Regional Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) Technical Adviser at Save the Children

ROLE PURPOSE:

• An experienced Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) Technical Advisor to provide remote and in-country expertise to support design and implementation of CVA programmes so they are appropriate, timely, accountable to beneficiaries, donor-compliant and cost-effective, across the region. The Regional CVA advisor will use their in-depth contextual understanding, technical and operational expertise, and relationship building skills to provide a critical link between Save the Children’s global and country level technical work while supporting response planning, quality program implementation, preparedness, and advocacy. The role will contribute to building CVA capacity and fostering networks across country office staff. The role supports regional CVA advocacy and influencing and contributes to strategic partnerships and relationships (with donors at Regional level) for new business development. It provides input into the design and implementation of monitoring and evaluation systems to demonstrate impact, while sharing learning across country offices, and ensuring quality of our programmes. The position will work closely with both internal and external Cash and Markets Technical Working Groups to ensure global and country office experts are collaborating and sharing learning, best practices, and working towards a comprehensive and unified strategic approach to CVA for child outcomes.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

& Technical Leadership:

• Develop and monitor the implementation of a regional CVA strategy and action plan in consultation with TAs in Child Poverty and other thematic areas (for a range of “Cash Plus” opportunities to support child outcomes across our breakthroughs), and country offices.
• Support recruitment, onboarding and capacity building of Country Office (CO) CVA experts in the region; identify top talents and facilitate opportunities for learning.
• Influence and support CO PDQ TEs on objective modality selection as part of the wider adoption of a cash plus approach across all SCI programming in the Region.
• Facilitate cross-country learning between CVA experts in the region, and participate in cross-country learning with other regions; identify creative ways to share learning, best practices and collectively address challenges, feeding back to the SCI Global Cash Team;
• Support regional technical experts in other sectors to understand and contextualise global cash & market guidance for their thematic area, learning and evidence and ensure that learning from the region informs our global evidence, technical standards, and strategic direction in CVA for child outcomes, as well as in Child Sensitive Social Protection.
• Support CO preparedness for cash programming, and compliance with CTP Operations Manual and SCI Policies and Procedures. Ensure that all country programmes have completed cash transfer feasibility and risk assessments (and support in the completion of these assessments).
• Working closely with the SCI Global CVA Team and SCI Humanitarian Preparedness teams, support the identification and implementation of CVA preparedness activities in prioritised countries (e.g. standard operating procedures, framework agreements, feasibility & risk analysis), regularly tracking their preparedness rating and proactively engaging with new COs. When needed, support the design and review of country Emergency Preparedness Plans and Contingency plans on CVA aspects.

Programme Quality in Design & Implementation:

• Provide in-country surge support and remote backstopping as needed for all prioritised emergency responses in the region.
• Support COs with the design, proposal development and donor engagement for key strategic programmes and opportunities.
• Support CO in their implementation and monitoring of key strategic programmes, to ensure high quality delivery, monitoring and evaluation. Work with SC member staff to meet donor compliance and quality standards. Ensure that gender, disability and resilience considerations are reflected in our programme design and implementation.
• Promote a Market Systems Strengthening approach as the overarching framework, that supports working in collaboration and partnership with governments and regional bodies, working towards impact, scale and sustainability.
• Oversee the design, implementation and monitoring of regional Cash & Market-based programmes; ensure that sectoral and internal technical best practice (including Save the Children’s Common Approaches) is applied in collaboration with relevant Country Office technical colleagues.
• Explore innovative opportunities and trends which could be applied in CVA-based programming in the region and support country offices to pilot, and document, new or updated tools and guidance, especially with a focus on gender, disability, and resilience.
• Work with Child Rights Governance colleagues to ensure that a rights based approach is reflected in our programme design and implementation (in line with ourchild rights programming approach), with a strong focus on child participation
• Respond to requests for technical expertise from Country Offices in the region where possible/appropriate through Save the Children’s flexible Technical Expertise systems (e.g. Global Humanitarian Surge Platform; TE Request platform), and identify support from others for key regional technical needs.
• Support Emergency preparedness, recovery, and where appropriate response, including country office capability building for humanitarian response, emergency preparedness planning.
• Provide oversight of regional CVA projects to ensure their quality and compliance (e.g. ensuring appropriate design and risk management processes, performing spot checks etc)

Engagement:

• In collaboration with the Regional Resource Mobilisation team, contribute to regional strategic partnerships; identify partners and donors to strengthen our CVA portfolio in the region and maintain an overview of CVA best practices and coordination mechanisms
• In collaboration with Advocacy colleagues, influence key regional stakeholders and policy-makers to ensure they reflect the needs of children in the countries where we work, such as the Regional Cash Working Group; Regional CaLP Office; Regional Clusters, especially the Nutrition Cluster, the Education Cluster, the Food Security Cluster and others; Collaborative Cash Delivery platforms that may exist in the region.
• Represent Save the Children at regional and national-level coordination bodies that exist, such as CaLP, Cash Working Groups, or others as relevant.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Master’s degree in economics, international development, public administration, agriculture and food security, or equivalent experience.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• At least 5 years’ experience of working internationally in Cash & Voucher Assistance in emergency and/or development settings, for a broad range of institutional donors and sectors
• Understanding of Cash & Voucher Assistance in East and Southern Africa, especially in humanitarian crises
• Experience with various cash and voucher assistance modalities, such as multi-purpose cash assistance (MPCA), sector specific cash, labelled cash, and the Cash Plus concept
• Experience in working with and providing technical guidance on different cash delivery mechanisms in various contexts, including very remote areas and fragile contexts
• Experience in procurement and negotiation with Financial Service providers for cash delivery mechanism, to ensure value for money for cash programming.
• Management experience of operational aspects of cash and voucher interventions
• Experience in the introduction of internal controls systems to support cash and vouchers delivery in the areas of financial management, logistics, security and programme delivery
• Demonstrable understanding of CVA MEAL Tools, digital beneficiary data management systems, accountability, and learning
• Familiar with the CaLP program quality toolbox, Sphere Standards, market tools such as RAM, MSMA, MARKit, and other industry market assessment and analysis tools, standards and best practices
• Significant experience in CVA training, capacity building, and mentoring
• Experience of context, capacity and policy analysis, and influencing and advocacy at regional/international level in order to hold duty bearers to account to realise children’s rights.
• Skilled at networking, representation and partnership development in order promote learning, strengthen civil society and mobilise resources.
• Able to generate and use data and evidence to innovate, deliver, learn and share what works and what doesn’t work for children
• Experience of promoting quality and impact through at least one cross-cutting area: gender equality and inclusion, adaptive and safer programming; child rights; disability; migration and displacement.
• Demonstrated program design, monitoring and evaluation skills, including designing pathways to sustainable impact at scale.
• Experience of supporting humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery
• Track record in successful business development/fundraising, donor engagement, and understanding if key donor policies and guidelines on CVA, especially with ECHO, FCDO(DFID), USAID/BHA (OFDA/FFP previously), UN (WFP, UNICEF, OCHA)
• Experience of strategy development and planning