Vacancies at Action Against Hunger International

Job Summary

As a member of the Action Against Hunger’s Knowledge and Innovation Hub and specific focal point for Program Development and Quality Assurance, the Deputy Hub Director will design day-to-day regional program management system and provide high-quality support services to country offices. S/he will proactively monitor/flag risks in the portfolio and identify actions required to remove bottlenecks to achieve organizational programmatic goals. S/he will also contribute to Action Against Hunger technical strategy within a multi-sectoral approach and will contribute to the overall program development and quality.

Purpose

Provide operational and technical leadership and expertise in program development and quality assurance to support all Action Against Hunger’s programs at the Regional and Country level.

Engagement

Engages with country teams, regional & global specialists and operations department to provide technical support for programming and operations. Participates in relevant national and regional sectors coordination, representation, and communication to amplify Action Against Hunger’s programmes, realize cross-learning opportunities and ensure representation of Action Against Hunger with governments, donors, partners, sister agencies and Action Against Hunger Network on programs-related work; and Manages a multi-disciplinary team of regional technical specialists.

Delivery

Delivers a comprehensive portfolio of regional and country programmes aligned to the global strategy while ensuring resource mobilization, impact measurement and program quality targets are realized; and ensures a robust monitoring, evaluation, accountability and learning system is in place and accurate timely reports are shared across the organization for decision making

Essential Job Duties

Maintain an integrated dashboard and meeting rhythm to monitor strategic alignment of portfolio and grant performance across all the country offices & at the regional level

• Ensure strategic alignment of country programmes, and grants with Action Against Hunger ISP and Action Against Hunger USA strategy, technical framework, and donor strategies.
• Develop a dashboard / online tool to assess program & grant performance at all stages of the life cycle to ensure high-quality and on-time delivery of our work (monitoring, evaluation, learning and impact measurement).
• Coordinate calls for proposals involving several countries.
• Manage coordinated planning, preparation, technical review, submission, and follow-up of high-quality concept note and proposal submissions, in response to donor calls or unsolicited applications.
• Maintain an updated institutional donor database and provide regular and proactive alerts on funding opportunities to countries that align with annual targets and program objectives.
• Maintain a donor-reporting matrix and ensure timely review and submission of high-quality donor reports.
• Coordinate the development of Action Against Hunger s program standards that ensure adherence in project design and implementation.
• Liaise closely with the network to stay informed on programmatic developments within the region.

Develop a system to receive, organize, prioritize, and respond to Country Team requests in a timely and high-quality manner & ensure high quality and timeliness of Regional Technical Team services provided to Country Teams

• Create an online ‘ticketing’ system to capture all request and needs for support from the Regional Team
• Establish a regular working rhythm / review with the Hub Director to assess trade-offs or priorities
• Develop service-level agreements with Country Teams, promising a response within a certain time
• Issue regular ‘feedback’ surveys and implement improvement opportunities as needed to deliver high-quality on-time service to teams
• Monitor trends in requests for support, to identify if systematic / broader changes are needed
• Strengthen monitoring, evaluation and reporting processes and tools that directly support program quality at the local level including supporting design of need assessments, evaluations and documentation priorities that captures key practices and lessons and maximizes the impact of Action Against Hunger’s projects in countries.
• Improve existing program development tools and lead creation of new tools and guides to improve quality of proposal development, reporting, and documentation across the region.
• Advise or advocate for regional training in areas identified as regional/ organizational priorities or based on observed needs of teams.

Deploy staff effectively to respond to country needs, ensuring highest priorities are fully addressed

• Develop a clear set of criteria to prioritize requests and deploy team members
• Develop strong working relationships with Program Directors & their teams
• Identify capacity needs of program staff and facilitate training and professional development opportunities on quality issues (e.g., M&E, project reporting, proposal writing) in close collaboration with the regional team.
• Develop staffing norms for the team (e.g., identify the volume of activity / work that can be handled by each regional specialist, and trigger discussion with the Hub Director about need for new recruitments or process changes when norms are surpassed)

Coordination, representation, and communication

• Actively engage with and coordinate on strategic initiatives and working groups with other relevant internal and external stakeholders
• Collaborate with External Relation (ER) to attract non-institutional funding for country and regional operations
• Represent Action Against Hunger at relevant programmatic meetings at regional level
• Foster alliances and partnerships to further the quality of Action Against Hunger’s intervention in the region with international organizations, donors, academic and policy institutions.

