Overall purpose of the role

The Regional Emergency Coordinator assists in the development and strengthening of emergency preparedness and response within the region through the provision of technical support, operational guidance, trouble-shooting and quality assurance to all emergency programmes within the East Africa and Great Lakes region on a needs and request basis. This position represents an excellent opportunity to provide technical leadership and capacity building in an exciting and challenging context, and to strategically develop the quality, impact and sectoral integration of DRC’s emergency responses.

Key responsibilities

Emergency Preparedness and Response

• Support all countries to ensure they have up-to-date Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans (EPRP);
• Support all countries to conduct Annual Integrated Emergency Response Needs Assessments and ad-hoc Rapid Needs Assessments where required;
• Provide emergency response training to RO and CO staff as required/identified;
• Undertake needs assessments for new emergencies/projects/programmes as required/identified;
• Support existing/new operations in emergency response – assist in staff recruitment, staff training, setting up systems, and planning and starting activities; and
• Support in emergency proposal development/review.

Quality Assurance

• Conduct humanitarian response capacity assessments in countries/areas as required;
• Provide trouble-shooting in existing operations facing bottlenecks in implementation;
• Ensure countries are using and able to use correct emergency MEAL tools;
• Assist in updating/developing tools and provide required trainings;
• In close coordination with RO and CO technical staff, ensure response activities are appropriate across all sectors.
• Ensure all emergency response actions are adhering to standards and best practices including HAP/CHS standards, relevant Minimum Standards and SPHERE etc.
• Ensure that DRC mandate, policies and values in programming is upheld, and DRC’s accountability obligations are delegated and carried out in accordance with standard regulations and operational procedures e.g. Code of Conduct, DRC Programme Handbook, DRC Operations Handbook

Regional Strategy and Coordination

• Provide RO and CO Senior Management Teams with updated information on ongoing/emerging humanitarian crises and needs within the East Africa and Great Lakes region;
• Participate as relevant in coordination mechanisms throughout the region and represent DRC as requested, including building relationships with other regional Emergency Coordinators (or equivalent) in NGOs, CSOs, donor agencies, UN etc.;
• Identification and prioritization (continuous) of geographical areas for assessment and response, both new and existing;
• In close coordination and collaboration with the Regional Security Coordinator, assist in assessing access possibilities to new areas, or areas with limited/no access, as needed;
• In close coordination and collaboration with the Regional Head of Support Services provide support and training with respect to procurement, supply chain and asset management in emergency operations;
• Support link between CO and RO teams and HQ technical advisors to facilitate technical support and consistency in donor relations/fundraising efforts.

Other

• The Emergency Coordinator, may, on temporary basis, be given overall responsibility for a specific DRC humanitarian response within the region. In such a case, the individual will have the overall organizational, financial and administrative responsibility of that particular DRC response, including the overall responsibility for security planning and implementation of security precautions.

Overall purpose of the role:

The overall purpose of the role is to take a leading role in the Mixed Migration Centre – Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) team with the publication of relevant research to inform policy and programmatic response by expanding the evidence base on mixed migration processes in the region. Furthermore, the post holder plays a key role in engagement activities to establish the MMC as a leading voice in migration research in the region, and identify and represent MMC at meetings with policy actors and key policy events.

Under the supervision of the MMC Regional Manager in Nairobi, the successful candidate will be responsible for taking ownership of and supervising qualitative data analysis of emerging mixed migration trends; managing, supervising and contributing to research projects and products; and delivering research analysis and grant reporting trainings, among other responsibilities.

Key responsibilities

Research, Data and Publication Management

• Lead on conceiving new research projects and developing research ideas with DRC and partners according to programmatic and policy needs, feeding into the coordination of the MMC ESA research agenda;
• Engage actively in the region with key policy and programmatic partners to keep abreast on latest mixed migration trends and information needs;
• Take ownership of and coordinate workflows of MMC research projects, overseeing research methodology and tool creation processes, data collection and analysis, including coding and labelling qualitative data analysis;
• Coordinate, supervise and contribute to the drafting and roll-out of MMC briefing and research papers, articles, policy briefs, information requests and other research outputs;
• Develop a qualitative data management system.

Policy and Programming Engagement

• Coordinate and contribute to the planning and convening of research dissemination events and other activities to engage policy and programmatic audiences;
• Scan for and participate in key policy events and meetings to strengthen MMC’s visibility and impact on policy actors;
• Extend and strengthen the network of MMC’s relationships with policy actors;
• Support MMC engagement with programming actors in the region.

Grants Management & Proposal Writing

• Lead on identifying and tracking new grant opportunities for MMC (independently or in coordination with DRC country offices and in the region);
• Coordinate and contribute to the development of grant proposal narratives and other grant documentation in grant application stages;
• Take ownership of and coordinate the development of research ideas and concepts into project proposals, serving as a focal point for relevant partners;
• Coordinate relevant grants and reporting throughout research project cycles, taking leadership in team workflows.

Capacity Building & Training

• Supervise and train staff on MMC reporting of its research activities and administration (including assets) on a quarterly or as-needed basis;
• Train staff on MMC editorial guidelines through peer-review processes and serve as a research on migration theory;
• Provide support to country missions in projects involving migration data, mainly through assistance in the organization and facilitation of migration data collection and analysis;
• Provide training to DRC and MMC staff on research methods and related software applications (such as NVivo).

Qualifications and Experience

• Master’s degree in development economics, migration or refugee studies, other social sciences.
• At least five years’ experience working in a research, academic and/or policy context;
• Demonstrated experience in managing and supervising data and research project flows and qualitative analysis techniques including the use of relevant software applications (such as NVivo);
• Demonstrated experience in working with and analyzing qualitative data;
• Demonstrated experience in coordinating and producing relevant research products, preferably on migration and/or humanitarian issues;
• Demonstrated understanding of migration policy actor needs, and experience in policy engagement;
• Demonstrated understanding of current mixed migration debates and dynamics in the region is an asset;
• Demonstrated experience in grant management and donor engagement is an asset;
• Full professional proficiency in English and French
• Previous experience working with international NGOs or humanitarian agencies.