Country Director - Jordan

Overview:
War Child UK works with children whose lives are affected by conflict and who live with a
combination of poverty, exclusion and insecurity. This includes children who have been
displaced by armed conflict, street children, child headed households, children conscripted
into armed groups, and children in conflict with the law. Our mission is to support and improve
the care and protection of vulnerable children whose lives have been disrupted by conflict.
We look forward to a world in which the lives of children are no longer torn apart by war.
War Child UK has worked in Jordan since early 2013 working with partners to support
improvements in child protection and education, and is registered with the Ministry of Social
Development. Our programmes are focussed on the needs of children and their families who
have been displaced from the conflict in Syria, both in refugee camp and host community
settings. As the war in Syria enters its sixth year, the prolonged humanitarian crisis shows
no sign of abating. War Child has scaled up its programmes over the past two years, and we
now have a staff team of over 60 in Jordan, with 5 local partners, a 2017 budget of almost £2
million, and a projected reach of up to 20,000 children, young people and their caregivers.
Purpose of Post:
We are recruiting a new Country Director to lead the team, build the programme and continue
the strong focus on innovation, advocacy and quality. The programme works with donors such
as the IKEA Foundation and is pursuing innovative programme interventions around tablet
War Child
Job Description & Person Specification
based learning and Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD). We have a close
funding and programme relationship with our sister agency War Child Holland, and our new
CD will participate in the journey to combine the two agencies’ international programmes under
one global structure.
You will have experience of leading and motivating teams in unstable environments, excellent
knowledge of regional politics and development trends, and a strong track record in resource
mobilisation and effectively managing organisational growth whilst ensuring programme
quality. You will demonstrate experience of building programmes with a focus on
accountability, and evidence of connecting programmes to wider advocacy agendas. Our CD
will represent War Child at the highest levels with donors, national authorities and agency
counterparts.
Key Responsibilities:
• Team leadership: Lead the SMT, building a culture of shared responsibility. Ensure team
wellbeing and effective performance management
• Representation: Ensure effective high level networking, profile and representation with
local and national authorities, donors and peer agencies.
• Partner liaison: Work with national partners to achieve shared programme objectives
and build strong and accountable partnerships
• Financial Management: Ensure rigorous financial and administrative management:
supply UK Finance Department with grant management and expenditure information in an
accurate manner on a monthly basis.
• Security Management: Effectively manage all staff security within the guidelines of
security SOPs.
• Child Safeguarding: Ensuring compliance by all staff and partners with WCUK’s Child
Protection Policy and providing training to staff and partner staff when needed.
• Programme Development: Participatory programme planning and development, in line
with WCUK’s organizational strategy and programme quality vison, as well as
development of new proposals and liaising with in-country donors.
• Grant Management, and Donor Compliance: Ensure timely quality reporting to donors
and compliance with donor requirements.
• Reporting: Ensure adherence to organisational requirements, including child
safeguarding policy, minimum standards for quality programme cycle management and
regular programme reporting.
• Fundraising: Contribute to efforts to identify and secure in-country funding from Jordan
based donors, and providing Programme Development Coordinators with the information
necessary to help develop proposals and report to donors, in line with donor schedules.
Provide final country level approval of concept papers, proposals and budgets.
A) JOB SPECIFICATION: TASK AND RESPONSIBILITES:
Programme Oversight and Risk Management
• Ensure the complete monthly functioning of the Senior Management Team in order to
regularly review and mitigate programmatic, financial, security and HR risks, and make
high level decisions. Utilise the structure as an effective management tool. Share SMT
notes and updates risk registers with the London team.
• Oversee the (re)development of the Jordan strategy, working closely with the Head of
Programmes to ensure it is a transparent and bottom up approach to strategy
development.
• Support the WCUK team in Jordan to implement programmes as per grants
requirements and compliance, delivering and reporting of projects on time, on budget
and to the required standard
• Ensure capacity building initiatives are built into projects working with local partner
organisations, and ensure learning and best practice is shared and developed. This
will evolve to include partnership management and transferred learning
• Respond to any issues affecting the effective implementation of programmes in the
field, as requested by the Head of Programmes.
