Democratic Republic of the Congo: Head of Programs

About Us: 

War Child: the charity for children affected by war. We are a specialist charity for children in conflict, delivering high-impact programs that are rebuilding lives across Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Colombia, Ukraine, Uganda, Burundi, South Sudan, Jordan, oPt, Syria and Yemen. We understand children’s needs, respect their rights, and support their efforts to find lasting solutions to address the underlying causes of their specific vulnerabilities.

We look forward to a world in which the lives of children are no longer torn apart by war. This is a vision that can only be realized through the collective actions of children themselves, communities and their leaders, organizations like War Child, governments, and key decision-makers.

Your Challenge: 

War Child is going through a period of exciting change, with a scale-up in its portfolio of programs in DRC. Since January 2024, we are operating in DRC through the Share Platform War Child Alliance and continue to have ambitious plans to increase the scale and sustainability of our program. The Head of Programs in DRC will lead the response to the challenges link to this transition. The position will drive a growing team forward and ensure the effective implementation of new and existing programs and lead the development of additional programs.

An integral part of the Country Leadership Team and reporting to the country director, the Head of Programs will be responsible for ensuring good strategic leadership of programs, managing key risks, and supporting the Programs team to deliver their goals in DRC. It is a critical role requiring a motivated and experienced individual with a desire for a new and exciting challenge in a small but rapidly growing organization. The role also ensures information from the country program is shared across stakeholders and will represent War Child at the highest levels with donors, national authorities, clusters and national partners in DRC.

Your Responsibilities: 

• Actively participate, in coordination with the Country Director, Partnership and Resources Mobilization Managers, in program development implementation and funding strategy in the themes of Child protection, education, mental health, and livelihoods, ensuring cross-cutting themes (gender, disability, and accountability) are integrated into program engagements.
• Participate in the country strategy development, ensuring to maximize the benefit of War Child Experience in DRC, programming expertise, and strategies such as those on Scaling and on the Evidence-Based Interventions
• Ensure War Child’s strategic positioning in DRC’s Humanitarian Sector by ensuring active and constructive presence, in key humanitarian and development forums and clusters; foster strong operational partnerships with donors and partners (INGOs, local NGOs, authorities).
• Assist the CD in fundraising efforts at the country level by providing strategic information and analysis for proactive fundraising.
• Lead on the management of all grants: coordinate and ensure timely and effective reporting (internal and donor/partner), monitor grant management plans and BVAs, proactively raise concerns and risks, and manage operational donor communication.
• Working with CLT and support teams to ensure that War Child and donor guidelines/policies are fully followed during all project implementation, reducing the risk of disallowable costs.
• Ensure the quality of projects implemented by War Child, by monitoring and driving their compliance with internal and sector standards. Maintain an overview of internal and external programmatic audits and ensure any findings/ recommendations are acted upon.
• Responsible for operational support (supervision, coherence, coordination, and collaboration) between all the program teams in DRC, the Head Office as well as with various internal and external stakeholders of the organization to achieve DRC program strategy. Monitoring of Security-Access context and contributing towards the problem-solving and troubleshooting required to keep the program progressing.
• Ensure that child safeguarding is central in all project designs, implementation and monitoring, in accordance with War Child’s child safeguarding policy and related management tools.
• Ensure that WCA Policies around SEA and Integrity are fully respected during program implementation.
• Provide line management leadership to all Program Managers and, where gaps exist, Project Managers, ensuring they are well supported and guided to supervise the projects in line with the organizational Achievement and Development process.
• Lead on the organization and chairing of internal capacity-building, strategic design and planning workshops/trainings for the Programs department by identifying needs, mapping internal capacities, and knowledge sharing.

These duties provide a framework for the role and should not be regarded as a definitive list. Other reasonable duties may be required consistent with the grade of the post.

Your Profile: 

• Significant experience in successfully designing and delivering strategies for programs.
• Substantial knowledge and experience in project management and implementation in complex multi-stakeholder programs.
• Varied and extensive experience in grant management and institutional fundraising.
• Technical competencies in Protection of Civilians, Child Protection, Education in Emergencies, Mental Health and Psychosocial services; CAAFAG protection and Reintegration.
• Proven leadership skills and the ability to manage, develop, and inspire a diverse team.
• Proven ability to represent the organization at the highest level (government, UN agencies, donors, INGOs, partners) with the knowledge of broader developments and the ability to influence to achieve the required outcome.
• Ability to collaborate, form, and sustain effective partnerships with internal and external stakeholders with excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Strong planning and organizational skills with the ability to make effective decisions.
• Fluency in English and French.

Our Offer: 

• An expat of national staff package depending on candidate based on a 40 hour work week.
• Excellent secondary benefits.
• The possibility for development.
• A range of well- being activities.
• The role is based in Bukavu, South Kivu.
• Extensive traveling throughout DRC is required.
• It is a non-family posting.

Our Organisation: War Child is a dynamic organization. We try to keep an informal ambiance within our offices, with a lot of room for creativity, inspiration and self-initiative from employees. We practice what we preach: dynamic, innovative, integrity focused, and a drive to reach the highest possible results against the lowest possible costs. War Child Alliance offers a challenging job in an inspiring workplace.

Child Safeguarding: Our work with children to keep them safe is the most important thing we do. We are committed to the safeguarding of children in all areas of our work. Successful applicants will be expected to be compliant and sign up to our Child Safeguarding policy, which you can read here: How War Child upholds Integrity | War Child

How to Apply: 

Interested and qualified candidates are invited to apply before March 31st 2024. Make sure to upload your English CV (maximum of two pages) and cover letter by using this link.

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By submitting your application you certify that all of the statements made in your application are true, complete, and correct and are made in good faith. You understand that falsifying, misrepresenting or intentionally withholding information will be grounds for rejection of your application or withdrawal of any offer of appointment or, if an appointment offer has been accepted, this will be ground for employment sanctions, such as, but not limited to, instant dismissal. In addition, you understand that you need to submit a Criminal Record Certificate and that, if you fail to submit it, no employment relationship can be established.

War Child is an international organisation, and we are committed to be a diverse and inclusive employer, placing human and child rights at the centre of our existence and work. We hire our new colleagues based on their talents, competences and shared values; we do not distinguish them based on their age, gender and gender identity, race, color, ethnicity, religion, culture, sexual orientation, disability etc.

The safety of children and youth is a paramount and essential to War Child’s work. War Child has a zero tolerance policy towards any form of abuse. To prevent placing children and youth at any risk this subject is addressed in our recruitment and selection procedures. Moreover, the accepted candidates will be required to state their commitment/ intent to be aware, consider and adhere to the minimum standards applicable in development and humanitarian settings, such as humanitarian values and principles, Sphere Humanitarian Charter, Standards in the Humanitarian Standards Partnership, Core Humanitarian Standard, International Humanitarian Law, Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Disaster Relief and IASC Six Core Principles Relating to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.

Disclaimer

• Only applications received via our website are processed.
• If we appoint a suitable candidate before the given closing date, we reserve the right to remove the vacancy from our website before that date. In such a case, any responses received after that time are not processed.
• It could be that during our selection process the closing date for the vacancy is extended. If so, and you have not yet heard from us, your application will remain active.