Jobs

Current Vacancy in Christian International Relief and Development Agency for a Disaster Response Manager

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Tearfund is a Christian international relief and development agency working globally to end poverty and injustice, and to restore dignity and hope in some of the world's poorest communities. We have a vision to see 50 million people released from material and spiritual poverty through a worldwide network of 100,000 local churches.
We operate in more than fifty countries around the world. We deliver our strategy by:

• Envisioning churches to embrace their calling to address poverty and injustice
• Developing communities and building resilience, sustainably and holistically
• Changing unjust policies and practices to deliver justice for poor communities
• Enabling communities affected by disaster and conflict to recover quickly and be better equipped to face future hazards.
• We are committed to developing experts who are inspired, resourceful, courageous, compassionate and equipped. If you are interested in working with us, take time to look around our website and discover more about our unique organisation.

Job Title: Disaster Response Manager - Nigeria Response

Location: Nigeria
Responsible to: Country Rep for Nigeria
Duration: 1 Year contract

Job Overview
The Nigeria Response Manager is responsible for overseeing Tearfund's response to the conflict in the North East and central parts of Nigeria through support to partners. The manager will support and accompany partners in carrying out the work as agreed according to Tearfund policy and strategy and quality standards. The manager together with partners will represent Tearfund s at national level coordinating with other agencies and Government.

The Country Representative for Nigeria remains responsible for the overall relationship with each individual agreed Partner, and for the allocation and disbursement of the budget.

Position in Organisation

• Reports to the Country Representative for Nigeria.
• Represents Tearfund's work in the Nigerian conflict response both within Tearfund, and to external bodies.
• Represents and advocates with and on behalf of Tearfund and partners with external networks and
• governmental bodies on related response issues within the region.

Organizational Requirements

1.) Spiritual leadership of staff:

• To set Christian standards in the working environment and to lead by example.
• To lead or participate in spiritual sessions of prayer and biblical reflection with staff.
• To be committed to actively working and living in accordance with Tearfund's Mission, Values and Christian beliefs.
• Maintain own spiritual development and relationship with God, for example through individual prayer and reflection days.

2.) Dimensions and Limits of Authority:
Has responsibility to facilitate all aspects of Tearfund's involvement in the Nigerian response.
Programme including:

• Managing the aspect of Tearfund's relationships with partner organisations that relate to the Nigeria Response.
• In Coordination with the CR, providing support to Tearfund's external communications, such as by gathering stories, sharing prayer requests, responding to media and communications requests, and acting as the conduit between regional activity and UK-based communications teams.
• Helping coordinate with the UK Support staff including the Regional Head, HST and Media Team.
• Managing organisational risk in the Programme within the agreed corporate risk strategy.
• Providing support to partners for Safety and Security Management within affected locations and advising the Country Rep on security matters relating to the response.
• In conjunction with the Country Rep, hosting and coordinating visits to the programme from Tearfund staff.
• Managing quality control of programming though identification of suitable projects, assessment of project proposals, monitoring of project implementation, evaluation and promotion of quality standards and building the capacity of partner organisations.
• Provide support to partners in order to build capacity in disaster management.
• Recommending partner grants and other funding to the Country Rep for approval. Funding decisions will be made in accordance with Tearfund's International Programme Management System (IPMS),and must be in accordance with the agreed Response Budget, which is owned by the Country Representative of Nigeria.
• Responsible for managing any Institutional funding, including allocation, planning and reporting, with support from the Nigeria Projects Officer.
• Acting as Tearfund's primary contact person for the Programme in relation to internal communications.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Planning & Implementation:

• Jointly with the UK support staff and Country Rep, provides support where needed on the Nigeria response strategy.
• Regularly reviews, and if appropriate, suggests revisions to the Nigeria response budget to outwork the strategy.
• Monitors emerging socio-economic and political developments and emerging humanitarian situations.
• Develops relationships with in-region donors and actively seeks funding together with partners for Tearfund and its partners, in line with the Nigeria Response Strategy.

Management of Partnership and Project Portfolios:

• Works closely with the Tearfund partners in working in response to the conflict to achieve the objectives in their project proposals and as part of the Nigeria Response Strategy.
• Coordinates the partner work, ensuring that proposals and reports are of sufficient quality and meet the required standards.
• Lead on the humanitarian coordination and capacity development of the partners.

Capacity Building and Quality Control:

• Identifies with the leadership of partner organisations and Country Representative, the humanitarian capacity building initiatives required by partners for support and design and implement a capacity building process to address this.
• Reviews all requests for support and provides an appropriate response, including, where relevant, advice on how to strengthen a proposal to comply with Tearfund's Quality Standards and fit within the priorities of the Nigeria Response Strategy.
• Provides technical support, training, mentoring and advice, or arranges for such support to be provided, to partners to ensure compliance with Tearfund's Quality Standards and the requirements of relevant Institutional donors.
• Mentors and advises partner organisational staff (management, finance, logistics, and human resource) in order to ensure good practice and quality implementation and compliance with donor requirements.
• In particular financial and logistics management.
• Advises on the need for the recruitment of in-region-based staff, including staff seconded to partner organisations, and manages such staff.
• Negotiates and contracts consultants and resource providers in accordance with Tearfund's policies and procedures.
• Ensures that partner programmes are assessed through regular monitoring, quality control and evaluation and making appropriate recommendations.
• Provides training and awareness for partner staff on donor contract conditions and ensure implementation of such conditions and compliance.