• Develop, in consultation with the Head of Programmes and the local programme team,
a national advocacy strategy to draw grass-roots participation in projects with national
and international lobbying coordinated in the UK
• Oversee internal and external evaluations of WCUK projects in Jordan, using these as
opportunities to elicit and document achievements, challenges, learning and
opportunities
Programme Development, Programme Quality and Fundraising
• Ensure that a culture of learning, accountability and technical standards supports the
continual improvement of programme quality
• Provide high level inputs into time frames and budgets as well as development of new
concept papers and liaison with in-country donors
• Undertake programme planning and development in line with WCUK’s organisational
strategy
• Mobilise the support of government, NGO and community stakeholders, including
development of fundraising strategies in country with submission of proposals that
have to be signed-off by the London office
• Work closely with the Head of Programmes, to develop and implement programmes in
consultation with all staff and stakeholders, in line with the Programmes Directorate
strategy, programme cycle management, country plan, and in accordance with War
Child’s Programme Quality vision
• Support the Head of Programmes and Programme Funding Coordinator (Asia/Middle
East) as required with input and information to assist with writing donor proposals, on
time and to the required standard.
• Sign off and submit concept notes ensuring compliance with donor requirements and
synergy with strategic outputs
• Review and approve narrative and financial donor reports in a timely manner with
feedback from Operations Team in the UK and sign-off from the Programmes Director
• Negotiate grants and partnership agreements with in-country donors
• Input into the ‘Go/No-Go’ process linked to funding opportunities, to ensure
opportunities align to War Child’s organisational strategy
• Maintain strong oversight of budget costs to ensure they are realistic and provide good
coverage against staffing gaps.
Partner liaison
• Work with the Programmes and HR team to ensure effective management and support
to local partners.
• Lead on the management of compliance and child safeguarding related issues with
partners.
• Work proactively to build relationships with War Child Holland and War Child Canada
colleagues, including but not limited to, the WCH Research team, Innovation team,
and the WCC Country Director in Amman.
Financial Management
• Comply fully with War Child’s finance policies and procedures and provide the Finance
Directorate (HQ, London) with financial requests and expenditure information reports
in an accurate manner on a monthly basis. Ensure final approval of all BVAs prior to
submission and be fully engaged with monthly BVA meetings to maintain strong
oversight of spend rates.
• Ensure all expenditure is authorised and in line with the programme and project
budgets.
• Maintain strong oversight of unrestricted budget allocations and expenditure, raising
any potential gaps above the annual unrestricted allowance to the Programmes
Director, with reasoning.
• Ensure full compliance to donor standards; in particular, ensure time writing is
effectively implemented across the organisation to ensure accurate charging of staff
time on grants.
• Work with the Finance team to ensure supporting documentation for all financial
transactions is according to WCUK internal rules and donor regulations.
Security Management
• Responsible for ensuring compliance of security protocols within the team, and
maintain oversight of the country-security context at the tactical level
• Report and record incidents to the UK-based Security Coordinator in liaison with the
Logistics + Security Manager in country.
• Update at least annually and/or whenever appropriate, security and evacuation plans
in liaison with the UK-based Security Coordinator and Jordan-based Logistics and
Security Manager.
• Ensure all national staff and visiting staff comply fully with WCUK’s security policy and
procedures. Act as the primary security focal point during visits. Security is nonnegotiable
and overrides programme considerations.
Child Safeguarding
• Responsible for managing organisational child safeguarding within the Jordan
Programme, including ensuring observance of child safeguarding guidelines by the
local team
• Comply fully with WCUK’s Child Safeguarding Policy.
• Report all child safeguarding incidents to the Programmes Director and Child
Protection Officer (HQ, London), linking with the child safeguarding focal point in the
Jordan office.
• Ensure, through the HR Manager, that all new staff are provided with induction training
on WCUK’s Child Safeguarding policy and procedures, and sign the Child
Safeguarding policy. Ensure all staff receive annual refresher training on WCUK’s
Child Safeguarding policy and procedures
Grant Management, Reporting and Donor Compliance
• Provide final sign off on donor narrative and financial reports and ensure timely
submission of reports to HQ for review, and finally to the donor.
• Facilitate visits to project sites by donor representatives and other War Child
representatives.
• Fully communicate deadlines on all projects to ensure roles and responsibilities of
team members from different departments are clear ahead of reporting deadlines.
• Maintain regular contact with the Head of Programmes to jointly review risks related to
donor compliance and effective grant management. Jointly develop mitigation
strategies.
• Ensure adherence to organisational requirements, including regular programme
reporting.
• Record quarterly reach figures for each project to submit to Programmes
Director/MEAL counterparts.
Communication and Representation
• Represent the organisation to key donors, diplomats, multilateral organisations,
journalists and visitors.
• Act as the high level focal point with Ministry officials predominantly Ministry of
Education and Ministry of Social development representatives. Ensure effective
negotiation and resolution of key challenges related to implementing programmes in
partnership with government agencies.
• Ensure full participation on a monthly basis in the Jordan INGO Forum, of which WCUK
is a member.
