Regional Consortium Coordinator

Regional Programme Director – Anticipatory Action & Climate Resilience (Horn of Africa)

Location:

Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti (with extensive regional travel)

About the Role

We are seeking a highly experienced and strategic leader to serve as the Regional Programme Director for a multi-country, multi-partner anticipatory action programme in the Horn of Africa. This role provides overall strategic leadership, coordination, and technical oversight across programme implementation in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti. The Director will ensure alignment with DG ECHO requirements, the IGAD Anticipatory Action Roadmap, SCALAA methodologies, national disaster-risk management priorities, and evolving humanitarian needs. The successful candidate will lead a dynamic consortium, manage complex stakeholder relationships, and drive innovative, cross-border anticipatory action.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategic Leadership & Coordination: Provide strategic leadership and day-to-day coordination across all programme result areas and operations in Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti.
• Programme Alignment: Ensure programme implementation remains aligned with DG ECHO requirements, the IGAD Anticipatory Action Roadmap, SCALAA methodologies, national disaster-risk management priorities, and changing humanitarian conditions.
• Interface Management: Serve as the primary coordination interface among Action Against Hunger country teams, IGAD, ICPAC, DG ECHO, national disaster-risk management authorities, consortium partners, and humanitarian coordination bodies.
• Anticipatory Action Protocols: Lead the development and operationalization of cross-border anticipatory action protocols, trigger matrices, contingency plans, standard operating procedures, simulations, and pilot activations.
• Regional Coordination: Coordinate with complementary regional initiatives, including SCALAA, IGAD PREPARE, EU CLIMHoA, BRCiS, SomReP, and the Somali Cash Consortium, to promote coherence and prevent duplication.
• Consortium Governance: Lead the consortium governance structure, including the Consortium Steering Committee, partner coordination meetings, inter-agency mechanisms, and timely resolution of implementation challenges.
• Partnership Management: Manage partnership agreements, sub-grants, performance reviews, and capacity-strengthening plans for international, regional, and local partners.
• Donor Engagement: Serve as the primary DG ECHO focal point for strategic engagement, donor reporting, operational updates, grant amendments, budget revisions, and adaptive management discussions.
• Technical Quality: Ensure technical quality across anticipatory action, climate services, early-warning systems, disaster-risk reduction, cash preparedness, health, WASH, nutrition, protection, and urban preparedness activities.
• MEAL Framework: Oversee the programme’s MEAL framework, ensuring evidence, learning, and performance data inform programme improvements, donor reporting, and regional knowledge-sharing platforms.
• Cross-Cutting Integration: Ensure protection, conflict sensitivity, gender and inclusion, PSEA, accountability to affected populations, and DG ECHO Minimum Environmental Requirements are integrated throughout the programme.
• Crisis Modifier Management: Lead Crisis Modifier readiness and activation processes, including trigger verification, rapid decision-making, financing readiness, pre-approved early-action packages, field deployment, and post-distribution monitoring.
• Budget Oversight: Provide full oversight of the consortium budget, financial forecasting, compliance, risk management, partner expenditure, and audit readiness.
• Team Leadership: Lead and mentor the regional programme team while maintaining matrix-management relationships with country-based programme managers and technical staff.
• Representation: Represent the programme at regional and global disaster-risk reduction, anticipatory action, humanitarian financing, and climate-resilience forums.

Qualifications

Who We’re Looking For

• Education: Bachelor’s or master’s degree in Disaster Risk Reduction, Development Studies, Humanitarian Action, Climate Change Adaptation, Urban Development, International Relations, Public Policy, Statistics with GIS experience, or a related field. A PhD in anticipatory action, climate-risk governance, or humanitarian systems leadership is a strong advantage.
• Professional Certifications: Additional professional qualifications in anticipatory action programming, humanitarian coordination, DG ECHO grant management, or institutional donor compliance are preferred.
• Experience: Minimum ten years of progressive experience in humanitarian programme management, disaster preparedness, anticipatory action, or climate-risk governance. At least five years of experience in a senior regional, multi-country coordination, programme director, or comparable leadership role.
• Consortium Management: Demonstrated experience managing complex, multi-partner consortia involving intergovernmental institutions, international NGOs, local organizations, and government counterparts.
• Donor Grants: Strong experience managing DG ECHO or comparable institutional donor grants, including donor reporting, compliance, amendments, partner performance, and multi-million-euro budgets.
• Technical Expertise: Proven technical expertise in anticipatory action, multi-hazard trigger development, early-warning systems, forecast-based financing, and crisis-modifier mechanisms.
• Regional Knowledge: Strong knowledge of the Greater Horn of Africa humanitarian landscape, including climate risks, cross-border displacement, pastoral livelihood systems, and regional disaster-management structures.
• Institutional Experience: Experience working with institutions and platforms such as IGAD, ICPAC, national disaster-risk management authorities, SCALAA, BRCiS, UN OCHA, or similar coordination bodies.
• Policy Influence: Demonstrated ability to influence policy, support institutional change, and maintain effective relationships with donors, governments, technical institutions, and humanitarian partners.
• Integration of Cross-Cutting Themes: Experience integrating protection, gender and inclusion, conflict sensitivity, PSEA, environmental safeguards, and accountability standards into complex programmes.
• Skills: Strong leadership, strategic planning, negotiation, representation, problem-solving, and team-management skills.
• Language Proficiency: Full professional fluency in written and spoken English is required. Working knowledge of Somali, Amharic, or French is a strong advantage.
• Travel Requirements: Ability and willingness to travel extensively across Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti, and other regional locations, including travel to challenging or high-risk operating environments.