Merlin regional emergency health director (WAHRF Project)

The Regional Emergency Health Director will be based in Dakar and will help plan, initiate and implement CARE-Merlin’s health and nutrition response in emergencies. This will involve continuous dialogue with Merlin, CARE, DfID and other WAHRF partners, horizon-scanning for humanitarian emergencies monitoring trends and needs across the West Africa region. The post-holder will also assist in providing capacity-building and training to existing Merlin programmes throughout West Africa. S/he will need considerable experience of humanitarian emergency response, including medical and nutritional responsibility and a medical qualification would be an advantage.

Overall objectives 

- Monitor humanitarian emergency trends and needs across West Africa 
- Build CARE-Merlin’s capacity to respond to humanitarian emergencies in West Africa
- Respond to humanitarian emergencies in West Africa
- Effectively engage with WAHRF partners and the wider humanitarian community for a coordinated response to emergencies

Responsibilities

Leadership 
- Develop, implement and maintain coherent health and nutrition emergency response strategies for countries covered by the WAHRF project
- Work with the CARE (WAHRF project) Programme Coordinator, DfID, the WAHRF partners, CARE’s regional and country offices, Merlin’s country offices and head office to ensure immediate life saving responses to crises and emergencies, whilst considering transitional needs.

Operational Management
- Monitor the evolving humanitarian situation in the region, including through a process of risk mapping and vulnerability assessments, and consider strategic, immediate and appropriate responses to prioritised crises and emergencies in conjunction with DfID and other WAHRF partners
- Take part in the CARE-Merlin intervention decision-making process, in any given West African emergency
- Overall responsibility for ensuring the effective and efficient management of the health and/or nutrition emergency responses
- Provide training and support development of emergency preparedness planning and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in existing and new Merlin West Africa country programmes at various levels.
- Ensure the utilisation of Merlin procedures, systems and guidelines as applicable (in some instances CARE’s procedures and systems will be applicable).
- Ensure reporting is undertaken to meet deadlines and is in line with the relevant donor contracts and compliance requirements.

Emergency response
- Respond to humanitarian emergencies under the management of the Emergency Response Team Coordinator and/or the Merlin Response Team Manager.
- Lead Merlin emergency responses in West Africa; or lead or act as deputy in joint CARE-Merlin emergency responses; or work as a team-member within MRT or Country-led responses, as appropriate depending on the circumstances.
- In each case, to provide leadership in developing an appropriate and timely intervention in close coordination with the CARE (WAHRF project) Programme Coordinator and Merlin’s Head Office, to include: analysis of health / nutrition humanitarian contexts; concept note, proposal and budget writing; programme development and management.
- Coordination with the relevant clusters, donors, other sector actors and national/local authorities as necessary

Assessment
- Assist or lead in regional and country watch and surveillance as part of activities
- Prioritize countries for a pre-response assessment, and undertake those pre-response country needs assessments as necessary
- Rapid needs assessment of regions where disasters have occurred

Strengthening skills and programmes
- Provide training and capacity-building for Merlin (and possibly CARE) regional staff, on emergency planning and response
- Assist Merlin West African country programmes with the development of disaster risk reduction strategies in embedded into programmes and budgets as well as emergency preparedness/response plans in place and provide capacity building as necessary
- Where appropriate, use information provision, participatory methods and feedback mechanisms to include beneficiaries in the assessments, project design and implementation stages of their emergency responses.

Logistics/Finance/Administration
- Support Merlin Head Office Logistics Department in negotiations with key regional suppliers for supply chain agreements to ensure adequate medical supplies during responses as appropriate
- Ensure familiarity with donor compliance issues, ensuring all projects are compliant with these and Merlin/CARE procedures as applicable.

Representation
- Ensure all relevant parties are kept informed of Merlin/WAHRF activities as appropriate (e.g. UN, governments, donors, health authorities, other NGOs, etc.)
- Negotiations with potential regional donors in advance of emergencies, with the aim of securing co-funding streams
- Relationship-building with health authorities and other relevant government departments in advance of emergencies 

Other
- Provide coverage for other WAHRF posts when needed and carry out any other responsibilities related to the WAHRF project as requested by the Merlin line manager

Person Specification

Essential 
- Proven experience of emergency response in insecure environments
- Demonstrated experience of managing health or nutrition projects in emergency settings
- Practical experience and/or qualification in one or more of the following settings: disaster health management, reproductive health, immunisation/cold chain, child health, management of tropical diseases.
- Experience of conducting needs assessments
- Significant experience of representation to a broad range of people and organisations
- Successful experience of writing donor proposals and reports
- Budgetary and administrative experience
- Excellent communication skills, with good written and spoken English and French
- Ability to travel at short notice to remote and insecure locations at short notice for periods of up to three months at a time
- Confident and proficient in the use of MS Office
- Strong leadership skills and a supportive management style
- Experience of establishing strong working relationships with colleagues from different functions and cultures, including at a distance 
-  Experience of a flexible approach to managing and prioritising a high workload and multiple tasks in a fast paced environment with tight deadlines
- Substantial problem solving skills and experience of proactively identifying and addressing issues in day to day and crisis situations
- An understanding of and commitment to Merlin’s mission and values

Desirable 
-  Medical doctor, or nurse, or a graduate in public health
- Strong knowledge and experience of the nutrition and community based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM)
- Experience in logistics and/or finance.
- Understanding of the UN system