Project Monitoring:

• Undertakes regular participatory monitoring visits to the partners projects to ensure adequate progress against action plans and objectives.
• Ensure all partners have systems in place to measure indicators as detailed in the proposal and logframe.
• Coordinate with partner staff and the relevant UK support staff to produce the required quality and timely donor reports.
• In liaison with the partners facilitate any internal and external project reviews.
• In consultation with the partners finance managers and Tearfund Finance staff, monitor the project expenditure and encourage partners to achieve planned expenditure rates and sufficient organisational cash-flows.

Representation, Networking and Advocacy:

• Responsible for establishing a relationship with the leadership of partner organisations that is marked by openness, intimacy and trust.
• Liaises with sector specialists (LIAS and HST) to develop and support contextually appropriate programming.
• Ensures effective communication with Integral agencies on the response.
• Ensures the collection of prayer requests and their dissemination within Tearfund.
• Ensures coordination between the Programme and Tearfund's global work on the 4 outcomes
• Hosts and coordinates visits by Tearfund staff members and others as and when requested by the Deputy Head.
• Ensures effective representation of the response programme within the Country work.
• Ensures effective representation of the response programme within the Region, with other agencies, Government and local communities.
• Ensures the regular collection and communication of stories to be used in Tearfund's internal and external communications, including press releases, website, TearTimes, and Tearnet.

Resource Management:

• Manages the Institutional funded and Tearfund funding projects, including overseeing the preparation of plans and reports through coordination with the partners, attending meetings and participating in teleconferences.
• Provides overall management responsibility for institutional donor contracts that are administered in-Region.
• Allocates, manages and reports on the annual budget for the Programme.
• Responsible for regular monitoring of partner work and reporting to Country Representative and UK Support Staff against agreed outcomes.
• The Disaster Response Manager will be supported in the preparation of relevant documentation by UK Support Staff.
• In conjunction with partners, develops quality concept notes and proposals, and prepares reports, including supporting documentation, for submission to Tearfund and any other donors.

Knowledge and Learning:

• Ensures Tearfund teams (in particular Supporter-facing teams) are informed on Programme issues and programming
• Actively promotes the capturing of learning from the Programme, and ensures that learning is used effectively in country and transferred to the wider organisation
• Coordination of learning between partners to support improved quality.

Leadership, Staff and Office Management:

• Leads, supervises, performance manages and supports specified staff working in the response for Tearfund, if any
• Defining the required Programme team composition and structure in accordance with the Response Budget, Tearfund HR policies and procedures, and undertake required selection, recruitment and induction for support posts, where appropriate

Security:

• Responsible for supporting Safety and Security Management of partners and advising on protocol to improve safety of partner staff.
• Responsible for monitoring partner security protocols and advising on improvements in coordination with the UK based International Safety Coordinator.
• Responsible for own security unless delegated any security management by the CR.

Qualification

• A Degree or equivalent in Emergency, Development, Management Studies or related subjects (Essential).
• Post-graduate qualification in Development and/or Management (Desirable)
• Qualification in a health related field (Desirable)

Experience
Substantial proven ability in:

• Designing and managing humanitarian and emergency relief activities (Essential).
• Strategic planning and thinking (Essential).
• Project management (Essential).
• Proven ability of organisational development (Desirable)
• Proven ability in inspiring, mobilising and equipping local churches to be engaged in integral mission (Desirable)
• Proven ability in financial risk management (Desirable)
• Participation in national and local advocacy forums and initiatives (Desirable)
• Proven ability in managing an office (Desirable)
• Proven experience in Disaster (Desirable)
• Capacity development of local NGOs and/or churches (Essential).
• Budget development and management (Essential).
• Monitoring and evaluation (Essential).
• Working alongside local churches (Essential).
• Successfully securing institutional funding (Essential).
• Some proven ability in managing a team of people (Essential).
• Mentoring and coaching (Essential).
• Experience in health work (Desirable)
• Risk Reduction and resilience programming security management in insecure environments (Desirable)

Skills and Abilities

• Fluent and competent in written and spoken English (Essential).
• Ability to develop strategies to influence public policy and undertake local and national advocacy initiatives (Desirable)
• Presentation skills (Desirable)
• Awareness of gender and development issues (Desirable)
• Strong IT skills (Desirable)
• Proven ability to gain respect of CEOs of partner organisations, institutional donors and government representatives (Essential).
• Very good interpersonal and negotiation skills (Essential).
• Ability to work with children or vulnerable people in an appropriate and safe manner in accordance with the Tearfund Child Protection Policy (Essential).
• Understanding of effective church mobilisation approaches (Essential).
• Understanding of the key concepts and tools of Disaster Risk Reduction (Desirable)

Personal Qualities

• Committed Christian (Essential)
• Demonstrates strong commitment to Integral Mission (Essential)
• Ability to demonstrate an interest and involvement in issues of justice, compassion and mercy (Essential)
• Creative and innovative approach to work (Essential)
• Flexible and adaptable (Essential)
• Ability to remain calm under pressure (Essential)
• Ability and commitment to apply biblical principles prayerfully within all aspects of the role (Essential)
• Team player (Essential)
• Understanding of and interest in international affairs (Desirable)
• Self-disciplined with ability to work proactively, using own initiative (Essential)
• Ability to work effectively in a remote line management relationship, sharing information and seeking guidance where appropriate (Essential)
• Willingness to travel and live in basic conditions (Essential)
• Demonstrates sensitivity and skills in cross cultural communication (Essential)
• A commitment to Tearfund's ten-year (Essential)
• Vision and its Mission, Values and Beliefs Statement (Essential)

Remuneration  £32,441


How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Click here to download Job Description (PDF)

Application Deadline  30th April, 2015.

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