Humanitarian Operations Specialist

Blumont works with communities around the world to take on big challenges. Whether it is delivering lifesaving humanitarian assistance, building the infrastructure that stabilizes communities, or helping to create economic opportunities for individuals and businesses, our work matters. What we do looks different in every community because the aspirations, needs, and opportunities of people in each community are unique. We are a dedicated team, more than 95 percent of whom are hired locally, providing relief, supporting recovery, and creating a more resilient future with the people and communities we serve.

Blumont’s humanitarian assistance efforts provide relief to communities in crisis. From refugee and displacement camps to communities recovering from conflict, our teams work to meet peoples’ basic needs, including safety, shelter, WASH, and trauma support. We prioritize the dignity of all we serve—ensuring that local voices inform activities and providing aid in line with humanitarian principles and standards.

Summary:

The Operations Specialist will join Blumont’s team based in Iraq supporting a camp management program for Al Hol and Roj camps. This role is responsible for providing technical support, operational support, and guidance for camp-based staff. S/he will initially oversee reviewing and improving our warehouse management processes, camp distribution operations, and the tracking of goods and supplies in line with best practices and in compliance with organizational and donor requirements to improve our service delivery to beneficiaries. The Humanitarian Operations Specialist will work directly with the Chief of Party, closely collaborate with our Technical Team at HQ and supply chain and compliance colleagues located in Erbil. This role will change and evolve to meet the operational requirements of the program.

Key Responsibilities:

• Ensure warehouse management and field distributions are of highest quality and meet global standards (i.e., Core Humanitarian Standards, SPHERE etc.)
• Promote systematic program learning to ensure that lessons learned are identified, documented, and shared for warehouse management, distributions, and tracking of goods and supplies.
• Lead on organizational learning products and tool development.
• Ensure adherence to global organizational best practices in warehouse management and field distribution operations.
• Support staff and help build capacity to implement Warehouse Management Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Develop SOPs for the different distribution field operations.
• Support program to ensure all tools, guidelines, and procedures required in emergencies and humanitarian contexts for warehouse and field distributions are in place, understood, and utilized by Blumont staff and partners.
• Lead on identifying field technical staff capacity gaps and developing capacity building plans to improve WH and field distributions.
• Support the continual professional development of the field technical staff through on the-job support and guidance, in-person training, technical backstopping, advice etc.

Skills and Competence:

• Minimum 10 years of international experience working in humanitarian assistance with at least five years of experience in leadership positions/advisory roles working with supply chain, operations, etc.
• Robust knowledge of international norms, minimum standards, and best practices related to compliance, warehouse management (supply chain), field logistics and humanitarian operations.
• Bachelor’s Degree in a relevant field with at least five years of field experience and/or Master’s Degree in international relations, humanitarian assistance, social science, or other relevant fields
• A track record of solutions oriented approaches.
• Demonstrated capacity for strategic thinking and ability to respond effectively to changing contexts and new challenges.
• Strong experience in capacity building and mentoring of others. Demonstrated high level facilitation, coaching and mentoring skills.
• Excellent written communication skills with ability to write manuals and SOPs.
• Commitment to respect cultural differences and the ability to work effectively with people from a range of background and experiences.
• Evidence of knowledge on conflict sensitivity and Do No Harm approaches and how to apply these to humanitarian operations.
• Commitment to upholding protection principles and gender equality and knowledge of how to apply these to humanitarian operations.
• Excellent communication skills; fluency in English and Arabic required.
• Strong analytical capacity and problem-solving skills.
• Experience working in the MENA region; preferred with camp settings.

Travel:

• Erbil, Iraq post with frequent travel (up to 60%) to field based offices

Physical Requirements:

• Personnel who travel for Blumont must be physically able: (i) to function for extended periods of time wearing personal protective body armor weighing approximately 35 pounds and a helmet weighing approximately 5 pounds; (ii) to walk comfortably over rough terrain; and (iii) to ascend up to six flights of stairs on a daily basis. Candidates will be required to provide medical certification to Blumont’s satisfaction of the absence of any conditions that might impair a candidate’s ability to meet these requirements.