Human Resources - Selection, Placement and Training

• Contribute to the recruitment process of program/technical staff at regional/country level, including job description development and technical selection.
• Ensure induction, briefing and debriefing of relevant Action Against Hunger staff at Regional and country level
• Provide technical feedback about and contribute to performance evaluation of Regional Technical Specialists & Program Directors
• Identify ongoing training needs of Action Against Hunger and if feasible, develop training material and provide capacity building.

Supervisory Responsibilities

• Technical Specialists in Horn and Eastern Africa Regional office (Regional Nutrition & Health, Regional Food Security & Livelihoods Specialist, Regional WASH Specialist, Regional MEAL Specialist and Regional SBC/Gender Specialist).

Working Conditions, Travel and Environment

• Must be available to work and travel outside normal office hours or on the weekends as needed or required.
• Must be able to travel coach fare for standard domestic and international business travel as well as to the country project sites.
• While visiting the field, the employee may be exposed to precarious settings under high security risks and/or very basic living conditions and outside weather conditions, as well as to infectious diseases.
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to sit for long periods and to concentrate on work, including typing, and turn out heavy volumes of work accurately, within short time frames under stressful situations in the context of a moderately noisy office with interruptions.

Gender Equality Commitments

• Foster an environment that reinforces values of women and men, and equal access to information.
• Provide a work environment where women and men must be evaluated and promoted based on their skills and performance.
• Respect beneficiaries’ women, men, children (boys and girls) regardless of gender, sex orientation, disability, religion, race, color, ancestry, national origin, age, or marital status.
• Value and respect all cultures.

Requirements

Qualifications & essential experience

• Minimum Bachelor’s degree in any of our technical areas (Nutrition, Food Security, WASH, SBC, Gender, MEAL) or any other related field.
• A minimum of 5 years previous work in programs overseas with an international humanitarian organization in program management in an NGO sector

Requirements

• Experience working in humanitarian contexts, emergency and post-crisis, in all the steps of the Project Cycle Management;
• Experience with humanitarian coordination mechanisms
• Knowledge of the main humanitarian donors and of their reporting requirements; long term and developmental donors and foundations is an added advantage
• Capacity to write and review complex technical and donor reports
• Good anticipation, adaptation, and planning skills especially in a changing work environment, and good budgeting and grant management skills
• Good working knowledge of computer software, MS Office.
• Motivation to work within the humanitarian sector and to link it to other initiatives (research, external communication, outreach, etc.);
• Ability to manage and prioritize own workload, service mindset with strong problem-solving skills
• Ability to present clear ideas and arguments, providing distance support, training, and influence
• Proactive and taking initiative, autonomous and reliable
• Fluent written and spoken English; Working knowledge of French desirable

Benefits

• Action Against Hunger-USA provides all staff with an attractive salary & benefits package. We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees & qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, ancestry, sexual orientation, national origin, age, handicap, disability, marital status, or status as a veteran. Action Against Hunger-USA complies with all applicable laws governing nondiscrimination in employment.

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Summary of position

The Regional Strategy, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning Advisor plays a key role in Action Against Hunger Horn and East Africa Region by supporting strategy development processes and ensuring consistent design, application and engagement with MEAL systems and initiatives. S/he will lead strategy development and execution and harmonize the MEAL approaches across 8 country offices to ensure efficiency across mission and ensure compliance with Action Against Hunger MEAL minimum standards, guidelines, and procedures. S/he will also ensure data quality by designing MEAL systems, procedures, policies, and MEAL Guidelines to harmonize data across different missions.

Purpose:

• Provide technical oversight to strategy development, execution and performance management across the region – ensuring that investment and programming priorities are aligned with strategy
• Provide technical oversight in the planning, development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of Action Against Hunger HEARO MEAL activities.
• Ensure that MEAL supports
• Provide technical support to the programs and build capacity in the country Mission through harmonizing learning and knowledge sharing.

Engagement

• Engage with technical and operations teams, country program teams, and counterparts in the Action Against Hunger network to strengthen a culture of M&E in the organization and to create a conducive environment for its roll out
• Represent Action Against Hunger USA in relevant internal and external fora and working groups, including the Action Against Hunger MEAL Working Group.

