Livelihoods & Food Security Project Manager – Ukraine

Background

The Norwegian Refugee Council has been present in Ukraine since 2014, helping more than 700,000 people with food, shelter, water, sanitation, and legal assistance. Rapid change of situation in February 2022 during which whole Ukraine became affected by the conflict required significant scale-up of emergency programmes.

Today NRC is providing support to people affected by armed conflict and those fleeing in search of safety.

Prior to the escalation in armed conflict in February, NRC’s operations focused on government-controlled areas (GCA) of the Donbas Region (Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts). With the temporary relocation of NRC’s staff and operations to Central and Western Ukraine, NRC will continue to support populations in the East with emergency, life-saving food, NFI and emergency shelter assistance to people trapped in hot zones. In the West, NRC established a temporary national HUB in the Ivano-Frankivska region and is establishing area offices in Ternopil and Dnipro. Additionally, NRC is planning to establish field offices in Lviv and Mokachevo. The Western response will focus on assisting people on the move with cash and ICLA services and provide multi-sectoral support to key transit points. The Eastern response will initially focus on procurement and delivery of food and key relief items to Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions.

We are seeking highly qualified, resilient, dynamic professionals to respond to Ukraine crisis and support people in Ukraine and refugees in the neighbouring host countries.

Duties & Responsibilities

The purpose of the LFS Project Manager position is to implement delegated LFS project portfolio, ensuring quality programming and coordination across NRC Ukraine country LFS programme and capacity building of programme staff. We are recruiting for two LFS Project Managers – in Dnipro and Lviv.

Below is a summary of generic responsibilities. Please visit our website for a full Job Description.

1. Line management of project staff
2. Adherence to NRC policies and donor requirements.
3. Contribute to the development of Country, Area and LFS strategies, initiate and participate in the development of relevant LFS projects.
4. Coordinate and manage LFS project implementation (activities, budget and project documentation) in line with proposals, strategies and donor requirements
5. Implement technical direction and ensure high technical quality of projects.
6. Provide regular progress reports to the Area Manager and the LFS PDM.
7. Ensure that projects target beneficiaries most in need of protection, explore and asses new and better ways to assist.
8. Develop and manage project budget (in cooperation with PDM) and coordinate across CCs.
9. Ensure capacity building of project staff and transmit key knowledge and skills.
10. Liaise and collaborate with relevant partners, local authorities and other key stakeholders.
11. Promote the rights of IDPs/returnees in line with the advocacy strategy.

Specific Responsibilities in Dnipro, East Ukraine:

We are looking for a candidate who is active and emergency driven, dynamic, has good organisational skills and with some background in distributions, FSL and nutrition. Additionally, the candidate would have some agriculture/HLP/Co-op/start-up background in more urban areas.

• Emergency food distribution in coordination with implementing partners to frontlines and H2R areas
• Direct emergency food distribution in collective centres/transit cites
• Working with local producers and suppliers to localise food rations, could include: food parcels, MRE and hot meals.
• Ensure safe returns to farmlands (link with demining and HLP) and provision of agricultural start-up grants
• Distribution of supermarket vouchers

Specific Responsibilities in Lviv, West Ukraine:

We are looking for a candidate who is dynamic and with ideas and knowledge on Ukrainian labour/employment market, business start-up knowledge in Ukraine DIIA and employment laws, in more urban areas. Key activities include:

• Linking IDPs with the labour market/employment,
• Work alongside government to ensure correct linkages with their existing IDP support platforms for employment and vocational trainings (State Employment Centres),
• Ensure there is an understanding of all current government schemes that support employment and businesses, creating a service map sharing with our NRC CC such as ICLA to provide specific targeting and serve the most vulnerable,
• Work with local businesses to retain labour, create new opportunities for both IDPs and host and support the kickstart of the economy,
• Working with local producers and suppliers to localise food rations, could include: food parcels, MRE and hot meals,
• Ensure safe returns to farmlands (link with demining and HLP) and provision of agricultural start-up grants,
• Distribution of supermarket vouchers.

Skills & Experience

• Relevant university degree (economics, management, or business studies).
• At least 3 years of experience from a senior level project implementation position, preferably in a humanitarian/recovery context and LFS programmes.
• Experience in management of activities, staff and budgets.
• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities
• Excellent communication, interpersonal and reporting skills, both written and oral.
• Knowledge about own leadership skills/profile
• Experience with Food Assistance, Economic Security and Agricultural response management
• Food Security and Livelihoods coordination and advocacy work.
• Fluency in English, both spoken and written is required.
• Fluency in Ukrainian, and for Dnipro Russian is required.
• In depth knowledge of the context in Ukraine.
• Experience working with hard to reach areas desired

Existing access to the Schengen Area or multi-entry Schengen visa is required for positions in Ukraine

What We Offer

• Duty Station: Ukraine, exact location to be confirmed
• Unaccompanied contract
• Travel: 30%
• Contract: 12 months (possibility of extension)
• Salary: According to NRC’s Salary Scale. NRC offers a competitive compensation and benefits package, including R&R.

NRC is very grateful to those who have responded thus far and continue to heed to our calls for support. This is going a long way in addressing the diverse needs, priorities, and concerns currently affecting the people of Ukraine.

Applications will be reviewed on ongoing basis. Due to large response, NRC will not provide feedback to those candidates who do not meet criteria and/or not follow the application process.