Emergency preparedness/ emergency response / disaster risk reduction advisor

Background

Cordaid combines more than 90 years’ experience and expertise in emergency aid and structural poverty eradication. It is one of the biggest international development organisations with a network of more than 1,000 partner organisations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. Cordaid is also a member of Caritas Internationalis, a worldwide network of Catholic organizations involved in emergency relief, rehabilitation and development.

Cordaid and its partner organisations work on various themes, including conflict transformation, disaster risk reduction and emergency response, health care, quality of urban life and entrepreneurship. Cordaid provides technical expertise and financial support for development and emergency assistance programmes and to develop the capacities of partner organisations.

Cordaid currently works in Sudan and South Sudan exclusively through local partner organisations. Cordaid’s main areas of assistance in Sudan and South Sudan are community security, women peace and security, extractives and transparency, women’s health, health systems, social protection systems, access to markets for smallholder farmers, access to savings and credits, disaster risk reduction, emergency preparedness and emergency response. Strategies of intervention include strategic financing, capacity building; linking and learning and lobby.

To address the plight of the large number of returnees and IDPs that have settled in different parts of South Sudan as a result of the January 2011 referendum and other humanitarian emergencies, Cordaid together with local and international Caritas partners is involved in programmes to strengthen the disaster risk reduction as well as the emergency preparedness and response capacities of its partner organizations and the communities they work in.

Position and responsibility

The Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) / Emergency Preparedness (EP) / Emergency Response (ER) Advisor is responsible for designing, managing and coordinating all Cordaid’s emergency preparedness/response and disaster risk reduction programmes in (South) Sudan and supporting the capacity-building of local partner organizations in these areas.

The DRR/EP/ER Advisor will report to the Cordaid Liaison Officer in Juba and liaise closely with relevant programme officers of the Disaster Risk Reduction & Emergency Aid and Conflict Transformation sectors at Cordaid HQ in The Hague. The DRR/EP/ER Advisor will cooperate closely with the regional DRR programme of Cordaid in Eastern Africa.

General objective of the posting

- Support programme development and strategic position of Cordaid on DRR, EP and ER;
- Support capacity development of local partner organizations in the areas of DRR, EP and ER;
- Identify, develop and support new DRR/EP/ER proposals and projects with partner organizations;
- Networking, representation and acquisition.

Specific objectives

Programme development and strategic positioning:

- Explore opportunities and threats for a Cordaid programme on DRR, EP and ER in (South) Sudan as well as the strengths and weaknesses of Cordaid herein;
- Explore potential local partner organizations to implement Cordaid’s DRR, EP and ER programme.

Capacity Development on DRR, EP and ER:

- Help organize and facilitate trainings for staff of local partner organizations;
- Provide technical assistance on DRR, EP and ER to and accompany staff of local partner organizations to enable long-term skills-transfer;
- Support partners in applying and documenting community-managed disaster risk reduction;
- Improve learning, linking and coordination to strengthen networks, maximize recovery efforts and establish preparedness plans;
- Facilitate development and use of participatory DRR monitoring activities, support reflection on strengths and areas of development with Cordaid partners and communities;
- Support documentation of human interest stories, lessons learned, best practices and strategic opportunities related to Cordaid / partners’ programmes and projects.

Identify, develop and support proposals and projects:

- Support partners in writing proposals (work plan / budget / logframes) for DRR, EP and ER efforts;
- Support proposal development for Caritas Internationalis, ECHO, OCHA and/or other donors on capacity building of DRR/EP/ER needs assessment;
- Support project development to strengthen and build upon linking ER, EP and DRR;
- Support partners’ capacities on project cycle management;
- Support partners to prepare and submit timely and quality financial and narrative reports;
- Regular visits to project sites to monitor progress of projects funded by Cordaid and back donors;
- Responsible for reporting to Cordaid HQ and others based on partner reports.

Networking, representation and acquisition:

- Identify and establish contacts with relevant organizations and stakeholders as strategic to Cordaid’s DRR, EP and ER interventions in South Sudan;
- Explore added value of Cordaid and promote Cordaid’s interests within relevant clusters;
- Explore potential areas for collaboration and mobilize opportunities and resources to support program partners;
- Explore opportunities for a Cordaid twinning partner within the Caritas network in (South) Sudan;
- Provide regular humanitarian situation updates and ensure issues calling for intervention of the Cordaid Humanitarian Response team are reported in a timely manner;
- Represent Cordaid’s DRR/EP/ER programme in relevant Caritas, UN and other humanitarian coordination / thematic cluster meetings – as delegated by Cordaid’s Liaison Officer.

Qualifications and experience

- Academic degree in development studies or other related field;
- At least 5 years proven experience with developing, managing and monitoring emergency response, emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction programmes;
- Experience assessing needs for and/or delivering DRR/EP/ER training;
- Strong (financial) project management, analytical and problem-solving skills;
- Experience of working with internationally-funded programmes, including coordination, reporting and monitoring according to different donor templates (e.g. ECHO, OCHA);
- Experience in working with local NGOs and communities in conflict-affected states in Africa;
- Experience in working with faith-based / church organisations is an asset;
- Knowledge of Sudan’s socio- political environment is an asset;
- Be diplomatic, culturally sensitive and result-oriented;
- Experience in working in security sensitive environment in complex (post)conflict situations;
- Excellent English language writing and communication skills