Closing date December 4, 2023
The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is an independent international non-governmental organization, working in 40+ countries throughout the world, and our primary mandate is to promote durable solutions for refugees and displaced populations. DRC East Africa & Great Lakes (EAGL) region provides urgent response at the onset of displacement and works with displacement-affected populations - both internally and across borders - to develop solutions to the challenges that they face. The DRC office in Nairobi is a Regional Office providing management support and strategic direction to DRC programs operating in East Africa & Great Lake region. The EAGL Regional Office covers the following country operations: Burundi, Djibouti, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Overall purpose of the role

The Regional Emergency Coordinator for East Africa assists in the development and strengthening of emergency preparedness and response within the region through the provision of technical support, operational guidance, trouble-shooting and quality assurance to all emergency programmes within the East Africa sub-region on a needs and request basis. This position represents an excellent opportunity to provide technical leadership and capacity building in an exciting and challenging context, and to strategically develop the quality, impact and sectoral integration of DRC’s emergency responses

Responsibilities:

Emergency Preparedness and Response

Support EA countries to ensure they have up-to-date Emergency Preparedness and Response Plans (EPRP);
Coordinate closely with the regional emergency response coordinator for Great Lakes to ensure coherence and inter-connectivity of EPRPs in neighbouring countries (particularly Horn of Africa);
Support all EA countries to conduct Annual Integrated Emergency Response Needs Assessments and ad-hoc Rapid Needs Assessments where required;
Provide emergency response training to RO and CO staff as required/identified;
Undertake needs assessments for new emergencies/projects/programmes as required/identified;
Support existing/new operations in emergency response – assist in staff recruitment, staff training, setting up systems, and planning and starting activities; and
Support in emergency proposal development/review.
Quality Assurance

Conduct humanitarian response capacity assessments in countries/areas as required;
Provide trouble-shooting in existing operations facing bottlenecks in implementation;
Ensure countries are using and able to use correct emergency MEAL tools, develop new tools where necessary, and ensure coherence of emergency MEAL approaches across EA and GL;
Develop and maintain an up-to-date regional EA and GL emergency toolkit and provide required trainings in close coordination with the regional emergency coordinator GL;
Work with RO and CO technical staff to ensure integration of emergency response into Strategic Plans, promote sector integration in emergencies, and ensure response activities are appropriate and high quality across all sectors;
Provide significant input and advice to strategies to transition emergency operations to recovery, resilience and Durable Solutions approaches;
Ensure all emergency response actions are adhering to standards and best practices including HAP/CHS standards, relevant Minimum Standards and SPHERE etc.
Ensure that DRC mandate, policies and values in programming is upheld, and DRC’s accountability obligations are delegated and carried out in accordance with standard regulations and operational procedures e.g. Code of Conduct, DRC Programme Handbook, DRC Operations Handbook
Regional Leadership and Coordination

Lead and coordinate regionally-led multi-country emergency responses as/where needed in EA, provide support in GL as relevant;
Lead on DRC’s hard to reach (H2R) technical approach in EA.
In close coordination with the Regional Security Coordinator, assist in assessing access possibilities to new areas, or areas with limited/no access, as needed;
Provide technical support and quality assurance for all emergency response business development opportunities in EA countries, including leading on business development for regional and/or multi-country business development as needed.
Participate as relevant in coordination mechanisms throughout the region and represent DRC as requested, including building relationships with other regional Emergency Coordinators (or equivalent) in NGOs, CSOs, donor agencies, UN etc.;
Act as the primary point of contact for HQ Emergency Management Unit for emergency response and surge deployments in EA
Provide RO and CO Senior Management Teams with updated information on ongoing/emerging humanitarian crises and needs within the East Africa region;
Identification and prioritization (continuous) of geographi