Programme Manager Liberia for Swedish Red Cross Full Time

Title: Programme Manager**
Place of assignment:** Monrovia, Liberia **
Type of posting:** International Delegate, non-family posting
Desired starting date: 1st April, 2022 **
Contract period:** 12 months, with the possibility of extension ( donor funding dependent)

Background

The Swedish Red Cross (SRC) is supporting the Liberian National Red Cross Society (LNRCS) in implementing a capacity building project in Liberia. The SRC and the LNRCS are both part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (the Movement). The Movement – consisting of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and 192 Red Cross/ Red Crescent National Societies – is the world’s largest humanitarian network. SRC has been engaged multilaterally in Liberia for many years and supported the work of LNRCS since the end of the civil wars in Liberia. In 2019, SRC started working bilaterally with LNRCS and establish our own office with two delegates in Monrovia.

LNRCS played a crucial role in contributing to halt the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) epidemic through its nationwide operations and is currently supporting the prevention of the Covid-19 outbreak in Liberia. Following the EVD response operation 2014-2016, the LNRCS had a deep organizational crisis due to integrity issues in parts of the organization and LNRCS is now rebuilding its organization. SRC is currently the only partner with presence in-country and a key partner left to support the LNRCS.

SRC and LNRCS have developed a three-year bilateral project called Building a Sustainable LNRCS for community resilience that aims at developing an increasingly sustainable LNRCS, with active and well-functioning branches and chapters supporting communities in resilience-building activities. The project has four components: 1) Chapter and Branch Development, 2) Volunteer Management, 3) Protection, Gender and Inclusion and 4) Resource Mobilization. The project is focusing at building the capacity of LNRCS both a national level and in three targeted chapters (counties), namely; Sinoe, Grand Kru and River Gee. The project is funded by the Swedish Embassy in Liberia.

Your Role in the organisation

As the Program Manager in Liberia for the Swedish Red Cross, you are part of the Africa Unit reporting to the Regional Head of Unit, which is based in Stockholm. The Programme Manager will be based in Monrovia and will assume a representational role of SRC in Liberia. The Programme Manager will be responsible for overseeing and supporting LNRCS in the timely implementation of the project in Liberia, managing the SRC office in country and acting as focal point for both coordination with the Movement and security matters.

The Programme Manager is expected to supervise the project in Liberia and provide in-country technical support to LNRCS. As SRC is the only Movement partner in country, the Programme Manager may also need to support LNRCS in other related areas if needed. The role of the Programme Manager will be to support LNRCS and its core staff to implement activities in a sustainable manner aimed at strengthening the organizational capacity of the LNRCS and contribute to more resilient communities across Liberia. The Programme Manager is hence not expected to implement activities him/herself, but to guide, coach and train LNRCS staff to ensure sustainability and ownership.

The Programme Manager will support LNRCS to ensure that activities carried out in targeted communities are of high quality, gender-, diversity- and conflict sensitive, and use a participatory approach in line with the Red Cross/Red Crescent Community Engagement and Accountability approach.

Key duties and responsibilities

• Represent SRC in Liberia and coordinate with Movement partners and other humanitarian and development actors in Liberia.
• Manage the SRC office in-country, including security management and support for visitors.
• Be responsible for donor relations in Liberia and develop new donor applications.
• Manage the country programme following the operational cycle (planning and design, systematic monitoring and field visits, evaluation and reporting).
• Manage and monitor the country budget and ensure adequate financial management of the project, including financial monitoring, budgeting, etc.
• Support LNRCS in planning, assessments, implementation, monitoring, evaluations and reporting of the SRC-supported projects.
• Provide technical advice and strengthen LNRCS organizational capacity, including for support functions (logistics, finance and HR).
• Ensure adequate measures are in place to reduce risks related to corruption, compliance, etc.

Your profile

The position demands that you are constructive, flexible and solution oriented. You need to be analytical and able to develop project proposals and reports. You need to be systematic and structured, with the ability to handle high workloads. You meet deadlines and can work with an elevated level of independence in culturally diverse environments. You are also able to travel to remote locations.

As a successful candidate you have solid interpersonal and communication skills, are team oriented and are able to positively interact with all levels of society. You have demonstrated experiences of holding similar responsibilities as outlined above.

As an SRC employee, you share the Red Cross Red Crescent humanitarian values including diversity and actively work against all forms of discrimination. You understand, respect and comply with the SRC Code of Conduct and security rules and regulations.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• Relevant academic background in international relations, development studies, business management or related field.
• At least 5 years relevant working experience in international environments managing development or humanitarian programmes.
• At least 3 years field experience from resource scarce settings, preferably from West Africa
• Experience in planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting
• Experience in training and coaching staff and/or volunteers
• Experience in financial management, including budget and financial monitoring, procurement and fleet management
• Experience in writing proposals
• Proficient knowledge of written and spoken English
• Relevant security training and experience from working in contexts with moderate or high security risks, including ability to assess risks, security protocol management, etc.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience from the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is an asset
• Capacity building experience is an asset
• Experience from one or several of the following fields is an asset; protection, gender and inclusion, community engagement and accountability, disaster risk reduction, volunteer management, resource mobilization, financial sustainability

Other requirements

• Candidates must be in good health and are required to pass a medical check-up prior to departure to the duty station
• Candidates must hold a manual driving license and experience in driving manual transmission vehicles
• Ability to travel in the field during periods is required for the position
• In line with the principle of neutrality, the SRC does not assign personnel to a country of which they are nationals
• Candidates must state their nationality in their application
• Please note that online tests and several interviews is part of the selection process
• We do a thorough reference check on final candidates