CARE is an international NGO with local staff and community partners in more than 90 countries. We create local solutions to poverty and inequality and we seek dignity for everyone every day and during times of crisis. These solutions have a broad range, from clean water to access to education; from microfinance to ensuring that everyone has nutritious food; from agriculture and climate change to disaster response. CARE puts women and girls at the center of everything we do because they have proven to be the best hope for creating lasting change in the world. Our staff live where they work, which makes us effective at understanding the challenges they face. We’ve been doing this for over 70 years, since World War II. It started with the world’s first CARE Package® of food for the post-war hungry in Europe. Our work today is as important as ever, we believe that poverty and inequality are historic injustices that we can end within a generation, for good. If you share our core beliefs: poverty is an injustice; poverty is solvable; and together, we have the power to end it, join us, and fight with CARE.
The Operations and Safety Manager (OSM) will advise CARE South Sudan on strategies to work safely within its program environments, maintain access to program areas, reduce operational risks faced by staff and organizational assets, adopt a conflict sensitive approach, and develop the capacity of Safety Officers and Safety Focal Points in field locations. This will be achieved by maintaining a pragmatic and operational posture that enables and supports CARE’s vision and mission in South Sudan, whilst fostering an inclusive risk managed culture for health and safety amongst staff and upholding humanitarian principles.
This post reports to the Country Director, with close daily interaction and engagement with the Deputy Country Director for Operations and Senior Management Team, of which s/he is a member. The OSM will manage the CARE Operations and Safety Department.
S/he will manage the ongoing review, development and implementation of the Country Office Risk Management Plan and associated budget.
The Operations and Safety Advisor will support and maintain safety advisories and operating procedures which are in line with CARE International Principles. In supporting CARE to achieve its mission, the OSM will advise management on a range of best practices to reduce operational risk and prepare robust contingency plans for incident and crisis response.
S/he will be responsible for developing the capacity of staff through training to ensure that risk management protocols and procedures are known, understood and followed.
The OSM will be expected to grow and maintain strong network links with key peer collaboration groups and individuals including counterparts in the region to ensure that CARE can maintain access to program areas.
S/he will demonstrate a high level of socio-cultural, political and economic understanding of the context where CARE works and produce regular context analyses. S/he will also develop a solid working knowledge of CARE’s programs and have a strong understanding of humanitarian programming approaches.
S/he will be required to travel to operational areas including potentially volatile locations to ensure the provisions of the Risk Management Plan are followed at field level. The OSM will support the development of appropriate localized plans and provide expert technical assistance to field staff where necessary.
Key criteria for success in this post are:
A clear vision and demonstrable leadership qualities, an advanced ability to communicate issues of risk management in a credible and consultative fashion, and a management style that engages support and empowers strong decision making. A strong emphasis on this role is the continued development of skills and capacity of colleagues in the Operations and Safety Department, Field Safety Focal Points and the entire country team.
Responsibilities
Management of the CARE Safety Department
- Manage the daily and long-term operations of the CARE SD as well as the professional development of members of the SD per standard CARE HR performance processes.
- Directly manage and supervise SD staff.
- Oversee the development of SD work plans and tasks, track and support task completion and ensure a high level of operational performance. Ensure an adequate annual budget is maintained and tracked to support risk management systems countrywide.
- Continuously coordinate across departments and with field teams to ensure positive working relationships are established and maintained, and the risk management agenda and priorities are integrated into daily and long-term operations.
- Ensure that CARE’s Gender policies including the Gender in Security guidelines are foremost in the implementation of CARE procedures and protocols.
Capacity Building
- Build capacity of the SD through training, coaching and mentoring as defined in Annual Performance Plans as well as informal coaching and mentoring sessions.
- Ensure that members of the SD plan for and attend relevant technical trainings during the Fiscal Year and that these training plans are supported by the available budget.
- Performance-manage any areas of weakness within the SD team.
- Identify talent areas of SD team members and develop those capabilities as required by the Country Office objectives.
- Build the operations monitoring abilities of the SD staff to enable the expansion of activities to operations room functions if/when the program requires it.
- Build the capacity of SMT, Area Managers and staff to be aware and manage personal and institutional risk to adequately mitigate and respond.
