Area Programme Manager Ukraine Odessa

Please review the complete job description to learn more about the job

Background:

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, education, emergency food security, legal assistance, and water sanitation and hygiene sectors. 

NRC has approximately 5000 committed and competent employees involved in projects across four continents. In addition, NRC runs one of the world’s largest standby rosters -NORCAP, with 650 professionals, ready to be deployed on 72 hours-notice when a crisis occurs. 

NRC is present and operational in Ukraine since end of 2014 and specifically in Odesa, South Ukraine since May 2022, where NRC is implementing Protection, Urban Displacement Out of Camps (UDOC), Education, Shelter/WASH, and Information, Counselling and Legal Assistance (ICLA) programs.

1. Role and responsibilities

The Area Programme Manager (APM) is responsible for implementing holistic and need-based programmes and representing NRC at coordination forums, as delegated by the Area Manager (AM). The APM is a member of the Area Management Team (AMT). 

The following is a brief description of the role. 

Generic responsibilities 

1. Line management for Core Competencies (CC) Project Managers or Coordinators
2. Compliance and adherence to NRC policies, guidance and procedures 
3. Responsible for ensuring programme support to integrated programme, coordination and technical quality in the Area office 
4. Provide area specific input relevant for NRC Ukraine and CC strategies 
5. Compliance to donor standards, and grant management and regular reporting to donors in Area, within the NRC Ukraine grants management structure 
6. Responsible for grants management and BPO allocations in Area 
7. Ensure compliance with contractual commitments and extracting and implementing key learnings from project implementation
8. Coordinate emergency responses in Area 
9. Ensure a capacity building plan for all technical staff is developed and implemented

Specific responsibilities 

• Acting AM when appointed 
• Ensure systems for program quality control, monitoring and evaluation, and approach to identifying and acting on key learning in project implementation 
• Lead AO proposal development, identify targeted population needs, develop area protocol for go / no go decisions on funding opportunities 
• Regular conference calls, assist with visits and coordination with Donors and other external stakeholders at the area level, in coordination with the AM 
• Contribute to planning and implementation of needs assessments, with CC Specialists/PDMs, including for new areas of operation 
• Work with CC Specialists/PDMs to develop programmatic strategy for both emergency and transitional/ durable solutions responses (with a focus on returns) 
• Responsible for the implementation of the Project Cycle Management (PCM) system 
• Oversight of projects implementation, including targets and budgets, in coordination with all Project Managers and Coordinators
• Coordinate with finance department to ensure effective and transparent project progress forecast 
• Regular 1:1 meeting with direct line reports and support with drafting and following up on the Work and Development Plans (WDPs) for all direct reports
• Oversight of reporting for AO level projects

Critical interfaces

By interfaces, NRC means processes and projects that are interlinked with other departments/units or persons. Relevant interfaces for this position are:

1. Proposal development: Area Manager, Specialists/PDMs, Head of Program (Hop) 
2. Budget Programme Overview and allocation of shared costs: Finance Manager, Area Manager, PDMs, ASM 
3. Grant management: Area Managers, Grant Manager, HoP
4. Donor reports: CC Specialists/PDMs, PMs/Coordinators, Grants, M&E, HoP

Scale and scope of position

Staff: Project Managers, M&E Coordinator 

Stakeholders: Donors, UN agencies, INGOs, local NGOs, civil society, governmental bodies 

Budgets: Responsible for NRC AO full portfolio of budgets

Information: GORS, Agresso, NRC People, Intranet, Master budget 

Legal or compliance: term of employment, donors

1. Competencies 

Competencies are important in order for the employee and the organization to deliver desired results. They are relevant for all staff and are divided into the following two categories

 1. Professional competencies 

These are skills, knowledge and experience that are important for effective performance

Generic professional competencies: 

• Minimum 4 years’ experience in a senior programme management position in a humanitarian/ recovery context 
• Minimum 4 years’ experience in people management in a complex programme 
• Experience working in complex and volatile contexts 
• Sectoral expertise including in recovery and durable solutions programming 
• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities
• Knowledge about own leadership skills/profile 
• Fluency in English, both written and verbal 

Context related skills, knowledge and experience: 

• Knowledge of the context in Ukraine is an advantage 
• Knowledge of Ukrainian or Russian languages is an advantage 
• Experience of developing programme in a large and rapidly expanding country programme 
• Professional qualification in grants management, Monitoring & Evaluation, or technical sectors is an advantage

2. Behavioural competencies

• Strategic thinking 
• Initiating action and change 
• Influencing
• Handling insecure environments

1. Performance Management

The employee will be accountable for the responsibilities and the competencies, in accordance with the NRC Performance Management Manual. The following documents will be used for performance reviews: 

• The Job Description
• The Work and Development Plan
• The Competency Framework

Additional Information: 

Candidates are encouraged to apply early, as applications may be screened prior to the vacancy deadline