• Represent WCUK in external network meetings, to donors and government officials.
• Provide interviews and articles representing WCUK’s work in Jordan, as requested.
• Circulate and inform staff of WCUK’s communications strategy and external
messaging.
Human Resources and Team Management
• Be overall responsible for the implementation of HR policies and procedures in Jordan
and ensure they comply with WCUK’s HR policies and practices.
• Develop and update HR and other related policies as required
• Lead on the development of the organisational structure in Jordan as required, in
liaison with the UK HR team and Programmes colleagues.
• Engage fully with staff initiatives, surveys and reviews. Work with external consultants
as required when working on salary scale reviews and other initiatives.
• Line management of team of diverse local staff and expatriate staff conducting regular
supervision and support. This will include local and distance management of
geographically separate teams and overseeing the management of relationships with
local partner organisations.
• Maintain learning and competency development amongst staff and partners through
identification of individual learning objectives, institution of regular training
programmes and competencies assessments.
• Lead the recruitment and orientation of new local and international staff members.
• Conduct/oversee all annual appraisals and quarterly supervision of all staff working
under the Jordan programme.
• Work with the HR Manager to address HR issues including but not limited to staff
underperformance, cases of gross misconduct and legal challenges.
• Ensure, through the HR Manager, all HR policies and practices are in line with local
labour laws.
B) PERSON SPECIFICATION – ESSENTIAL CRITERIA:
The Programmes Team is looking for a dynamic team builder who can engage the staff and
partners to build protective environments for children. He or she must have strong programme
management skills and can lead a team in a challenging operational environment.
Experience:
• Significant experience of managing:
- Child protection, education and livelihoods projects
- Combining direct service delivery, capacity building, and advocacy
- Through direct implementation and partnerships with state and non-state actors
- In conflict-affected countries
• Team leadership and management
• The ability to think and manage strategically
• Rigorous budget expenditure management
• Sound knowledge of participatory approaches
• Research and development
• Development and management of partnerships with state and non-state actors
• Capacity building state and non-state actors
• Security management
• Risk management
• Excellent IT skills
• Demonstrable successful track record in securing funding from institutional donors and
grant reporting
• Grant management and reporting – experience of working on EC funded projects
would be an advantage
• Setting up monitoring and evaluation systems, including the use of logical frameworks
Education:
• Master’s Degree in Humanitarian Studies, International Development, Social Work,
Psychology or related fields.
Legal:
• Eligible to work in Jordan and travel to the countries in which War Child operates.
• Clean driver’s license
Competencies (Soft Skills):
• Proactive
• Excellent analytical skills with a systematic approach and an eye for detail
• An effective problem solver
• Measured and responsive
• A self-starter
• A good listener and thoughtful with excellent interpersonal skills
• Sensitive to the diverse needs of a diverse team, while being able to take effective
decisions and negotiate commitment to them in the face of disagreement
• Ability to be administratively self-sufficient and work in challenging operational
environment and a small, dynamic organisation with limited resources
• Effective negotiator and diplomatic
• Transparent and accountable
• Willingness and ability to travel to War Child country programmes
• Commitment to War Child’s aims, values and mission
• Proficiency in Arabic is desirable.
Desirable Criteria:
• Experience and knowledge of working on projects assisting survivors of sexual
violence
• Experience of working in Jordan or related country
• Experience in the delivery and supervision of child protection or GBV projects in conflict
and post conflict environments
C) CONTRACT TERMS
Working Hours: 37.5 hours per week over 5 days (full-time)
Probation: 6 months
Start date: 10 July 2017
Travel: Within Jordan as required, occasional visits to region and UK.
Salary: £47,696 – £51,923 per annum (dependent on experience);
Plus 40 USD (Per Diem/Daily living allowance) when in country of post
Leave: 30 days per annum pro rata
Pension: Contribution to private pension of 5% of gross salary
Other: As defined in standard War Child contract terms
Application process
• Download the War Child application form from https://www.warchild.org.uk/who-we-are.
All applications must reach recruitment@warchild.org.uk by 10 May 2017. Please note
CVs will not be accepted.
• Due to limited resources, War Child HR will contact only the shortlisted candidates
• First round interviews will be held on w/c 22 May 2017.
• Any offer made will be conditional on receipt of 3 favourable written references, (from your
most recent employer, any other previous employer and a character reference). War Child
reserves the right to call the referees, in case clarification is required post the receipt of
complete reference forms.
• The successful applicant will be expected to undergo a DBS Police check and/or
international police check, a medical check for overseas travel purposes, be compliant and
sign up to War Child’s Child Safeguarding Policy prior to a final offer being made.