Programme and Operations Coordinator

Are you a senior humanitarian aid generalist who thrives working in a team supporting the Country and Regional operations? DRC – The Danish Refugee Council – is looking for a Programme and Operations Coordinator (PoC) to join the Operations Department at our head office in Copenhagen. You will support a portfolio of DRC’s country offices to implement DRC’s project portfolios, manage risks, and mobilize and coordinate relevant stakeholders across DRC to solve problems and facilitate well-functioning and compliant operations. This will require a person with maturity and flexibility, who can develop good working relations with managers in the field and at headquarters, as well as specialists from different disciplines, while facilitating dialogue and solutions to achieve concrete results.

Who are we?

DRC is a leading, international humanitarian displacement organisation, supporting refugees and internally displaced persons during displacement, in exile, upon return, or when settling and integrating in a new place. We provide protection and life-saving humanitarian assistance. We support displaced persons in becoming self-reliant and included into hosting societies – and we work with communities, civil society, and responsible authorities to promote protection of rights and peaceful coexistence. Founded in Denmark in 1956, 9,000 staff, 7,500 volunteers.

About the job

The position is located in the Operations Department. DRC is currently undertaking an organisational restructure that is expected to affect this role’s geographical focus and tasks, grade and overall responsibility is expected to remain as detailed below.

Your primary role is to ensure that risks and materialised risks/issues are being handled and minimized by our Country Offices (CO) and Regional Office (RO) in compliance with DRC’s global policies and procedures. As such, you will directly support and verify that COs and ROs are able to live up to their Risk Management responsibilities through regular collaboration with your field-based colleagues.

Key to this work will be to “case-handle” operationally complex challenges that arise on a continuous basis in our COs and ROs and follow-up and monitor progress made on operational deliverables coming from internal audits and Code of Conduct reports.

While supporting COs and ROs on complying with DRC’s operational policies and procedures, you will feed potential operational gaps, irregularities, inconsistencies and/or lessons learned back to the relevant global technical leads and/or share relevant finding from specific COs and ROs with other PoCs.

You will furthermore support COs and ROs in establishing and maintaining a strong relationship with relevant donors and will provide direct support to COs and ROs on fundraising in-country/in-region when requested and relevant.

With your seniority and maturity, you are able to provide expert advice and support to the COs/ROs enabling them to ensure overall operational quality and compliance when implementing projects. As such, key to your function will be to provide direct support, capacity, and follow-up to colleagues in the field on DRC’s approach to project implementation.

About you

To be successful in this role we expect you to have a strong capacity to manage stakeholder relations and be work with colleagues up, down and sideways in the organization and to liaise with partners and stakeholders externally. In the fluid and fast-paced environment in which DRC works, we expect you to thrive in situations of task ambiguity; to spot operational challenges, and to navigate towards solutions in situations that are often unclear. You are expected to support operational compliance with internal and external policies and procedures, while continuously raising the bar to ensure we never become complacent.

Moreover, we are looking for someone who meets the following criteria:

• A minimum of 7 years’ experience within the humanitarian/development sector – preferably working in different operational functions.
• At least 3 years of field experience from a country or regional office in a humanitarian/development organization (either as a national staff or as an expatriate) – preferably in a coordinator/ management position.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 30 days a year to COs and ROs.
• Ability to translate operational field experience and capacity into constructive operational support to country offices and regional offices and ability to find tangible and efficient operational solutions to often complex issues.
• Sound understanding of how the humanitarian system is organized, current developments and risks posed to international NGOs, like DRC.
• Sound experience working with donors; fundraising, negotiation and contracting.
• Excellent communication skills. Proficient in written and oral English is required. Working knowledge of French, Spanish, Arabic or Danish would be an asset.
• Relevant academic background, to bachelor’s level or equivalent.

All staff are expected to demonstrate DRC’ five core competencies:

• Striving for excellence: Focusing on reaching results while ensuring efficient processes.
• Collaborating: Involving relevant parties and encouraging feedback.
• Taking the lead: Taking ownership and initiative while aiming for innovation.
• Communicating: Listening and speaking effectively and honestly.
• Demonstrating integrity: Upholding and promoting the highest standards of ethical and professional conduct in relation to DRC’s values and Code of Conduct, including safeguarding against sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.

We offer

Contract length: 1 year contract with an expectation to extend

Workplace: DRC HQ, Borgergade 10, 1300 Copenhagen K, Denmark

Start date: July 1st, 2022

Salary and conditions will be in accordance with the agreement between DRC and relevant organization. This is a national position in Denmark for which local terms and conditions apply.

Please note that you need to have the right to work in Denmark (through nationality or existing work visa) in order to be considered for this role.