Field Office Manager and Governance Lead At Equal Access

Resilience for Peace (R4P) is a five-year USAID-funded, EAI-implemented, initiative to strengthen community resilience and learning, particularly for women and youth, to counter and prevent violent extremism in Côte d’Ivoire’s northern border areas. Working with partners – National Opinion Research Center (NORC), Indigo-Côte d’Ivoire and the University of Bouaké – the project will foster a “CVE ecosystem” by reinforcing community resilience structures, creating civic and economic empowerment opportunities for at-risk border communities, through improvements in natural resource management and government-service delivery and responsiveness. Other activities will educate citizens and foster dialogue networks and townhalls to build whole-of-community trust, increase positive narratives, generate knowledge and learning among local communities on CVE concepts, while economic empowerment and positive youth development approaches will improve their employability.

Position summary

As a member of the Resilience for Peace (R4P) project team, the Field Office Manager and Governance Lead is responsible for the smooth run of the Korhogo field office as well as the provision of technical input and leadership for the development, coordination, and implementation of interventions that contribute to the increased local governance accountability in border areas.

The Field Office Manager and Governance Lead is based in Korhogo and reports directly to the Chief of Party. On the governance component front, s/he works under the supervision of the Deputy Chief of Party. While the technical support of Korhogo staff can be the responsibility of either the Deputy Chief of Party or Operations Manager in Abidjan, the Community Facilitators, the Finance and Admin staff and the communication person all report to the Field Office Manager and Governance Lead for day-to-day management.

Key responsibilities

Field office management

• Ensure smooth running of the Field Office in Korhogo, promote team work and an environment that is conducive to delivering results
• Ensure full responsibility for the appropriate use and management of resources attributed to the Field Office by tracking use of financial resources, ensuring the integrity of financial systems and consistent application of the internal controls and/or rules and regulations
• Ensure timely and regular financial and programmatic reporting
• Under the supervision of the COP and Operations Manager, ensure enforcement of security procedures requirements applicable for the Field Office
• In collaboration with the management in Abidjan and other R4P Project Leads, provide on-going problem-solving guidance for Korhogo office staff regarding programmatic issues, planning issues, and difficulties encounters with communities, local authorities and partners
• Provide leadership in overseeing the effective provision of services to counterparts including fair and transparent procurement, efficient logistics and sound financial management as well as the consistent application of USAID/EAI rules and regulations
• Provide programmatic review and inputs on all reports shared with management based in Abidjan
• Represent EAI to partners, NGOs, local authorities, government authorities and donor
• Organize and chair regular program coordination meetings with relevant staff
• Manage and oversee staff responsible for arranging travel and logistics for staff, project equipment and inventory
• Perform other duties as required by supervisors

Program

• Manage a team of Remote Program Officers to work in coordination with community leaders, local partners and local authorities to implement the local governance component of R4P project
• Coordinate and oversee the development, implementation, knowledge management, monitoring and evaluation of governance aspects of the program
• Provide strategic leadership and technical guidance on local governance interventions. This will include but not be limited to organizing capacity-building training workshops, dialogue exchanges, citizen-security sector solidarity events, etc.
• Ensure the timely development and oversight of local governance workplans, targets, budgets, and reports and direct implementation coordinating with, in particular, the other Project Leads, the Grants and Activity Implementation team and partner organizations to achieve project results and objectives
• Integrate a conflict-sensitive lens at all stages of activities design, development and implementation, ensuring interventions contribute to increased accountability of local governance for all in border areas to respond to violent extremism threats
• Conduct outreach to community and local leaders, government and other stakeholders
• Establish and maintain partnerships with relevant government departments, and local/ international organizations to build synergies and achieve greater impact of the R4P interventions,
• Building off analysis conducted by the Action-Research Unit and working with local authorities and community leaders, identify the best-fit target areas to undertake local governance interventions
• Set up a network of cross-border stakeholders to foster greater transborder dialogue, exchanges and cooperation and promote practical actions to increase security
• Develop and implement an action plan based on an approved timeline that provides guidance on strategic, logistic, resource and programming issues for the governance component of the R4P project
• Develop and conduct training capacity building workshops for non-state mechanisms and structures for coordination on governance and CVE related topics

Required skills and qualifications

• Minimum of two (2) years of demonstrated experience working on projects promoting local governance interventions through capacity-building training, dialogue, town-hall meetings, youth employment, women empowerment, or related
• At least three (3) years of relevant work experience, including experience with international NGO managing a field office or program
• Familiarity with USAID’s policies and procedures in regards to human resources, financial management, financial reporting, and procurement processes systems, and grants management would be an asset
• Nuanced understanding of the political, social and security contexts in Côte d’Ivoire’s northern border areas
• Strong communication skills and analytical capacity
• Experience of working in at-risk communities is a plus
• Familiarity with integrating conflict sensitivity, “do no harm”, gender equality and social inclusion, mitigation approaches into project activities
• Proficiency in French required; robust spoken and written English would be a strong asset; fluency in one or more of the national languages spoken in the North of Côte d’Ivoire is preferred
• Proficiency in MS Office packages (Excel, Word, PowerPoint), Web Conferencing Applications