Delivery:

• Standardize strategy development and performance management approaches and tools – ensuring consistency of strategy execution and measurement of progress across ACF USA field operations
• Strengthen country program MEAL systems by rolling out Action Against Hunger’s Multi-Sectorial M&E Guidelines and Minimum Standards; identifying strategic opportunities to generate and use data from MEAL, and improving and maintaining systems to foster the quality of Action Against Hunger HEARO interventions through improved monitoring and evaluation
• Lead roll-out and implementation of Action Against Hunger Multi-Sectorial M&E Guidelines and Minimum Standards at HQ and country level
• Support and oversee application and implementation of MEAL systems in country programs in accordance with the Guidelines, Minimum Standards, and Action Against Hunger global reporting framework.
• Promote active learning and development from Action Against Hunger internal and external MEAL exercises.
• Develop/strengthen a MEAL community of practice (CoP) and use the CoP as platform to promote innovation, share best practices and build staff core competencies in strategy development and MEAL
• Support technical specialists to develop and roll-out sectoral quality assurance tools – ensuring to assure technical quality and consistency of application of ACF core programming approaches
• Promote innovations in MEAL – including technology which enhances MEAL efficiency (achieving the highest possible standards in impact measurement communications.
• Support and oversee all evaluative efforts in the region (including baselines, midterm reviews, endline evaluations) and conducting meta-analysis to inform policy, practice and programming decisions.
• Strength context analysis in country offices – ensuring that ACF gains technical and thought leadership in detection and anticipatory action which significantly contributes towards prevention and mitigation of hunger and malnutrition
• Design and roll-out a comprehensive MEAL and project management training for all ACF field staff
• Lead the implementation of the Core Humanitarian Standards in the Horn and East Africa

Supervisory responsibilities:

• Directly supervises a regional monitoring systems specialist
• Technical supervisory line to MEAL focal in country (via matrix mechanism)

Gender Equality commitments

• Foster an environment that supports values of women and men, and equal access to information.
• Provide a work environment where women and men must be evaluated and promoted based on their skills and performance
• Respect beneficiaries’ women, men, boys and girls regardless of gender, sex orientation, disability, religion, race, color, ancestry, national origin, age or marital status,
• Value and respect all cultures.

Physical demands

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is required to sit for long periods and to concentrate on work, including typing, and turn out heavy volumes of work accurately, within short time frames under stressful situations in the context of a moderately noisy office with many interruptions. Must be able to proofread own work accurately so that only minor corrections are needed on an infrequent basis.

To travel to the field, the employee must attest to a level of physical fitness capable of enduring physically difficult, highly stressful situations which may include the necessity to walk long distances, to eat a limited diet and/or to reside in potentially uncomfortable housing or tents. The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Working Conditions, Travel and Environment

• The duties of the job require regular job attendance at least five days per week. Must be available to work outside normal office hours or on the weekends as required.
• Must be able to travel as required for standard domestic and international business purposes. While performing the duties of this job in the field, the employee may be exposed to precarious settings under high security risks and/or very basic living conditions and outside weather conditions, as well as infectious diseases

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• Graduate degree (Master’s Degree or higher preferred) in M&E, program quality, accountability, project management, socio-economics, statistics, or related field
• A minimum of 10 years’ previous work in strategy and MEAL with a leading international humanitarian organization/development organization (5 of which should be at senior management level at country office and regional office).

Required Skills & Experience

• Significant experience (at least 10 years) in leading strategy development, execution and performance management processes (including landscape analysis, strategy operationalization thru tech approaches/program models, strategy baselining, monitoring and midterm review/end of cycle evaluations)
• Demonstrated experience and/or personal commitment to promoting gender equality within the humanitarian and/or development work
• Experience working in humanitarian contexts, emergency and post-crisis, in all the steps of the Project Cycle Management;
• Experience in a M&E position with an international humanitarian organization (country, region or headquarters);
• Experience with humanitarian coordination mechanisms;
• Excellent knowledge of technical fields related to Monitoring & Evaluation, PQA, project management, data management, knowledge management systems, learning and development;
• Good working knowledge of HAP, Sphere, PIA, information management software, etc.
• Applied research or technical development experience, involvement in the development of guidance and support tools and methodologies;
• Strong experience with mobile data collection technologies, such as ODK, Kobo Toolbox, Commcare.
• Experience with Geographic Information Systems and mapping platforms;
• Experience with Health Information Systems and DHIS preferred;
• Knowledge of the main humanitarian donors and of their reporting requirements; short term and developmental donors and foundations a plus;
• Capacity to write and review complex technical and donor reports;
• Good working knowledge of computer software, MS Office and nutrition related software (EPiInfo, ENA, SPSS, etc.).
• Motivation to work within the humanitarian sector and to link it to other initiatives (research, external communication, outreach, etc.);
• Ability to manage and prioritize own workload;
• Ability to present clear ideas and arguments, providing distance support, training and influence;
• Flexible, adaptable, dynamic and enthusiastic; interest to work with other sectors of the humanitarian scope;
• Proactive