Vacancy: Head of Africa and Americas Department, IDMC

Background

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is the leading global monitor and an important advocate for the rights of internally displaced people (IDPs). IDMC provides comprehensive information and analysis on the situation of IDPs displaced by armed conflicts and violence in some 50 countries, with regard to their rights under international law, as restated in the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. IDMC is now also starting to monitor displacement in situations of natural disasters and to analyse the protection needs and responses towards disaster displaced populations. 

Based on its monitoring and data collection activities, the Centre advocates for durable solutions to the plight of the internally displaced in line with international standards, and for an improved protection of IDPs’ rights among national authorities, donor states, international organisations and other stakeholders. IDMC carries out training activities, based on the Guiding Principles and other relevant international standards and policies, to support local, national and regional capacities to provide protection and secure durable solutions for IDPs. 

Job purpose

The HoD is responsible for leading the department’s achievements in the following areas: 
- provide timely information, and analysis in support of IDPs needs and rights in the region; 
- carry out advocacy to promote effective responses to the needs and rights of IDPs in the region:
- provide training capacity to support effective responses to the protection needs of IDPs;
- monitor global, regional and country specific developments pertaining to internal displacement and propose strategies to develop IDMC’s monitoring, analysis, capacity strengthening and advocacy work;  
- implement these strategies once agreed by the Management Group, and monitor results against planned outputs and outcomes;

Duties and responsibilities

Monitoring, training and advocacy: 
- Lead the development and implementation of coherent, forward-thinking, regional and country strategies;
- Responsible for ensuring that IDMC’s monitoring, analysis and advocacy work reflect the current reality of internal displacement in the region;
- Responsible for IDMC’s advocacy work pertaining to internal displacement in the region:
- Responsible for IDMC’s internal and external positioning on internal displacement issues pertaining to the region; 
- In collaboration with the Head of Asia, Europe and Middle East, responsible for ensuring consistency and coherence of methodologies and approaches for monitoring, analysis and training, in accordance with evolving standards, information requirements and with an eye to constantly improving the quality and relevance of IDMC’s work;
- Liaise and coordinate with NRC’s geographical desks, Country Offices and advocacy advisors, to promote complementarity between IDMC’s analysis, training and advocacy work and NRC’s country operations and advocacy; 
- Ensure that the department’s priorities and products reflect IDMC’s and NRC’s overall advocacy objectives;
- Conduct field missions as required to support and promote policy objectives and initiatives.
- Responsible for own regional portfolio as Country Analyst and/or Trainer/Legal Advisor to be determined based on needs and qualifications;

Management:
- Lead a team conducting monitoring and analysis, training, and advocacy; 
- Responsible for coaching and supporting staff to work effectively across other departments, to ensure that policy issues and priorities are adequately reflected in training curricula, and country or region specific analysis and advocacy;
- Ensure that department products reflect agreed policy priorities of IDMC;
- Supervise the department staff and monitor individual and department achievements against agreed objectives; 
- Lead and manage the department staff in such a way as to enable team work and promote joint learning; 
- Responsible for reviewing and adjusting distribution of work among department team members to maximize use of existing capacity whilst taking into account the need to report against new situations of displacement;
- Conduct performance management to ensure consistent high performance of team members;
- Identify staff development needs within the department and seek to meet these needs in line with the IDMC staff development policy and in collaboration with the Head of Finance and Administration department;
- Manage the department’s budget, ensuring efficient and effective use of existing and future resources to meet defined objectives;
- Responsible for timely and high quality reporting and input to the Finances and Administration and the Communication departments for all corporate publications, financial management processes and to meet donor requirements.

Internal collaboration:
- Collaborate with other HoDs to ensure streamlined, rigorous production and editing procedures that support high quality products;
- Collaborate with other HoDs to ensure mainstreaming of protection into IDMC’s products and enable the consistent application of a human rights based approach;
- Contribute to the development of a policy research, analysis and advocacy strategy  and to an organisation communication strategy;
- Develop and lead the implementation of a department plan to contribute to these strategies;
- Contribute to IDMC’s overall policy decisions and formulation of advocacy messages;
- Responsible for interacting and collaborating with the other regional and the policy and research departments to create and maintain synergies and to promote the application of compatible standards of work. 

This job description covers the main tasks and conveys the spirit of the sort of tasks that are anticipated by management. Other tasks may be assigned as necessary according to organisational needs. 

The Head of Africa and the Americas will observe all IDMC and NRC policies, including NRC’s Code of Conduct and IDMC’s Operating Principles.

Accountability

The HoD will be held accountable and be performance appraised against duties and responsabilities outlined in this Job Description.  

The HoD will be held accountable and be performance appraised against his or her facilitation of team work and synergies within department and across-departments in line with the TOR of the MG.

The HoD will be held accountable for a well managed and productive department, with a strong sense of unity and partnership with the rest of IDMC as well as NRC. 

Position in the organisation
- The HoD is hired by the IDMC / NRC Geneva office
- The HoD reports to the Head of IDMC.
- The HoD is part of IDMC’s Management Group and is bound by the TOR for the Management Group. 

Qualifications

Required:
- Advanced degree in social science, human rights, law or other relevant field 
- Direct experience with or knowledge of the application of human rights based approaches and/or legal experience and competencies
- 7 years of work experience relating to forced migration
- Proven research, analytical and documentation skills
- Excellent writing and communication skills to link research with effective communication products and advocacy
- Demonstrated experience in advocacy related activities
- Training/capacity building experience or adult learning competencies
- Must have several years of increasingly responsible experiences in managing staff and programmes
- Innovative, creative, willing to learn and to coach others into learning
- Fluency in written and spoken English
- Knowledge of or fluency in Spanish or French 

Application

The deadline for applications is **16 April 2012**. Please send your application with an English CV and a cover letter to: [log in to unmask]

Please note the folllowing:
- If you have already applied for the Head of Department, Middle East, Europe, Caucasus & Asia position which was advertised in February, your application will also be considered for this Head of Africa and Americas position; there is no need to re-apply;
- IDMC/NRC staff and consultants are subject to Swiss labour and migration laws. Applicants should have a valid work permit or be allowed to work in the Schengen space. For more information on the Swiss work permit regime, please consult the website of the Geneva authorities at www.geneve.ch/permis ;
- Only short-listed candidates will be informed of the status of their application and invited to participate in a written recruitment test.  

The annual salary offered is in the range of CHF 97.284 – 106.550 gross (100% – 12 months’ salary) depending on education and experience, subject to taxation and social deductions. 

For more information: http://www.internal-displacement.org/vacancies


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