related activities in a timely, effective and efficient fashion.
• Coordinate the request for the deployment of international disaster response tools and other human resources in coordination with the field; Define the required Support Services for the operation to ensure that appropriate HR, Admin and Finance systems are in place and resourced.
• Ensure that the NS response is appropriate and aligned with the SPHERE guidelines, the Better Programming Initiative (BPI) and other Federation polices and strategies (e.g. Strategy 2020, Code of Conduct, Principles and Rules for Disaster Relief, Seville agreement etc.).
• Ensure good coordination at country level with the National Society as well as with the ICRC and the PNS in country. Promote when relevant the set-up of Movement Cooperation framework to ease this coordination at field level.

Qualifications, skills and competencies we are looking for:

Education (required):

• Relevant university degree or extensive professional experience in related field or professional qualification in operations management.
• Relevant degree in project management and DM.
• IMPACT, Basic Delegates Training Course.

Experience (required):

• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in leading and managing operations programs in a humanitarian organization in developing countries and in complex emergencies or similar contexts.
• Good understanding of the humanitarian environment, strong analytical skills and capacity to translate analysis into strategy and planning.
• Good track record of managing people, networking, influencing and negotiating and building relationships effectively.
• Experience in proposal development, report writing, and developing budgets
• Experience of field-based implementation.
• Experience of setting up, managing and coordinating disaster response, including leading multi-national response teams, managing staff.
• Experience of financial management to ensure compliance.
• Experience of report writing (narrative and financial).

Knowledge and skills (required):

• Good knowledge of IT tools and software.
• Coordination and partner relationship building / Excellent skills in networking with other agencies and organisations.
• Demonstrated technical expertise in strategic management, project planning and budgeting, resource management, implementation ability as well as programme monitoring and evaluation.
• Excellent communication and inter-personal skills with the ability to represent the International Federation and to coach, mentor and influence people.
• Knowledge of Red Cross Red Crescent Movement financial and project management tools.
• Skills in training and developing staff capacity (Preferred).
• Good knowledge of the Africa region (Preferred).

Competencies we are looking for:

• National Society relations.
• Strategic orientation – Communication – Teamwork.
• Professionalism – Integrity – Diversity.
• Judgement – Decision making.
• Results focus and accountability.

Languages:

• Fluency in written and spoken English.
• Good command of French is preferred.

We offer:

• A meaningful job in the world's largest humanitarian organization.
• Valuable field experience.
• Salary/benefits according to the Norwegian Red Cross’ salary system and relevant qualifications.

Other:

• Contract period: 18 months starting as soon as possible.
• Family posting: no
• Position involves strong field presence so great mobility required