Regional Director Central and West Africa At Norwegian Refugee Council

We believe in a world where the rights of displaced and vulnerable persons are protected during a crisis. We do this through our programmes, where we help meet immediate humanitarian needs, prevent further displacement, and contribute to durable solutions. At the root of our programmes are our solid technical expertise and specific sectorial knowledge aiming for the highest possible quality, whether in stand-alone or integrated approaches.

NRC is seeking a solid and inspiring leader who will further develop and strengthen NRC’s ability to assist and protect people in need in the region.

The NRC Central and West Africa region (CWA) includes country offices in Burkina Faso, Niger, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Mali, and Nigeria. All countries are experiencing continued insecurity and violence, significant humanitarian needs and displacement numbers due to conflict, as well as high levels of protection risks. Many of the crisis do not receive the needed international attention and financing.

The region has a budget of approximately USD 100 million and 1,600 dedicated colleagues.

All countries in the region are united within the objectives of the NRC Global and CWA Regional, four-year strategies. Delivering on the ambition of the CWA strategy is a key responsibility of the Regional Director.

The Regional Director is an exciting opportunity to provide strategic and dynamic leadership for the Central and West Africa region.

You will be responsible for:

Strategic and operational leadership to ensure the collective country priorities and approaches are relevant to the country specific contexts and wider humanitarian trends
Ensuring that the country programmes in the CWA region are managed and developed in line with NRC’s overall strategies and policies
A leadership culture, a working and learning environment in line with NRC’s values and leadership/management framework
Leading the Regional Management Team of county directors and the Regional Office team of technical professionals within programme, support, risk and compliance, advocacy and health, safety, and security.

You will be reporting to the Executive Director Field Operations in Head Office in Oslo and a member of the Field Operations Management Team. You will be a member of the Secretary General’s Extended Senior Management Group.

Key Responsibilities:

Develop, follow up and report on regional strategy in line with overall NRC strategic direction
Approval of Country Strategies and compliance of Country Directors for their delivery
Duty of Care to all NRC staff and partners. Promote a safety and security, and risk management culture, ensuring development of, and adherence to, plans and trainings in line with NRC policies
Promote accountability, the highest standard of ethics, including safeguarding, and adherence to the Humanitarian Principles
Contribute to NRC advocacy efforts, nationally, regionally, and internationally, and represent and profile NRC at the different levels
Ensure that partner -and donor relations in the region are maintained and further developed in line with regional NRC strategy and targets
Overall budget responsibility and authority for region, ensuring optimal use of resources. Responsible for the Regional Budget
Hold Country Directors accountable for assessing and responding to new emergencies

What you will bring:

Minimum 8 years of relevant leadership/management experience within the humanitarian field
Experience from working as top-level manager in complex and volatile contexts
Broad network within the international humanitarian community and proven ability to represent an organisation at different levels
Experience from delivering results in complex and volatile contexts
Insight and awareness own leadership profile, strengths, and weaknesses
Excellent communication skills and fluency in English and French, both written and verbal.
Knowledge of the context in the Central and West Africa region is an asset

We are also looking for people who share our values:

To be dedicated in what we do.
To be innovative with our solutions.
To act as one unified and inclusive team.
To be accountable to the donors that make our work possible; the people that we exist to serve; and to each other… the members of our NRC family.

All employees of the Norwegian Refugee Council should be able to adhere to our Code of Conduct and the four organizational values: Dedicated, innovative, inclusive, and accountable

We encourage applications from all qualified and interested candidates. For further details, please view the full job description HERE

We offer: