Country: Ireland
Closing date: 31 May 2016
Job Title: Humanitarian Advisor
Location: Roving
Contract Duration: 12 months
Start Date: ASAP
Reports to: Humanitarian Director
General Description of the Programme
GOAL is an international humanitarian agency established in 1977 and currently operational in 19 countries world-wide. GOAL has an annual budget of approximately €160m and is supported by a range of donors including the Irish Government, UK Government, USAID and the European Union.
GOAL works in partnership with International and National NGOs in many of its countries, both in responding to emergency needs and in addressing recovery/development programmes, and the number of partners is increasing as donors move towards favouring a more coordinated approach to programme implementation.
Overview of the role
This role will form part of GOAL’s Humanitarian Department, which currently has four main objectives:
- To respond efficiently and effectively to sudden on-set disasters or protracted crises;
- To provide technical support to GOAL’s on-going humanitarian programmes;
- To ensure that the agency can adequately respond to humanitarian crises by having the appropriate preparedness strategies in place;
- To mitigate against the impact of disasters by focusing on DRR across all our programmes.
The primary function of the Humanitarian Advisor (HA) is to support and strengthen the work of GOAL’s Humanitarians Department, both in the field and in Head Quarters (HQ). In the field, the HA will act as a first responder and support the implementation and management of GOAL’s humanitarian programmes. In HQ, the HA will technically backstop GOAL’s humanitarian work, undertake the research and development of specific policy and guideline documents, and represent GOAL to donors and other humanitarian partners.
Main Responsibilities
To support the implementation and development of GOAL’s overseas humanitarian programmes; specifically:
First responder and programme manager
- Respond to humanitarian crises, contribute to GOAL’s response as required.
- Travel to GOAL’s current and protracted humanitarian programmes in a learning and support function.
- Gap fill for vacant humanitarian field managerial positions as requested.
Support to on-going Humanitarian Operations
- When not responding to humanitarian crises, under the guidance from the Global Humanitarian Advisor, provide support to GOAL’s on-going humanitarian programmes.
- Support relevant Desk Officers through reviewing and providing feedback on proposals and reports (interim and final) prior to submission to donors.
- Monitor relevant project budgets using GOAL’s standard accounting procedures (Donor Status Report / DSR) to ensure that expenditure on each grant is on target and all variances are appropriately explained.
- Develop a comprehensive knowledge of GOAL’s main humanitarian donor guidelines to ensure that the organisation is operating within these parameters. Provide input and advice to the Global Humanitarian Advisor, Operations Manager and field personnel on any changes to these donor guidelines and ensure that our submissions are compliant.
Research and Policy Development
- Assist members of the Humanitarian Department to develop and update policies and guidelines specific to this function.
- It is envisaged that this work will be on-going as possible with priorities and timelines to be set by the Global Humanitarian Advisor. Policy development will require the input of all departments within GOAL, plus technical support from members of GOAL’s Technical Team.
Additional Responsibilities
- Be familiar with the social, political, economic and cultural situation in any country that you are supporting / monitoring. Provide any important information or breaking news to the relevant personnel involved in that country. Any relevant security information should be shared with the Global Humanitarian Advisor immediately.
- Prepare a weekly report for submission to your line manager by 10 am each Monday morning.
- Undertake from time to time certain other tasks relating to GOAL activities as requested.
Personal specifications:
- Three years’ overseas experience managing humanitarian programmes
- Ability to work independently and without a great deal of direct supervision
- Proven ability to work under pressure and with small and large teams
- Proven ability to conduct assessments and put together programs.
- Experience in proposal and report writing.
- Experience working with cash and voucher based humanitarian assistance programming.
- Experience engaging with donors and international coordination systems including UN clusters
- Cluster coordination systems.
- Experience of negotiation and working with local partners
- Evidence of good interpersonal and communication skills
- Budgetary and financial management skills
- Experience working with Complaints and Response Mechanisms and in relation to Stakeholder Information.
- Fluency in English required, French or Arabic desirable.
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.
How to apply: