Spain: HEAD OF THE HUMANITARIAN AID DEPARTMENT
Organization: Plan
Country: Spain
Closing date: 31 Oct 2016
Plan International Spain is searching a Head of the Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Department based in Madrid. The post holder will lead the Humanitarian Aid area in Plan International Spain. The ideal candidate will need to be an effective humanitarian professional, with good understanding of the Development and Humanitarian Aid sector and, ideally, child rights work. This will need to be backed up by effective management, planning and organization skills. High command of English and Spanish is a must. The post will be based in Madrid with international travel up to 60%.
General Description of the Role
The Humanitarian Aid is one of the biggest areas in the organisation, with a close integration between our development works. A new long term organisational strategy is soon to be launched and our commitment to providing high quality responses in some of the worst hit areas will only continue to grow.
As the head of the team, the candidate will lead Plan’s emergency preparedness and response work, ensuring that all concerned work fulfilled satisfactory standards.
The candidate should engage with Plan International Regional and Country Offices during any emergency response. In order to ensure our responses are timely and effective, the candidate will need to work with other internal departments, such as HR and Finance, to ensure our organisational capability at HQ.
As we grow as a humanitarian agency/actor, we need someone who can raise our external profile with multilateral and bilateral organisations (UN, EU) and to build effective partnerships with other INGOs. The candidate will also lead on our expansion into new areas such as conflict zones.
Main Responsibilities:
- To design and develop humanitarian aid strategy in Disaster Risk Management and contribute to the activities to increase Plan International humanitarian profile in Spain
- Leading Plan International Spain engagement with the country programme and regional DRM manager.
- Implementing, monitoring, evaluate and report on the progress of the DRM strategy
- To identify opportunities for increasing media coverage of Plan International Spain work in DRM
- To identify financing opportunities for DRM programs, emphasizing the access and diversification of financial instruments, specially taking care of the ECHO partnership.
- To ensure that all activities undertaken on behalf of Plan International Spain, externally or internally, are executed in accordance with the overall aims of the organization and in line with Plan’s policies and procedures and the humanitarian standards
- Thorough knowledge of the programme and operations dimensions of implementing emergency responses;
- Thorough knowledge of how to prepare for emergencies;
- Broad knowledge of the humanitarian sector, particularly understanding humanitarian reform, standards, funding and media dynamics
- The post-holder will have a direct influence on the quality and visibility of this work. Good quality work will lead to significantly increased income.
- This position will manage a team and hold indirect accountabilities with Plan International regional DRM staff, and country teams during major emergencies. The post holder is accountable for developing the capability available on the emergency roster and for choosing appropriate deployments in an emergency.
- Responsibility for upholding and implementing relevant aspects of all Plan policies and procedures
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International support for Plan’s emergency responses is sufficient to meet the ambition of the programme and the standards and timing required.
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Where no existing Plan office is involved, manage teams setting up presence and initial response in new countries to Plan.
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Management of initiatives to improve programme standards of emergency preparedness and response.
· Plan Spain has in place adequate capacity, tools and processes to ensure that all countries are ready to respond to emergencies and do so to recognized international programme standards.
· Management of Plan Spain technical staff for emergency response and preparedness.
Skills
- Minimum 5 years relevant senior professional experience in humanitarian aid (DRM) in the field, as well as at HA
- Extensive proven experience at professional level in working in a Child Rights organization
- Experience managing a humanitarian team
- Demonstrated leadership in emergency programmes implementation
- Successful record of external representation with media
- Managing internal and external relationships constructively, diplomatically and with discretion.
- Ability to meet deadlines under pressure.
- Proven knowledge of UN agencies and EU structures Work experience with international bodies (WFP, ECHO, UN agencies, Europaid (EU),…)
- Experience in working in a dynamic and multi-cultural organisation
- Adherence to humanitarian values and standards, rapid decision making even with inadequate information; focus on programme delivery; flexibility to adapt plans to a changing environment;
- Ability to work under pressure and changing environment, motivating and influencing others;
- Critical judgement in calculated risk-taking. Actively takes steps to uphold Plan’s vision, values and policies, including the Say Yes! To Keeping Children
- High command of Spanish and English compulsory (bilingual level in both). French will be valuable
Competences
- Results oriented
- Capacity for innovation
- Flexibility and adaptation to change
- Negotiation
- Relational and communicative capacity
- Decision-making
- Team development and management
Other conditions
· Willingness and ability to travel up to 60% internationally, sometimes with short notice, and periods up to six months of continuous stay in field work
· Periods of intense work at all times of day and night.
· Starting date: ASAP.
· EU work permit
*This is not intended to be an exhaustive job description and may be subject to change.***
How to apply:
How to Apply
Applicants should have a valid work permit at the time of applying to enable them to work in Spain.
Please submit a full CV and a comprehensive cover letter setting out your reasons for applying for the post and outlining the qualifications experience knowledge and skills that you feel you can bring to the role to: recruiting@plan-international.org, indicating the reference PRO-DRM-AH-17 in the subject
Deadline for submissions: 31st October 2016
IMPORTANT NOTE: Candidates that will not receive any response within two weeks after submission deadline, should notice that the application has not been considered.