Humanitarian Program Officer

Background

Terre des Hommes Netherlands (TdH-NL) is an international NGO committed to stopping child exploitation globally, the most serious violations of the rights of the child, is the core of Terre des Hommes Netherlands’ work. In line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and International Labour Organization (ILO) standards as laid down in Conventions 138 and 182, our definition covers: child trafficking and unsafe migration; sexual exploitation of children; the worst forms of child labour; and child abuse including violations of the sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) of adolescents and retrogressive cultural practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation. In addition, humanitarian assistance is an integral part of our activities, in particular child protection and stopping child exploitation in emergency situations. We work a lot with local partners, so we keep a good view of the local problems. Our partners know the culture and know how best to help children who are being exploited. This allows us to better organize our programs.

In East Africa, Terre des Hommes Netherlands works in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia. We support child victims of exploitation with safeguarding, education, livelihoods support, psychosocial support, legal assistance, shelter, job opportunities and medical care; while at the same time targeting highly vulnerable children, who are at risk of being exploited, in our prevention activities. We launch public and media campaigns to create awareness on our focus issues and carry out local research into the extent and nature of abuse and exploitation of children.

Terre des Hommes Netherlands  (TDH-NL) has been operational in Ethiopia since 2016 and registered in Ethiopia in 2017, carrying out child protection projects within four child protection themes: the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC), the Worst Forms of Child Labour (WFCL), Child Trafficking and Migration (CTM), and Child Abuse (CA) in the form of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights.  With a management structure in Addis Ababa, TdH is currently implementing Emergency and Development projects in the Amhara regional state.

Our Vision: Terre des Hommes Netherlands works towards a world where all children have a decent life and can grow up to be independent adults. A world in which children are no longer exploited. We will continue our work until this is accomplished.

Our Mission: Terre des Hommes Netherlands prevents child exploitation, removes children from exploitative situations and ensures these children can develop themselves in a safe environment.

Objective:

The Humanitarian Program Officer has the overall responsibility for implementation, coordination and the further development of TdH-NL’s emergency program in Ethiopia. This includes ongoing analysis of the humanitarian context, assessing emergency-related funding opportunities (fundraising) to support ongoing and new responses, representing TdH-NL in relevant emergency coordinations, provision of technical guidelines to field emergency staff.

The Humanitarian Program officer works under the direct supervision of the Country Program Manager and liaises with all program, operations departments of TdH-NL in Ethiopia.

Results Areas, Main Duties and Responsibilities:

Technical oversight of TdH-NL Emergency program in Ethiopia:

• Support the expansion and strengthening of the Humanitarian Aid program within the framework of TdH’s Strategy.
• Provide technical oversight and leadership in relation to TdH-NL´s Humanitarian Aid program in Ethiopia.
• Regularly monitor the humanitarian context changes and adapt programs to respond to the needs of affected populations.
• Conduct rapid needs assessments or/and participate in joint need assessments with other humanitarian actors in the country.
• Provide directions and guidance to the country office on the implementation of emergency response programs in Ethiopia
• Closely coordinate with the Humanitarian Aid Coordinators at the head office.
• Regularly assess the technical capacity of humanitarian aid staff and facilitate capacity building training.
• Collaborate with other relevant colleagues at the country, regional and head office to explore and pilot new approaches in line with TdH-NL priorities.

Program management:

• Coordinate and supervise the implementation of emergency projects in Ethiopia.
• Responsible for the overall utilization of the emergency budget in accordance with TdH-NL and donor financial procedure and regulations.
• Design contextually appropriate modalities for each new intervention and advise implementing staff on a range of issues including context and need analysis, response modality and scale, targeting, etc.
• Ensure emergency responses are in compliance to TdH-NL´s, country and international standards. Ensure that all responses are contextually appropriate.
• Work closely with the country program manager, regional program development manager and Humanitarian Aid Coordinator to identify funding opportunities that compliment TdH-NL´s humanitarian aid programs in Ethiopia.
• In coordination with the MEAL officer, regional MEAL advisor and project back office develop appropriate M&E for the TdH-NL emergency program in Ethiopia.
• Supervise monitoring and evaluation of the emergency projects to ensure the overall implementation is in accordance with agreed work plans, donor agreements and humanitarian accountability framework.
• Ensure the timely and quality review of all emergency-related project reports.

Coordination and representation:

• Establish strong linkage with key sector coordination, NGOs, UN agencies, government counterparts and local actors at the national, regional and local level.
• Coordinate with other humanitarian response actors to promote operational and program coordination.
• Actively represent and promote TdH NL in emergency coordination and working groups. share relevant information with the Country team, region and head office.
• Advocate TdH´s humanitarian program with donors and other humanitarian stakeholders.

The responsibilities listed in the job description are not exhaustive and may be readjusted according to operational needs but will remain in line with the overall purpose of the role.

Qualifications

Required:

• Advanced university degree, preferably in an appropriate field such as disaster management, humanitarian aid, international relations, project management or equivalent.
• Minimum of 4 years’ experience in the field, preferably in complex humanitarian situations or emergencies.
• Knowledge of the country’s context.
• Proven experience and knowledge in emergency coordination
• Proven experience in needs assessment and report writing
• Experience in budget management
• Proven experience in management of multisector program
• Knowledge of Project management, including project design, implementation, and evaluation.
• Strong interpersonal communication skills- written and orally.
• Planning, organizing, cooperation, performance oriented.
• High degree of taking initiative and working independently.
• Knowledge of management techniques.
• Verbal and written fluency in English and Amharic

Desired

• Knowledge of TdH
• Experience with protection programming and mainstreaming of protection in emergency programming is a strong asset.
• Knowing additional local language skills is considered an asset.

Competency profile

Analytical capacity:

•  understand complex issues by logical reasoning, investigation of potential causes.

Networking:

•  Builds relationships and networks that are helpful when realising objectives and utilises informal networks to get things done.

Striving for excellence:

•  focus on results while ensuring efficiency.

Integrity:

•  act based on TdH´s mission and values.