Head of Middle East and North Africa programmes
Apply by
18 Sep 2024
Title
Head of Middle East and North Africa programmes
Reports to
Claire Thomas
Salary
Dependant on location, London salary is £46,053 per year
The purpose of the job is to lead the development and growth of MRG MENA programmes and to ensure the quality, compliance, security and appropriateness of all activities run in the region. The post will involve running programmes and interventions as well as supporting a small team of 5-12 people to do so.
Core activities
- To lead the strategic development and growth of MRG’s projects and programmes in the MENA region.
- To design, and support team members to design, new programmes of work and interventions ensuring that they are high quality, high impact, well thought through, appropriate to the context, feasible, fundable and cost effective.
- To fundraise for programmes and support team members to do so in close liaison with fundraising colleagues, initiate and attend meetings with donors in the region, be aware of upcoming funding opportunities and trends in the region and ensure MRG utilises these where appropriate, maintain positive relations and dialogue with donors, and to report to donors in line with their requirements including provide regular donor reports, budgets and expenditure reports.
- To support colleagues working on MENA programmes on programme design, fundraising, programme implementation, training, budget management, donor compliance, research, commissioning consultants, safe travel, security of all operations, monitoring, evaluation and learning and all other work-related tasks.
- To ensure that all funded programmes are delivered to a high quality, on time and on or within budget, with the necessary monitoring, learning and evaluation in place. To support colleague to troubleshoot difficulties preventing smooth programme implementation and/or interfering with achievement of the results sought.
- To line manage a small team of approximately 5-12 colleagues (including some distance management).
- To lead on security measures in the MENA region, where risks are relatively high, and to advise staff, partners, participants, witnesses and human rights defenders on security and support and intervene where necessary. To support team members to find ways to transfer funds to partners and grantees where restrictions in place affect normal processes.
- To attend events to represent MRG, present MRG’s accumulated expertise on minority (and indigenous) issues in MENA, act as a spokesperson for the office at events and to the media.
- To ensure that MENA team members contribute to MRG’s media and social media presence (security permitting) and have in place effective outreach programmes ensuring that relevant targets are aware of our work and programmes.
- To liaise closely with partners, advocacy targets and other stakeholders in relation to MRG’s work (particularly where those contacts expect a senior contact or wish to provide feedback about a piece of work, decision, or behaviour of a staff member, partner or consultant).
- To liaise closely with specialised colleagues and ensure that MENA team perspectives are included e.g. in Leadership Team (periodically), in MRG’s web presence, in legal cases work, in UN work, etc.
- To plan work on a regular basis in consultation with Co-Executive Directors and Programme Co-ordinators and liase with them in preparing work plans and delivery plans.
General
- Undertakes such other tasks as may reasonably be requested by the Co-Executive Directors
- The job holder will be required to maintain the pace of work which at times may be high, be expected to meet deadlines and manage several tasks at the same time.
- Respect and work towards full implementation of MRG’s Gender and Equal Opportunities Policies in all the work involved in this post.
- Ensure that all activities and scripts in the regional programme include and are sensitive to gender issues and that MRG’s gender policy is implemented throughout all work involved in the regions.
Confidential information
Responsible for maintaining confidentiality as the job holder will be required to have a very high level of access to confidential information pertaining to MRG’s strategies, detailed financial information, personnel issues, and also access to sensitive external information which may impact on MRG’s activities.
Degree of supervision
The job holder will be line-managed by Claire Thomas and be expected to be able to proactively manage competing demands and adapt MRG’s organisation wide strategy and policies to interventions in the region.
Working conditions
Travel to and/or within the region will be required.
Although the primary purpose of this post is as described above, the post holder may be required to work partly or wholly on other areas of MRG’s work. This is to allow MRG to move staff away from work which is unfunded or underfunded or is no longer a priority for the organisation, to work on areas which have more funding, are growing or which are understaffed. This will normally involve the post holder in carrying out tasks similar or identical to those listed in this job description but applied to different programmes or projects.
PERSON SPECIFICATION
A. Education and Knowledge
Essential
- Educated to degree level or 5 years work experience at a level similar to this post.
- Excellent knowledge of minority and indigenous issues in the MENA region, including recent economic, political and social developments gained through work experience, travel or study;
- Good knowledge of human, minority and indigenous rights standards and conventions, and international and regional mechanisms;
- Detailed knowledge of relevant networks of interested individuals and organisations;
Desirable
- Qualification in international law, international relations, development, social or political sciences or other relevant subjects;
B. Experience
Essential
- At least 5 years’ experience of work on minority or indigenous rights issues.
- A successful track record of designing new interventions that have attracted support and been successfully implemented.
- Two years’ experience of line management of staff.
- Experience of handling complex security risks successfully.
- Experience of at least three out of advocacy, legal, training, organisational capacity building or research programmes.
- At least 3 years experience of designing, implementing and evaluating projects (at least some of this should be in the MENA region, and should involve multi-country, multi-strand projects of some complexity.)
Desirable
- Experience of advocacy at the UN;
- Leadership experience in managing teams.
C. Abilities and Skills
Essential
- Good knowledge of Word, Excel, database use, e-mail and the internet;
- Ability to manage several tasks simultaneously and to organise and prioritise own work;
- Ability to work on own initiative and stay calm under pressure;
- Ability to assess and absorb information quickly;
- Good judgement;
- Good letter writing and numeric skills;
- Ability to communicate effectively orally and in writing;
- Excellent written and spoken English, good working knowledge of written and spoken Arabic.
- Ability to maintain confidentiality;
- Ability and willingness to travel for up to 8-10 weeks per year as required.
D. Personal Qualities
Essential
- Commitment to the aims and objectives of MRG;
- Demonstrated interest in international affairs, human rights, and development issues;
- Ability to gain the confidence of members of minority and indigenous communities and work with a diverse group of people;
- Enthusiastic about working in a multi-cultural environment;
- Commitment to gender and equal opportunity policies.