- Lead Safety Department to effectively identify staff gaps in risk management and identify, design and implement appropriate trainings.
- Provide training and mentorship to CARE’s local partners safety focal points
Procedures and Protocols
- Implement and maintain relevant and achievable risk management procedures based on current risk assessments and in line with CARE and the country office’s overall posture.
- Ensure that effective communications equipment and protocols are in place and that all staff members who utilize this equipment are adequately trained.
- Ensure that established movement tracking protocols are adhered to by both the SD and CARE staff.
- Develop and ensure the implementation of physical access control protocols for all CARE facilities.
- Ensure that the CARE Senior Management Team (SMT) and Country Director are aware of non-compliance with agreed standards and that obstacles toward maintaining standards are reported and acted upon by country office management.
- Establish routine audit and compliance checks by the SD to ensure that protocols are effectively being implemented.
- Support HR in implementation of PSHEA policies.
- Ensure evacuation, relocation and medevac procedures are in place and functioning.
Incident and Crisis Management
- Serve as the Risk Management lead on CARE’s Crisis Management Team if and when it is required to be formed.
- Ensure that all field level and country level crisis management plans are kept up to date and reviewed, and if required amended.
- Ensure that the necessary external relationships are maintained in order to facilitate a quick response and assistance to CARE during any critical incident or crisis.
- Immediately advise the Country Director and when necessary, the regional office of events affecting or which could potentially affect staff safety or cause damage to CARE assets.
- Assist with emergency medical evacuations within the country office and in coordination with the regional office.
- Investigate and follow up investigations in which CARE staff are involved.
Analysis, Planning and Preparation
- Prepare strategic oversight activity plans for the Country Director and CARE SD Senior Management Team (SMT) to include annual operating plans, guidance framework, goals and activities plans.
- Prepare detailed operational activity plans to include weekly and long-term workplans for the SD, individual capacity development plans, training plans for staff, and supporting budgets.
- Develop overall CO SD annual budget and support its resourcing in consultation with Finance and Program colleagues.
- Ensure Field offices are adequately resourced to effectively manage and implement plans and preparations safely.
- Develop and maintain a strong contextual understanding of the country and areas of operations in consultation with field staff, senior managers and Country Director.
- Ensure that all risk assessments for CARE operational locations and projects are completed at a minimum on an annual basis utilizing the standard CARE risk assessment formats and adequately communicated to relevant CARE staff.
- Ensure the development of the Risk Management Plan, using the CARE International template and implement this plan in programming locations.
- Assist the county team to prepare for major critical incidents and crises through contingency plan development and Crisis Management Team trainings.
- Ensure proper training and orientation plans are conducted for new staff.
- Work with program staff in development of new projects to ensure effective risk mitigation measures and strategies (and required budgets) are incorporated from program design.
- Enable through the development of key networks, access to CARE’s program areas and partner communities.
- Provide technical support including development of adaptable standard operating procedures for safety of partners.
Advise and Report
- Prepare a monthly situational report to the Regional Office utilizing the pre-set format.
- Brief the Senior Management Team on contextual developments specific to CARE’s area of operations on a weekly basis.
- Provide daily and formal or informal feedback to the Country Director on progress in respect to SD actions and initiatives.
- Ensure weekly incident and context reports are compiled by the SD and submitted to the identified members of the CARE senior management team.
- Promote cross-regional collaboration, sharing of ideas and initiatives and operational best practice with Country Offices in East, Central and Southern Africa (ECSA) or the broader CARE network.
- Other relevant tasks as defined by the Country Director or regional office.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s Degree in a field related to humanitarian work or risk management or equivalent field / operational experience
- 5 years’ experience in assisting international organizations in developing countries to manage staff and program safety
- 5 years’ experience in working in an international organization
- 5 years’ experience in working in complex and insecure environments
- Strong assessment, evaluation and planning skills
- Demonstrable expertise of Humanitarian risk management
- Excellent oral and written communication skills
- Strong demonstrated interpersonal skills in a multicultural environment
- Ability to make good judgment on staff safety and provide appropriate advice
- Demonstrated ability to manage under stressful conditions
- Strong ability to analyze and understand complex situations and translate these into specific policy advices.