South Sudan: Assistant Country Director-Programs

General Description of the Program

GOAL has been delivering both humanitarian and development programmes in South Sudan since 1985. Currently GOAL South Sudan’s operation is broadly divided into two:

• Humanitarian response largely concentrated in upper Nile State (Baliet, Ulang and Maiwut Counties) since the eruption of conflict in Dec 2013 but also in Agok of Abyei administrative Area where a relief is currently been linked with transition to development. Programming in Baliet is currently on hold and programme is currently serving the beneficiaries of Baliet IDPs displaced to Melut County.
• Transitional and early development programme in Twic County, Warrap State; In both categories, GOAL directly implements a multi-sectoral programme addressing the root causes of poverty and poor health.

GOAL supports health and nutrition services through 67 primary health care facilities and works to increase Ministry of Health (MoH) capacity to deliver services through technical, logistic and management support to the County Health Departments (CHDs) in five counties. GOAL’s WASH programme focuses on both hardware (borehole drilling with in-house team, institutional and market latrine construction) and software (community-based management structures such as Water User Committees and Community-Led Total Sanitation). GOAL’s food security and livelihoods programming has expanded moving beyond seeds and tools provision to the use of Village Savings and Loans (VSL) schemes, this will be developed further to support Farmer Associations and more specific inputs along the value chain based on thorough market assessments thereby not only increasing productivity but also linking farmers with markets. Additionally, GOAL also implements a livelihoods programme in Juba, Twic and Agok with a focus on women’s literacy using the REFLECT model. REFLECT has now been fully integrated within the food security and livelihood programme.

General Description of the Role

The Assistant Country Director Programmes (ACDP) is a member of the GOAL South Sudan Senior Management Team (SMT) with overall responsibility for the strategic development of GOAL’s programmes currently operational in five underserved Counties in South Sudan. The role focuses on programme planning and development, reporting, M&E and capacity building, as well as coordination internally and with relevant line ministries, UN agencies, NGOs, partners and other relevant stakeholders.

Key Duties

• Develop a clear vision, objectives and strategic direction for GOAL’s programme guided by the GOAL South Sudan Country Strategic Plan 2012-2016, international standards, the Government of South Sudan’s policies and guidelines and the strategies of key donors.
• Oversee donor and internal narrative reporting, ensuring that all reports meet standards.
• Oversee the development of donor proposals - logframes, narratives and budgets - based on the Country Strategic Plan 2012-2016 and the field site planning.
• Lead the progressive decentralisation of programme management to field level, empowering the field programme managers to play a lead role in planning, budgeting and monitoring.
• Ensure GOAL is appropriately represented in external coordination mechanisms such as the NGO Health Forum, Clusters (Health, WASH, FSL, Nutrition) in addition to gender based violence and child protection sub-cluster, the sector-specific Technical Working Groups and the NGO Forum’s Policy Working Group and other ad-hoc coordination forums.
• Oversee the development of appropriate M&E and programme management tools and systems and ensure that analysis and recommendations are utilised for programme decision-making.
• Oversee the development of internal mechanisms for institutional learning and documentation.
• Work to increase the number of South Sudanese staff in senior positions within the programmes team, through the planning and management of a comprehensive capacity building strategy.
• Oversee emergency preparedness and emergency response interventions and liaise with the dedicated GOAL response teams which may be sent into South Sudan.
• Promote programme integration and synergies through greater collaboration and planning among the health, WASH, livelihoods and nutrition programmes.
• Develop, renew and monitor Memorandums of Understanding with line ministries at Juba, state and county levels and, as required, with other entities such as partners and NGOs.
• Identify and develop appropriate GOAL exit strategies (MoH health facility handovers, building partnerships with South Sudanese NGOs).
• Facilitate participation of the appropriate line ministry representatives in programme planning, implementation and M&E.
• Manage a team of three technical coordinators (WASH, health, and livelihoods), the Programme Support Officer, the Monitoring Evaluation and Learning Coordinator and the Partnership coordinator. Provide support to the Health cluster Colead, an autonomous position which is hosted by GOAL.
• Management FSL programme to move to market systems based approach and align the programme to meet emerging challenges with the traditional funding models. The system would need also to be thought through on how it is implemented in other programmes as well, and therefore, the successful candidate will need to develop a strong partnership unit within GOAL South Sudan.
• Travel frequently to all areas of operation to monitor programme implementation and address any issues which may be affecting programme quality.
• Ensure that beneficiaries, local authorities, and local staff are consulted and involved as much as possible in programme planning, implementation and M&E.
• Ensure logistics, HR and finance protocols are followed by all programmes team members.
• Work with Assistant Country Director Operations and the Logistics Coordinator to ensure appropriate logistics involvement at all stages of the programme cycle.
• Carry out other duties as requested by the Country Director.

Requirements (Person Specification)

Essential

• At least five years overseas experience gained in a post-conflict or resource-poor setting.
• At least three years at a senior management level with demonstrable ability to lead a team of technical and support staff overseeing a large and complex programme.
• Postgraduate degree in a relevant discipline, such as international development, humanitarian aid, public health, social sciences or a related field.
• Demonstrable previous experience in programme planning (ideally with participatory planning experience), budgeting, implementation and review.
• Experienced and confident in representation with government at all levels, with institutional donors such as OFDA, ECHO, EC, Irish Aid and with UN agencies and NGOs.
• Commitment to mainstreaming with experience of mainstreaming at least one of the following: gender, HIV, child protection, conflict sensitivity, DRR, environment.
• Excellent management skills with the ability to quickly reprioritise activities to meet the demands of the programme in a rapidly changing context.
• Good interpersonal and facilitation skills with the ability to lead teams to reach consensus on complex and/or divisive issues.
• Commitment to capacity building South Sudanese staff and nationalising positions where possible.
• Excellent writing skills.
• Enthusiastic and willing to work unsociable and/or long hours to meet the needs of the programme.

Desirable

• Prior work experience in South Sudan.
• Prior experience overseeing the implementation of programmes in large-scale emergency response contexts.
• Technical knowledge in one or more of the following areas: health, WASH, livelihoods, child protection, nutrition, gender, HIV, conflict sensitivity, environment, DRR.

GOAL has Standards of Integrity and a Child Protection Policy, which have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants and children from exploitation. GOAL also has a confidentiality policy ensuring the non-disclosure of any information whatsoever relating to the practices and business of GOAL, acquired in the course of duty, to any other person or organisation without authority, except in the normal execution of duty. Any candidate offered a job with GOAL will be expected to adhere to these policies any job offer made is also subject to police clearance. GOAL is an equal opportunities employer.

This Job Description only serves as a guide for the position available. GOAL reserves the right to change this document. Any published closing dates are estimated. Due to the nature of GOAL’s work we aim to fill vacancies as quickly as possible. This means that we will close adverts as soon as we have found the right candidate and this may be before the published closing date. We would therefore advise interested applicants to submit an application as early as possible.

https://www.goalglobal.org/careers?gh_jid=134512