Chief Field Operations, P-5, Fixed Term, Juba, South Sudan (Not for South Sudanese)

Contract

This is a P-5 contract. This kind of contract is known as Professional and Director staff. It is normally internationally recruited only. It's a staff contract. It usually requires 10 years of experience, depending on education.

Salary

The salary for this job should be between 173,732 USD and 217,725 USD.

Please keep in mind that the salary displayed here is an estimation by UN Talent based on the location and the type of contract. It may vary depending on the organization. The recruiter should be able to inform you about the exact salary range. In case the job description contains another salary information, please refer to this one.

UNICEF works in some of the world’s toughest places, to reach the world’s most disadvantaged children. To save their lives. To defend their rights. To help them fulfill their potential.

Across 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, every day, to build a better world for everyone.

And we never give up.

For every child, hope

Organizational Context and Purpose for the job

The fundamental mission of UNICEF is to promote the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything the organization does — in programs, in advocacy and in operations. The past two decades have seen important progress on child rights, yet while much has been achieved, sharp disparities remain. In most countries, inequality is higher today than a generation ago, including in middle income countries where a majority of the world’s poor children now live. The rapid pace of urbanization and the growing youth bulge in Africa will require significant expansion of the provision of essential services for children. These challenges are compounded by the scale and complexity of crises triggered by conflict, natural disasters, or epidemics. The global community faces these challenges when the political and economic environments pose challenges of their own, testing the world’s commitment to protecting the most vulnerable. In this environment, strong and consistent leadership of UNICEF is critical to enable the achievement of results for children.

Job organizational context:

The Chief, Field Operations and Emergency, reports to the Representative and is responsible for the overall management of the field Operations and Emergency Section, including supervision of Chiefs of Zonal/field Offices, the UNICEF Cluster / AoRs Coordinators, and the emergency specialist, including the associated work of the emergency team for the effective work planning, programme implementation and monitoring of the results in the field. The post is office-based with frequent travel within the country and occasional travel outside.

The situation in South Sudan remains complex. The protracted crises and fragile political and security context are resulting in a continued deterioration of the humanitarian situation. South Sudan is characterized by continuous Sub-National and inter-communal conflict, recurrent natural disasters, continuous internal displacement, rising poverty, unprecedented levels of food and nutrition insecurity, as well as disease outbreaks. The fragile peace agreement during the transitional Government arrangement is compounding weak public services and a weak economy. UNICEF is required to work innovatively and cross sectorally to build resilience, prevent disaster and improve the lives and well-being of South Sudanese. The context requires working flexibility and rapidly to adapt to multiple operational constraints in the highly volatile and unpredictable context.

Purpose of the job:

The Chief, Field Operations and Emergency, is responsible for the overall management and administration of the Field Operations and Emergency Section. The incumbent is accountable for the effective leadership of field offices and emergency preparedness and response, and effective leadership of clusters, to ensure timely, effective, and efficient programme delivery at field level, ensuring all blockages, disruptions and delays are avoided to achieve measurable results. In coordination with the Deputy Representative, ensure the integration of regular and emergency programme activities and direct, lead and enable a team of competent professional and support staff to achieve the strategic goals and objectives of the UNICEF Country Programme including focus on the most vulnerable children, risk informed programming and inter-sectoral approaches.

Key function, accountabilities, and related duties/tasks

The incumbent is responsible for providing predictable, timely and strategic leadership and representation for the Field Offices, emergency programs and clusters. The incumbent is responsible for leading multiple stakeholders, beyond their immediate team of direct reports, to work collectively to achieve results for children in a complex humanitarian environment.

