Chief of Party – Serbia

The Chief of Party will be the final responsible for the following tasks:

• Providing overall project leadership, management, and technical coordination;
• Ensuring external representation of the Food Consortium activities and mission;
• Ensuring compliance to contractual rules (with donor and partners) including purchase and visibility rules and to Oxfam’s policies and SOPs;
• Supervising project technical and support (administrative and logistic) staff;
• Liaising with governmental counterparts to support the Action and future collaborations;
• Participating in internal/external evaluations to assess progress and contributing to put in place recommend solutions;
• Coordinating board and steering committee meetings and representing the food consortium at sector meetings and meetings with external stakeholders;
• Provide strategic guidance in unifying approaches between Consortium members across different reception centres and ensure the application of common quality standards in food provision and M&E between the partners in all the phases of humanitarian response;
• Oversee the financial management system for the project, and – in conjunction with the Finance Manager – develop and monitor the project budget;
• Lead on intermediate and final narrative and financial reports in coordination with the Finance Manager and the Programme Coordinator and ensure quality and time effectiveness of reporting processes;
• Manage the Consortium Team: Field Monitors, Programme Coordinator, Strategic Partnership Manager, MEAL Manager, MEAL Officer, Finance Manager, Finance Officer, Finance Assistant, and #2 consultants (Nutritionist and MEAL).
• Participating to new proposal development in line with the Protection Strategy for Serbia.

This job description is not incorporated in the employment contract.  It is intended as a guide and should not be viewed as an inflexible specification as it may be varied from time to time in the light of strategic developments and following discussion with the post holder.

QUALIFICATIONS AND SKILLS REQUIRED

Essential requirements:

• Advanced university degree in development studies, public management or other related field;
• At least 8 years of relevant professional humanitarian or development experience with an international organization;
• At least 5 years of experience in a managerial position with regards to Humanitarian Aid projects in the field;
• Demonstrated ability to implement projects with rigorous deliverables and timelines in accordance with set timeframes and donor regulation;
• Experience of managing large grants from major international donors, particularly European Union;
• Demonstrated experience in writing projects, including for Humanitarian Aid donors;
• Demonstrated capacity in office management, including capacity building of staff;
• Previous experience managing diverse teams to deliver results on short timelines, including the development of spending plans, procurement plans and workplan;
• Knowledge of the main humanitarian donors, with particular reference to DG ECHO.
• Excellent spoken and technical writing ability in English, including report writing;
• Strong computer literacy with a full knowledge of MS Office.
• Excellent budget planning and management skills, previous experience effectively managing big-size grants;
• Strong verbal communication skills and effective in representation and liaison with external actors
• Culturally sensitive and able to understand and work in a very complex context.
• Problem solving attitude
• Good team player with strong initiative.
• Good inter-personal and communication skills.
• Ability to adapt and work in difficult situations.

Preferential requirements:

• Previous experience in food assistance projects is highly desirable;
• Knowledge of local language and/or regional experience is an asset;
• Knowledge of protection;
• Experience in design and use of monitoring and evaluation system across different organizations;