Kenya: Regional Education Core Competency Advisor

Organization: Norwegian Refugee Council

Country: Kenya

Closing date: 19 Feb 2016

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within the shelter, education, emergency food security, legal assistance, and water,sanitation and hygiene sectors.

The Norwegian Refugee Council has approximately 5000 committed and competent employees involved in projects across four continents. In addition, NRC runs one of the world’s largest standby rosters -NORCAP, with 650 professionals, ready to be deployed on 72 hours notice when a crisis occurs

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is a non-governmental, humanitarian organization with 60 years of experience in helping to create a safer and more dignified life for refugees and internally displaced people. NRC advocates for the rights of displaced populations and offers assistance within Shelter, Education, and Food security, Legal Assistance, and water, sanitation and hygiene sectors.

The purpose of the Regional Education Core Competency Adviser position is to provide all rounded Education technical support in the region in planning, implementation, proposal development, monitoring and Evaluation, capturing impact evidences, introducing innovations and capacity building in line with the regional strategy and the respective country strategies

Job description

· Provide guidance and capacity building across countries in the region to ensure that NRC delivers high quality, effective and relevant programming in line with Programme Policy and strategic CC priorities in the region.

· Establish and supervise technical lines, communication and knowledge sharing on relevant core competency or cross-cutting issue across countries in the region

· Conduct periodic field visits for problem solving and ensure that implementation of Education programme is sustainable and in compliance with agreed donor’s requirements, NRC and government policies as well as global standards.

· Contribute to adapting NRC’s programme approaches through innovation and development in the relevant CC or cross-cutting issue, in close cooperation with the Global CCA (Team Leader) and the field

· Support the consolidation of a learning culture – documentation, operational research, and capturing best practices to enable regional countries to achieve and/or surpass established targets and standards.

· Contribute to strategy process in the Region by supporting Countries in developing CC strategy, technical SOPs / guidelines and Macro LFAs

· Contribute to global programme development projects and manage regional programme development projects, including fundraising, budgets and reporting to partners according to deadlines and quality requirements

· Represent NRC in relevant humanitarian forums at both regional and global levels

· Scoping, facilitating and encouraging innovative approaches to programming in the region.

· Identify regional advocacy issues related to the relevant CCs and cross cutting issue

· Contribute with advice and technical inputs on recruitment of country level CC staff

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· Specific responsibilities

· Provide technical oversight of Education activities in the Region, with a major focus on youth education programming linked with innovation

· Establish partnership with relevant research and academic institutions (regionally and internationally) around the issues of programme monitoring, evidence based research and documentation of lessons as well as to explore possibilities for partnership on provision of tertiary education for refugee and IDP students.

· Support in the development of education in emergency preparedness, contingency planning and response capacities and contribute to emergency education response in the region.

· In collaboration with other Regional CC Advisors, identify and promote synergy between the CCs and further these through suitable project conceptualization and designing

· Coordinate at a regional level with technical focal points of different organizations to share information, ensure learning between agencies and identifying opportunities for joint programming and fundraising.

· Design multi country projects and identify various donor priorities and funding opportunities for Education interventions within the region.

Qualifications

· At least 8 years of technical experience implementing and managing education related interventions (formal and non-formal education/ education in emergencies/ Youth Vocational Training etc), especially in refugee/ IDP/ displacement contexts

· Senior level education programme and/ or technical supervision experience (ideally in horn/ sub-Saharan Africa region)

· Solid expertise in innovation around Child and Youth programming that promotes livelihood

· Advanced understanding and experience on programme monitoring and evaluation issues. Ability to design M & E tools relevant to the education sector and roll it out to the technical and M & E teams

· Experience in leading multisectoral assessment teams and providing technical guidance on education in emergencies issues, in response to emergencies

· Ability to work closely with field based national staff and experience in various staff training and development approaches

· High level of communication, interpersonal, representation and negotiation skills

· Ability to write high quality concept notes and technical sections for donor proposals

· Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities

· Fluency in English, both written and verbal

· Knowledge of the context in the Greater Horn of Africa Region

· Experience from working in complex and volatile contexts

· Experience with project development, especially from an emergency and post-emergency phases

· Experience working with various donors and conversant with their technical frameworks and strategies (eg. UNHCR, DFID, SIDA, NMFA, ECHO, EU etc)

· Good understanding and programmatic experience on various cross cutting issues such as gender, protection and environment

· Experience in capacity building and community mobilization

· Experience in advocacy work

· Experience with coordination mechanisms (cluster and sectorial)

Education level

· College / University, Bachelor"s degree

Personal qualities

· Handling insecure environments

· Managing resources to optimize results

· Managing performance and development

· Initiating action and coping with change

· Ability to work under pressure and with limited supervision

· Able to present and represent an organisation

· Culturally sensitive and coping with a changing environment

· Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills

· Strong analysis skills (qualitative and quantitative)

· Excellent one to one and group communication /information presentation skills

· Experience working with statistical computer software packages

· Goal oriented with ability to work under pressure, independently and with limited supervision

· Ability to prioritize multiple tasks in a fast paced and complex environment.

· Flexible and proactive attitude towards problem-solving

We offer

· Commencement: ASAP

· Contract period: 1 Year

· Salary/benefits: According to NRC’s general directions

· Duty station: Nairobi

· Approved health certificate will be requested before contract start.

· Application procedures and CV registration: Please note that you are required to enter the geographical location for all your previous positions while registering your CV. There is no specific field for this information in our CV form, but you can use the "Company name" field for both company and location

Miscellaneous info

· Travel: Some travelling must be expected e

How to apply:

Please apply through www.nrc.no, then vacancies