Director, emergency food security and livelihoods

Background

The Director, Emergency Food Security and Livelihoods (EFSL) will lead the development of Save the Children's (SC's) EFSL unit as well as provide technical support for SC's food security and livelihoods emergency response and recovery portfolio, particularly in the areas of: short-term safety nets (cash and food resource provisioning), disaster risk reduction, livelihoods recovery, and emergency food security assessment. The Director will oversee documentation, proposal development, training, tool development and capacity building. S/he will also develop and lead EFSL unit growth objectives while playing the lead role in both internal and external representation to raise SC's visibility in the area of emergency food security livelihoods response and recovery.

Responsibilities

- Leads the development of the EFSL multiyear strategy, budget and annual operational plans
- Leads SCUS's EFSL programmatic positioning with WFP, the Food Security cluster, and other NGOs/key external stakeholders
- Coordinates and provides technical assistance to country offices in formulating program strategies, with emphasis on emergency livelihoods, in accordance with annual plans within the FY08 -12 strategic plan.
- Leads and/or participates in emergency response and recovery assessments and evaluations in country offices.
- Contributes to agency knowledge and decision-making concerning pursuit of funding opportunities.
- Leads departmental fundraising efforts to obtain longer term funding for EFSL staff expansion and development
- Assists with documentation of best practices and innovations from SC field programs, and collects and archives key agency reports for reference and possible distribution.
- Works to ensure EFSL concerns are appropriately included in emergency-specific advocacy work.

Requirements

- Advanced degree in related field. Field-based experience in emergency response and recovery.
- At least 10 years of experience in emergency and/or developmental food security and/or livelihoods program management and technical support
- Experience with designing and implementing cash and food-based safety net activities, asset protection, disaster risk reduction (preparedness and mitigation), food security assessment and program design.
- Experience managing a small team of experienced professionals.
- Familiarity with USAID and other donor programming priorities and technical requirements.
- Solid writing, editing, training and grant writing experience essential.
- Ability to travel and to work independently, even in harsh environments. Able to travel up to 25% of the time and ability to be deployed for emergency response and assessment activities.
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills and cultural sensitivity required.
- French, Spanish or Arabic a plus.