Background
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world's largest humanitarian organization, with 192 member National Societies. As part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, our work is guided by seven fundamental principles; humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.
Organizational Context
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest volunteer-based humanitarian network. The Federation is a membership organization established by and comprised of its 192 member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Along with National Societies and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises. IFRC’s work is guided by seven fundamental principles (humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality), policies and by Strategy 2020, which voices our collective vision and determination to move forward in tackling the major challenges that confront humanity in the present decade. The IFRC Secretariat has a decentralized structure: five regional offices (each with several CCST and country offices reporting to it) covering the globe and responsible for frontline delivery through National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, backed by the Secretariat HQ based in Geneva. The MENA regional office based in Beirut; Lebanon supports 17 national societies in the region. The MENA Disaster and Crisis prevention, response and recovery (DCPRR) unit within the MENA regional office and works with one regional plan as well as provides the technical support & quality assurance to country cluster support teams and country offices. The MENA DCPRR unit has articulated its alignment with the IFRC global 4 Strategies for Implementation and the relevant Areas of Focus.
Job Purpose
As part of the MENA DCPRR unit and under the overall guidance and leadership of the Head of DCPRR, the operations coordinator will support the MENA Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies through IFRC’s Country Cluster Support Team (CCST) and IFRC country offices to ensure innovative, high quality, timely and coherent localized responses well-coordinated with the RCRC Movement partners.
Key to the position will be providing support to CCSTs/COs and NSs in the management of the ongoing emergency response, ensuring close coordination with Movement actors, coordinating actions amongst different Units within the IFRC at the
regional- and sub-regional-levels, and contributing to strengthening the capacities of NS’ throughout the implementation of the response operation phase. The Regional post-holder will closely coordinate with all leads of Areas of Focus and technical specialized units such as Health and Care, Logistics, Partnership and Resource Mobilization (PRD), Communications, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting (PMER) among other units. Due to the COVID-19 movement restrictions, this position will start remotely until travel is permitted.
S/He will be expected to deploy to assist the CCSTs/COs and national societies with:
• Development of Emergency Appeals, plans of action, assessment and other gaps as identified by RC/RC leadership in-country
• In some cases, S/He could be deployed in a specifically requested position within the RC/RC structure emergency response personnel
Inherent to the role is the need for flexibility, the ability to travel, and willingness to work in multiple contexts with different stakeholders. The delegate must be able to deploy at a short notice for significant periods of time travelling to remote and potentially unstable areas.
Job Duties and Responsibilities
Provide support in strengthening the operation’s coordination and management:
• Provide thought leadership, innovation and strategic direction in COVID-19 response and recovery programming.
• Lead the operational strategy to develop approaches which strengthen and develop the National Society’s structures, capacity and performance; analyze and understand their current strengths and challenges and ensure the provision of necessary technical and material support particularly in relation to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
• Work with IFRC technical leads to ensure they work closely with the focal points of relevant NSs’ departments in all related operational roles and responsibilities, providing advice and recommendations that carefully consider local capacities and context.
• Initiate, plan and mobilise IFRC-wide resources in support of assessment, planning, and implementation of the MENA NSs’ response operations.
• Promote and support innovative response options in coordination with relevant global and regional peers
• Capture the learning and knowledge from operations and integrate them into future response and recovery programming.
• Maintain an overview of all operations in designated countries, analyse trends and propose adaptations in preparedness, response and recovery approaches
• Ensure for and design integrated operational strategies considering movement partners’ respective capacities to ensure that all components of the response are co-created, planned and carried out in a coordinated, collaborative and integrated manner
• Lead the processes related to the Emergency Appeal/DREFs, including plan of action revisions, and make recommendations on the scope and content of plans of action (EPoA) in line with standard operating procedures;
• Ensure rigorous monitoring and management of budgets to all Federation-assisted operations ensuring compliance with IFRC finance procedures and that expenditure is within the income and approved ceilings and within donors earmarking requirements. This includes identifying problems and solutions in a timely and effective manner.
