Mission 1: The Deputy Country Director will coordinate technical country strategy and ensure operational management of all technical areas
The Deputy Country Director / Program is responsible for the following tasks:
- Ensure programs are coherent with the operational strategy and with ACF mandate.
- Make sure there is quality and integrity of program implementation, including adherence to technical guidelines,
- Ensure ACF technical staff attend regular coordination meetings and take lead in drafting future Program strategies.
- The incumbent will be ensuring the overall planning and follow-up of technical reporting for donors, authorities and internal requirements (Activity Progress Reports) in coordination with the support departments
- Visiting ACF field activities regularly and report on problems, challenges and obstacles while building an intimate knowledge of fieldwork realities
- The incumbent will implement the internal quality control, by promoting monitoring mechanisms (ex: self-evaluation tool), facilitating internal control and external evaluations
- The incumbent will ensure the liaison with administrative systems, establish information needs and deadlines.
- Ensure appropriate monitoring, evaluation, documentations and learning to promote organizational learning and high standard quality.
- Steer the process of developing and reviewing Program strategies, thematic plans and annual plans for various sectors in the mission.
- Identify the constraints and opportunities in HR, Finance and Logistics of the potential response to the humanitarian needs and briefing the Country Director and the department Coordinators on the consequences.
- Makes sure to maintain open communication channel with Field Coordinators and Head of Bases for feedback on the support department performance
- In charge of promoting the respect of ACF charter of principle and preventing all forms of abuse of power; ensure risk management policies are disseminate to all staff.
Mission 2: Represent and liaise for Program Strategy and align programs with donors, National Priorities and UN (HRNP)
The Deputy Country Director / Program is responsible for:
- Working closely with stakeholders if a senior level involvement is required, upon request of the Country Director
- Leading ACF’s technical contingency planning by region and department
- Strengthening field and capital level information-sharing with IOs, NGOs and Government
- Advancing and disseminating ACF’s strategic positioning to donors and other stakeholders as this related to humanitarian analysis and future financial planning.
- Overseeing the development of support aspect of proposal writing and budget building (forecast of specific logistics needs include Project Procurement Plans, Support HR needs etc) in the line of donor rules and ACF internal procedures and support the development of Program Manager/Project Managers of basic management tools (Project Procurement Plan and Supply plan, anticipation of challenges and mitigation measures include climate changes, seasonality for planning and implementing actions, anticipation of complex procurement, Finance or HR related needs)
- Ensuring organizational compliance to donor policies and guidelines and ACF staff regulations.
- Ensuring that the mission has up to date knowledge of donor strategies and funding mechanisms to be fed into the coordination and country Strategy planning process.
- Ensuring that all reports prepared by Program staff for donors and other external parties are carefully reviewed and if necessary revised before sign off
Mission 3: Analyze the Humanitarian needs through Technical Departments and Country Coordination Architecture like Clusters
The Deputy Country Director / Program is responsible for the following tasks:
- In charge of identifying humanitarian & development needs, briefing the country management team on humanitarian & developmental events in the country and designing potential responses within the operational country strategy
- Responsible for collecting, summarizing and analyzing information from external sources and from technical advisors for future opportunities
- Ensure that high quality program assistance in all sectors is available to operations and Program staff at any required time.
- Provide the coordination team with information related to humanitarian and developmental events in the Country
Mission 4: Management of Human Resources
The Deputy Country Director / Program is responsible for the:
- Supervision and management of all staff directly reporting to DCD (Programs) (Head of technical department, project and/or program managers)
- Overseeing the recruitment of all staff directly reporting to DCD (Programs)
- Recruitment and Retention:
- Take charge of the recruitment of program staff in collaboration with administration and the Country Director.
- Provide induction/kick off meetings for all upcoming grants in collaboration with coordinators and program staff.
- Set for and facilitate the development of individual action plans by staff members with corresponding indicators.
- Performance appraisal and career development.
- Conduct performance review of staff under his / her direct supervision and ensure that all staff under the department is regularly assessed.
- Organizing and carrying out capacity building for program Staff taking into consideration their profiles, the cultural context and the on the basis of the finding of the needs assessment.
- Actively facilitate cross program learning through joint review and planning meeting with other departments.
- Assess the impact of the training on staff capacity and program performance.
- Critically assess the pertinence and quality of the training programs.
- Coaching and mentoring of team members in leadership and management skills.
- Identify training opportunities and ensure team members participation to relevant trainings (including budgeting and training plan).
- Availing of learning materials, reports, lessons learn and case studies.
- Creating a learning environment at mission level (participatory planning, review and program development)
- Providing leadership in program and technical management,
- In charge of organizing and leading meetings with the team and individual staff members, on both a regular and ad hoc basis.
- Lending support to teams in the organizational and coordination skills.
- Resolving problems arising in the teams with the support of CD, when necessary, in consultation with mission Human Resources
- In charge of soliciting and accepting feedback from team members (on technical matters relating to programs).
- Ensure program staff is motivated and committed to ACF charter and programs
Mission 5: Follow-up on management of program budgets
The Deputy Country Director / Program is responsible for:
- Ensuring that budgets are respected in relation with relevant Head of Department
- Significantly contributing to the identification of potential funding opportunities
- Ensuring Program and Operation forecasts are produced on time and respected.
- Working closely with the Finance Coordinator to ensure that under spending or over spending of budgets are adjusted.
Mission 6. Programmatic Quality and Strategic Leadership
The Deputy Country Director / Program is responsible for:
- Actively contributing to implementation of a strategy adapted to the local situation with gradual evolution toward long-term development interventions, partnership with local and international NGOs and research institutions and integrations of sectors.
- Identifying, proposing and developing new program orientations, strategies and activities.
- Leading, in strict collaboration with the CD and TAs, the process of identification and design of concept papers/proposals and responsible for timely and qualitative submission.
- Working closely with other departments (LOG, ADM, HR) for the identification of logistic and financial needs of new proposals.
- Identifying opportunities for deeper assessment, applied research, or publication related to past/ ongoing/proposed programs that aid policy advocacy.
- Supervise the design and implementation of needs assessments, monitoring and evaluation, to ensure implementation is responsive to and reflective of the needs of communities
- Lead the technical team in the identification, analysis and implementation of lessons learnt, for the continuous improvement of the programming implemented by Action Against Hunger in Jordan.
- Verify that proper monitoring, evaluation and accountability systems are in place to demonstrate impact of programs and that learning is incorporated into programs to ensure ongoing improvement and innovation;
- Ensure that all programs are implemented according to program management best practice and progress in accordance with grant agreements, are completed with quality, within time and on budget; drive adaptive management strategies where required
- Identifying program implementation modalities that include participant targeting criteria, mobilization approaches, local partnerships, seasonality of input support, participant training, monitoring and reporting systems, cash projections, procurement plans, etc.
- Identifying partnerships with NGOs and research / technical institutions for new programs and researches.
Mission 7: Act as Country Director in his/her absence
The Deputy Country Director / Program is responsible for:
- Acting as the focal person on Safety and Security of ACF personnel and assets in the absence of the Country Director
- Representing ACF in meetings in absence of the CD
- Acting as signatory for all correspondence in the absence of the CD
- Providing support to oversee all mission activities in the absence of the Country Director.