Country Director 

We are a growing organisation, working with children and partner organisations in some very challenging places.  We’re focused on child protection, education and livelihoods and our projects range from providing short term psychosocial support to children affected by conflict to supporting the development of sustainable child protection systems. The conflict settings where we work range from acute emergencies in Yemen and Iraq to the protracted humanitarian crises of DRC and Afghanistan.

Department: Programmes 

Place of Work: Erbil, Iraq

Reports to:Director of Programmes & Advocacy

Contract Type:Fixed Term (24 months with possible extension)

Working Hours:Full-time, 40 hours per week

Salary Range: Circa £55,000 per annum

About us

War Child, the charity for children affected by war. We are delivering high-impact programmes that are rebuilding lives across Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, Colombia, Ukraine, Uganda, Burundi, South Sudan, Jordan, oPT, Syria and Yemen. We understand children’s needs, respect their rights, and put them at the centre of the solution - from supporting Yemeni children to access education, to reintegrating child soldiers in the Central African Republic and upholding the rights of children caught up in juvenile justice in Afghanistan. We look forward to a world in which the lives of children are no longer torn apart by war. This is a vision that can only be realised through the collective actions of children themselves, communities and their leaders, organisations like War Child, governments and key decision makers.

Your role

War Child UK has worked in Iraq since 2003, supporting children and communities who have lived through several years of violent conflict. Our programme focuses on child protection, access to quality education and supporting livelihoods recovery, particularly youth. We have a particular interest psychosocial support to children and families, in community-based protection and case management, in supporting the rehabilitation and improvement of education provision, and in youth justice. Our current growing programme has its central base of operation in Erbil and we are delivering services through sub-offices and with partners in Baghdad, Mosul and Basra.

We are recruiting a new Country Director for our Iraq programme. We need an experienced NGO leader who is familiar with the particular challenges of operating in a setting such as Iraq. We particularly encourage applications from qualified Iraqi nationals. The CD will continue to build and adapt the programme in a changing context. Central to this role will be the ability to update our country strategy to ensure continued relevance and impact of War Child in Iraq, build networks and alliances, and represent War Child with local and international partners and donors. We place a very strong emphasis on national and global advocacy as part of our theory of change, and the CD will need the representational and relationship skills to ensure that War Child is connected to the appropriate national and local authorities and partners across our areas of operation, as well as active with UN, technical and peer agency networks. Our Iraq programme places a strong emphasis on youth and child participation in advocacy. With a growing grant portfolio, a strong track record in ensuring donor compliance and excellence in grant management is also important. War Child has developed a clear vision and approach to programme quality, and our CD will have a track record in ensuring effective monitoring, accountability and learning. Also essential, our CD will ensure that our programme participants and the War Child team remain safe, and that our security and safeguarding protocols are well understood and upheld. 

Leadership and team building skills are paramount. Working with a cross-cultural and dispersed team the Country Director will inspire results and performance across the team. The post also forms part of War Child’s dynamic and experienced Country Director Group and Extended Leadership Team, with the ability to share experience across our country programmes in the Middle East region and globally.

Your responsibilities

• Team leadership: Lead the SMT, develop country strategy and build a culture of shared responsibility. Ensure team wellbeing and effective performance management as well as ensuring that WCUK’s standards and values are known and followed within the mission.
• Representation and Networking: Provide effective representation and profile of War Child UK and high level networking in forums and strategic engagement with a wide range of national and international stakeholders.
• Partner liaison: Work with national partners to achieve shared programme objectives and build strong and accountable partnerships.
• Financial Management: Ensure rigorous financial and administrative management: ensure grant management and expenditure information is received in an accurate manner on a monthly basis.
• Security Management: Effectively manage all staff security within the guidelines of security Standard Operating Procedures SOPs.
• Safeguarding: Responsible for creating a culture committed to the safeguarding of children and adults, and compliant to WCUK’s Safeguarding policies.
• Programme Development: Leadership on participatory programme planning and development, in line with WCUK’s organisational strategy; time frames, risk appetite and budgets as well as development of new concept papers and liaising with in-country donors.
• Grant Management, and Donor Compliance: Ensure timely quality reporting to donors and compliance with donor requirements, including leading your programme and grants team to build a compliance and performance focused management system.
• Reporting: Ensure adherence to organisational requirements, including safeguarding policy, minimum standards for quality programme cycle management and regular programme reporting.
• Donor Engagement and Funding: Lead on donor engagement within country and with regional donor. Contribute to efforts to identify and secure in-country funding and providing the programme funding to deliver on the country strategy. Support the team with the information necessary to help develop proposals and reports, in line with donor schedules. Provide final country level approval of concept papers, proposals and budgets.
• People management: Take ultimate responsibility for Human Resources and Development, ensuring War Child is a fair and responsible employer. Leading and motivating all WCUK staff, promoting effective cohesion and team identity across the various offices and projects. Ensuring that WCUK’s standards and values are known and followed within the mission.

These duties provide a framework for the role and should not be regarded as a definitive list. Other reasonable duties may be required consistent with the grade of the post.

Safeguarding

Our work with children to keep them safe is the most important thing we do. We are committed to the safeguarding of children in all areas of our work. Successful applicants will be expected to be compliant and sign up to our Child Safeguarding policy, which you can read here: https://www.warchild.org.uk/whats-happening/news/our-child-safeguarding-policies-and-procedures

You are

• Experience in leading humanitarian and development programmes, with strategic planning and a clear vision of how to work effectively with partners.
• Experience in the delivery and supervision of programmes within Iraq or other conflict environments with some experience of our areas of intervention, Reintegration, Child Protection, Education in Emergencies and/or Food Security/Livelihoods projects.
• Experience of both direct programme implementation and working with partners.
• The ability to advocate, think and manage strategically and represent the organisation at the highest level.
• Rigorous budget expenditure and financial management skills and experience.
• Experience in team security management in fragile contexts and insecure settings and risk management. Negotiation skills and knowledge of the operational challenges of working in Iraq are an advantage.
• Able to inspire team and partners to achieve results in a tough operational setting.
• Compliance focussed with a strong sense of accountability for results and performance.
• Deeply committed to safeguarding of beneficiaries, partners and staff and safe programming.
• An experienced grant manager with direct experience in leading a portfolio of complex projects from multiple donors with a successful track record in securing funding from institutional donors and grant reporting.
• A great team leader and people manager, with demonstrable skills in performance and change management. Able to support the professional development of team members.
• Able to travel in country and overseas as required.
• Previous experience in Iraq or other conflict setting highly desirable.
• Excellent analytical skills with a systematic approach and an eye for detail

Fluency in English and Arabic.

This role is open to Iraqi and non-Iraqi (International) candidates. We particularly encourage applications from qualified Iraqi nationals.

How to apply

• Please download the application pack from https://www.warchild.org.uk/who-we-are/jobs
• All applications must be sent to recruitment@warchild.org.uk by 11:59pm (UK time) 23 April 2023
• Due to limited resources, we will contact only the shortlisted candidates
• Interviews will be held the week commencing 1 May 2023.