• Ensure timely activation of the rapid response mechanism including the deployment of needed human resources in close coordination with the rapid response focal point/s,
• Network and coordinate with Red Cross Red Crescent Movement partners, governments, NGOs, UN agencies, private sector and others.
• Represent the Federation Secretariat on operational briefings in internal and external fora and establish effective working relationships with key organizations and institutions.
• Develop and share regular information updates and strategic briefings as required on operational trends, innovations and emerging best practices.
• Working closely with Finance, and Risk Management, Security and Logistics ensure that effective risk monitoring is ongoing within the operation and communicating risk monitoring and controls to respective CCSTs/COs.
Support to the quality operational assurance and standards of emergency operations:
• Lead the support on the revision national societies domestic plan of action narrative and budget to enhance operational information and reflect integrated programming and accountable impact across all technical areas as appropriate.
• Coordinate the development of response norms, principles and standards and support the dissemination, monitoring and evaluation of the adherence to these standards.
• Overall monitoring and follow up with CCSTs/COs on the emergency plan of action implementations, a timely extension of operations and trends in financial spending rates.
• Integrate Preparedness for Effective Response (PER) approach into response operations.
• Contribute to the overall planning, budgeting and reporting of the EPoA and EA and the DCPRR Unit.
• Champion high-quality accounting standards and ensure transparency and compliance with relevant policy and procedures.
Contribute to an effective, high-quality IFRC team:
• Provide progress reports on results against objectives and risk analyses as required.
• Work with PMER leads in IFRC and the NSs to ensure that planning and reporting requirements are met in a timely and efficient manner.
• Ensure effective use of operation’s monitoring tools, operations status tracking system and tools and ensure adherence of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of assigned operations, develop operations risk registers and support implementation of operational risk mitigation measures.
• Contribute to a client-oriented approach that values proactivity, continuous improvement, innovation, high performance and cost-effectiveness.
• Foster a collaborative working environment with movement colleagues (at all levels) and with host national Societies’ counterparts and external partners.
• Be available to deploy to CCSTs/COs or Operations to provide support as necessary.
Education
• University degree in a relevant area or equivalent experience required-**Required**
• Technical training in disaster policy, preparedness, response, and recovery-**Required**
Experience
• 7 years’ experience in international disaster response and recovery
• operations-**Required**
• Field experience with RC/RC with special attention to complex and protracted crises and settings-**Required**
• Experience in project cycle management including proposal development, budgeting and reporting, monitoring and evaluation -**Required**
• Experience in working to enhance the capacity of local partner organizations-Required
• Experience in establishing and following monitoring systems to track-**Required**
• progress of implementation-**Required**
• Experience in narrative and financial reporting and proposal writing-**Required**
• Experience in the MENA region-**Preferred**
Knowledge, skills and languages
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills and independent decision-making capacity-**Required**
- Results-oriented and demand-driven individual, entrepreneurial, ability to lead in unprecedented and/or ambiguous situations.-**Required**
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to represent the International Federation and to negotiate and influence people’s opinions-**Required**
- Knowledge of technical aspects of disaster preparedness, relief and recovery and of key donor and partner organisations -**Required**
- Knowledge of minimum standards for disaster relief and performance and accountability frameworks-**Preferred**
- Ability to lead a complex or major disaster operation if required-P**referred**
- Flexible and adaptable to work effectively in a multicultural environment and ability to travel at short notice--**Required**
Languages
-Fluently spoken and written English
-Good command of another IFRC official language (French or Arabic)
Competencies and values
-Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability
-Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and Teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust
-Functional competencies: Strategic orientation; Building alliances; Leadership; Empowering others
How to apply:
For those who are interested in this position, the application is only accepted through the following link:
https://www.ifrc.org/en/who-we-are/working-with-us/current-vacancies/job-description/?id=52575
Any application sent by email or applied by any other means will not be considered.