The main tasks and responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

1. Represent strategic perspectives from Field Offices (FOs), Emergency Team and UNICEF led/co-led Clusters at management level - Represent FOs, emergency/resilience, and cluster perspectives in UNICEF management structures (Emergency Management Team; Technical Calls with RO; HQ, Section Chiefs; SMT; CMT; Technical/Strategic Review Meetings (EYR, SMR). - Provide and coordinate strategic guidance to CFOs from senior management to promote programme and operational effectiveness at field level - Support PM&E to compile and review key UNICEF external humanitarian response documents including HAC, HRP, SitRep, etc. - Review of donor proposals in collaboration with the Deputy Representative, Programme Chiefs, Partnership Unit, and Emergency Team for Humanitarian programmes.
2. Maintain Effective external Relationships and engagement on humanitarian matters. - Maintain effective relationships with humanitarian counterparts in the Government of South Sudan - Maintain effective relationships and coordination with partners and organizations (including UN and NGO, NGO forum, etc.) on matters related to the humanitarian situation and programmes. - As delegated by the UNICEF Representative, represent UNICEF SSCO in the Humanitarian Coordination Team (HCT) and other relevant forums. - Maintain effective relationships with UNICEF Key Emergency Donors: including ECHO and BHA
3. Manage, support and coordinate decentralized Field Offices (FOs) for efficient and effective of results for children. - Support zonal / field offices and other field teams in effective work planning, activity implementation, office management to facilitate delivery of quality results of children - Support Field Offices, in coordination with CO, on stakeholder engagement to develop of strategies, methodologies and identification of new operation approaches of improving programme delivery. - Supervise the field / zonal office chiefs. Support the implementation of the office accountability matrix and devolution to field offices. - Help lead coordination between operations, program sections and FOs - Ensure national policies and strategies are timely shared and implemented in field offices. - Work with PM&E, programmes, and FOs to support mechanisms / methodologies for performance and results monitoring and identifying the most vulnerable and hardest to reach children.
4. Provide overall leadership, guidance, and coordination to South Sudan Country Office (SSCO) emergency preparedness and response interventions - Advise SSCO Representative and SMT on humanitarian response strategies and requirements - Ensure the quality of UNICEF’s emergency engagement and reporting on humanitarian action with Government, UN, Clusters, NGOs, donors, and media - Maintain effective relationships with RO Emergency team including updates on the humanitarian situation, technical calls, coordination on recruitment. - Provide strategic managerial leadership, oversight, and guidance to the Emergency team to ensure: - Effective contingency planning, emergency response and coordination across SSCO - Dissemination of UNICEF and inter-agency humanitarian policies/standards -Compliance with emergency preparedness requirements, particularly in the EPP - Appropriate and timely reporting of UNICEF Emergency Programme (donor, annual report) - Support Donor Relations as required in specific activities under humanitarian aid. - Support analysis, reporting on humanitarian access and decentralized implementation of the SSCO humanitarian Access framework.
5. Provide technical guidance and support to strengthen risk informed, resilience programming by UNICEF staff, partners, and ---Government counterparts. - Ensure collection and analysis data related to key humanitarian risks facing South Sudan, share with SMT / CMTs to promote strategies, planning, and financing for risk informed programme - Ensure compliance with risk management requirements, (particularly within the EPP). - Provide appropriate support to ensure resilience building of communities, including programming bridges humanitarian and development needs. - Provide technical support and guidance to FOs to effectively develop and deliver Risk Informed Field Delivery Plans, and support risk mitigation and DRR measures - Support the roll out and implementation of Risk informed programming, resilience, and conflict sensitive approaches in coordination with the Deputy Representative and program chiefs. - Ensure systems are in place to enable UNICEF to support bridging emergency, recovery, and development programming, ensuring coordination with other actors to ensure tangible impact in reducing risks and vulnerabilities and increasing resilience of affected populations.
6. Provide leadership, guidance, and coordination to UNICEF led/co-led clusters in Child Protection, Education and WASH - Provide strategic managerial leadership and guidance to cluster coordinators (Child Protection, Education, WASH and Nutrition) to ensure effective coordination of the HPC, contingency planning, emergency response and commitments as CLA. - Provide and coordinate strategic guidance to cluster coordination teams from SMT and HCT, and channel inputs into management processes, to promote cluster effectiveness. - Ensure the quality of UNICEF’s cluster coordination and engagement on humanitarian action with Cluster members, the Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG), donors and civil society - Promote effective coordination between UNICEF Coordinators and NGO Co-Coordinators and UNICEF information Managers as well as UNICEF Programmes, Emergency Team and FOs.

Impact of Results

Through effectively undertaking their role, the incumbent will help UNICEF support the Government of South Sudan to accelerate the realization of rights for all children by ensuring that children, adolescents, and women are better protected and have more equitable and inclusive access to quality basic services.

Specifically, the incumbent will help to strengthen capacity for improved field effectiveness and humanitarian programming through better engagement and increased capacity at field level and within UNICEF for risk informed programming that improves emergency preparedness and response as well as increases resilience and recovery of affected populations. The incumbent will help UNICEF SSCO to foster coherence and complementarity between humanitarian and development action to assure more effective, efficient programming and service delivery at field level; ensure that mechanisms and systems are in place, and capacities enhanced to enable analysis, mitigation against and preparedness for any humanitarian impact of the multiple risks to which South Sudan remains susceptible; support a transfer of skills and knowledge to strengthen national systems and enhance capacities for emergency preparedness as well as for risk informed programming. The incumbent will also help to ensure that within its humanitarian accountabilities, UNICEF retains capacities to ensure predictable, timely, coordinated, and effective emergency preparedness and response, including maintaining Cluster Lead Agency (CLA) coordination accountabilities for WASH, Nutrition, Education and Child Protection.

Recruitment Qualifications

Education: An advanced university degree (Master’s or higher) in one of the following fields is required: social sciences, international relations, public administration, government, and public relations, public or social policy, sociology, social or community development, or another relevant technical field.

Experience: A minimum of ten (10) years of relevant professional experience in programme management, planning, monitoring and evaluation, project administration or another relevant area is required. Relevant experience in a UN system agency or organization is considered as an asset. Experience in effective leadership and management of teams to deliver results in high stress/risk environments is desirable. Experience in humanitarian contexts is required with experience in development contexts an added advantage.

Language Requirements: Fluency in English is required. Knowledge in another official UN language languages is considered an asset.

For every Child, you demonstrate…

UNICEF's values of Care, Respect, Integrity, Trust, and Accountability (CRITA).

Core Competencies for this position (For Staff with Supervisory Responsibilities) *

• Demonstrates Self Awareness and Ethical Awareness (2)
• Works Collaboratively with others (2)
• Builds and Maintains Partnerships (2)
• Innovates and Embraces Change (2)
• Thinks and Acts Strategically (2)
• Drive to achieve impactful results (2)
• Manages ambiguity and complexity (2)
• Nurtures, Leads and Manages People (2)

*The 7 core competencies are applicable to all employees. However, the competency Nurtures, Leads and Managers people is only applicable to staff who supervise others.

To view our competency framework, please visit here.

UNICEF is committed to diversity and inclusion within its workforce, and encourages all candidates, irrespective of gender, nationality, religious and ethnic backgrounds, including persons living with disabilities, to apply to become a part of the organization.

UNICEF has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UNICEF, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. UNICEF also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to these standards and principles and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.

Remarks:

Mobility is a condition of international professional employment with UNICEF and an underlying premise of the international civil service.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and advance to the next stage of the selection process.