Roving Country Director

GOAL has responded to almost all of the world’s major humanitarian crises since its founding in 1977, working with vulnerable communities in more than 60 countries over that period of time. While GOAL continues to be an agile first-responder to humanitarian crises, it is also committed to working with vulnerable communities to help them survive crises and support them on the road to recovery.

GOAL’s purpose is to save lives and empower communities to develop resilience and greater control over their lives and livelihoods. GOAL aims to increase the resilient wellbeing of the world’s poorest people and focuses on those who are excluded or marginalised, particularly those who are vulnerable due to socio-economic status, gender or age.

The key responsibilities of the Roving Country Director (RCD) include; providing leadership surge support to existing programmes (in-person and remotely); deploying to GOAL’s missions to cover gaps within GOAL’s team of Country Directors (CDs); inducting, mentoring and training new CDs; and supporting policy, strategy and process/systems development within GOAL. The RCD may occasionally be asked to cover other gaps in senior field management.

Specific Responsibilities

The RCD will be on deployment approximately 70% of the time. The RCD will typically deploy as the acting-Country Director to cover times of extended leave or gaps between incumbent CDs in any of GOAL’s operational countries. On rare occasion, the RCD might be asked to cover other gaps in senior field management. While acting as CD, the RCD will be responsible to cover all major areas of work typically associated with the role of Country Director. These include:

• Programmes: The RCD will work with the Programme Directors (PD) to ensure that all programme activities are planned, resourced, implemented, monitored and evaluated in a timely manner, to ensure that they are appropriate, necessary, cost effective, targeted, sustainable and in keeping with GOAL’s mission and philosophy.;
• Strategy: As appropriate to the deployment, the RCD will provide ongoing review and development of overall country strategy, and of individual programme objectives. The RCD will undertake, with the Senior Management Team, continuous review, monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness, impact and direction of each programme.
• Resource Development: The RCD is the principal point of contact with in-country donors and is responsible to secure programme funding where possible. The RCD must be familiar with all relevant donors as is possible within the limitations of a deployment and is responsible for developing GOAL’s working relationship and maintaining its reputation with them. The RCD will review all programme proposals prepared by the PD and the programme team before their submission to donors.
• Financial Accountability: The RCD has ultimate accountability for all financial matters and will review and approve the monthly management accounts. The RCD will work with the Financial Controller (FC) to ensure adherence to the financial guidelines as per the GOAL Dublin Financial Manual and that comprehensive and timely reports are produced in accordance with schedules agreed by GOAL HQ and with donors.
• Personnel: The RCD is responsible for the health and welfare of staff including expatriate and local personnel and are empowered to use all available resources to promote their development in line with GOAL policy. The County Director will work closely with the Human Resources Manager and/or Assistant Country Director - Systems on all aspects related to Personnel.
• Safety & Security: It is the responsibility of the RCD to be fully informed regarding the political and security environment within their country of assignment. And for ensuring that all reasonable measure are taken to minimise / mitigate the safety and security risks faced by the programmes and programme staff.

Otherwise the RCD will be responsible for:

• Ensuring the quality of GOAL’s cadre of Country Director via the inducting, mentoring and training new CDs. The RCD may deploy to countries to deliver an induction package or centrally train groups. The RCD is expected to provide ongoing remote mentoring as required to new Country Directors.
• Work with HQ Human Resources, the global Programme Quality Team and in-country personnel to develop a Country Director pipeline within GOAL. Provide structured training and mentorship to Assistant Country Directors and others who may deputise as CD or be capable of a move to the CD role in the future.
• Play an active role in strategy and policy development as directed. The RCD may input into global strategic processes and lead annual and multi-annual national strategy development processes while in-country. The RCD may also be asked to lead or contribute to policy development while not on deployment.
• Review, update and re-disseminate GOAL’s Country Director Manual on a periodic basis. The RCD may also be asked to lead or contribute to the development of other tool kits, systems and processes as may be required while not on deployment.
• The RCD may be asked to deploy as a first responder to a major system wide humanitarian response as part of GOAL’s Surge Emergency Team (SET).

Behaviours

• ;Highly flexible and organised, able to manage multiple, simultaneous demands and willing to take on new tasking (potentially involving travel) on an ad hoc basis.
• Be able to work both on one’s own initiative and as part of a team in a high-pressure environment while adhering to deadlines.
• Strong evidence of good interpersonal and communication skill.

• Set a strong example for adherence and improvement of GOALs accountability, safeguarding and protection initiatives, both internally and for the people reached by the programme.
• Ensures that programme goals, activities and staff behaviour uphold key national and international humanitarian frameworks, standards, principles and codes to which GOAL has committed.

Requirements (Person Specification)

• 5-7 years at Country Director level in an overseas humanitarian or development environment;or;5-7 years’ experience as part of a Senior Management Team in a humanitarian assistance programme.
• Experience in directly managing multi-sector programmes across multiple grants;and/or;experience in managing qualified programme managers implementing multi-sector activities across multiple grants.
• Relevant post-graduate qualification in business, administration, management, social science, international development etc.;or;relevant degree level qualification alongside 3-5 years professional management experience in a leadership role
• Experience in leading a large and geographically dispersed team under challenging circumstances.
• Experience in engaging with national level government line ministries and donor agencies.

Essential

• Ability and willingness to deploy within 72 hours and for a maximum of 6 months
• 5-7 years at Country Director level in an overseas humanitarian or development environment;or;5-7 years’ experience as part of a Senior Management Team in a humanitarian assistance programme.
• Notable experience of deploying in response to sudden onset emergencies, including in a programme lead role.
• Experience supporting strategic programme development including successful proposal development for a wide array of humanitarian donors.
• Experience in developing security protocols and in contingency planning.
• Budgetary and financial management skills.

Desirable

• Strong theoretical understanding of the localisation agenda and experience of engaging and working with local partners, ideally including the development of partnership strategies for emergency response.
• Experience of engaging with the cluster coordination systems and key international humanitarian networks.
• Experience working with complaints and response mechanism and in relation to stakeholder information.
• Experience in cash transfer programming
• French, Spanish or other language skills

GOAL has a Staff Code of Conduct 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.