Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty.

That means we tackle the inequality that keeps people poor. Together we save, protect, and rebuild lives. When disaster strikes, we help people build better lives for themselves, and for others. We take on issues like land rights, climate change and discrimination against women. And we won’t stop until every person on the planet can enjoy life free from poverty.

We are an international confederation of 21 organizations (affiliates) working together with partners and local communities in the areas of humanitarian, development, and campaigning, in more than 90 countries.

Background

Oxfam has worked in DRC since 1961 and currently operates in six provinces namely North Kivu, South Kivu, Equateur, Ituri, Tanganyika, and Kasai. Our work is mainly focused on humanitarian and development projects in the most vulnerable communities. In the DRC Oxfam is one of the few organizations that engage in influence and advocacy as drivers of change.

Our vision is a DRC where women and men have a greater capacity to make their voices heard in policies and decisions that affect them, benefit from a responsible government, and access resources to enable them to improve their quality of life.

As part of its One Programme Approach, Oxfam aims to link humanitarian response, longer term development programming and influencing duty bearers to achieve systemic change. However, due to the fragility of the state, chronic conflicts in the East and the extreme poverty of its people, many NGOs (including Oxfam) have been forced to focus mostly on service delivery and humanitarian response. The establishment of a mobile response team allows Oxfam to mount a humanitarian response within 72 hours anywhere in the country, an approach that has since been duplicated by several other INGOs.

Oxfam in DRC has remained an active advocate and campaigner in support of the rights of the Congolese population, especially via the ‘Rights in Crisis’ campaign and has been able to capture the precarious situation of the Congolese population and bring their plight to the attention of government officials and a wider public across the world. Building on its programme work and legitimacy to voice the concern of the people it works with; it has used its influence and advocacy as a lever for change.

Community engagement has been an indispensable part of Oxfam’s work in DRC. In-depth engagement allows the community to shape the interventions to their needs and interest, in turn improving the impact of the work and promoting local ownership. Oxfam’s protection programme has been instrumental in connecting communities organised through SPCs (Structures de Protection Communautaires) with wider Congolese and international advocacy efforts.

Oxfam also launched a governance program, focused on strengthening communities to make government accountable and enable the participation of people in the decision-making processes of local governments. Together with its resilience and development programming aimed to restore WASH facilities and restart agricultural production, Oxfam contributes to the long-term development and empowerment of communities in DRC.

The Role

The Country Director provides strategic leadership and management of this large and high profile program, including all development and humanitarian programming to maximise our influence and impact.

This role will play a key role in the implementation of a new five-year Oxfam DRC Country Strategy,(2021-2025). S/he will lead the Country Leadership Team and represent Oxfam in the country, influence donors and NGO colleagues and represent the organization in high level meetings and forums.

The position is accountable to the Oxfam Regional Director for Horn, Eastern and Central Africa (HECA) for the delivery, effective management (which includes budgets and planning), monitoring and evaluation, and learning from the programme.

The Person

We are looking for a dynamic, charismatic and credible leader with the following:

• Master’s degree in relevant field
• Significant senior leadership and management experience in the development and delivery of high quality program, influencing and humanitarian strategy, with and through partners or directly, in one or more challenging locations
• Proven track record of applying new technologies to programming or make use of existing technologies to innovatively influence program design and delivery
• Proven track record in influencing at both grassroots as well as high international levels
• Experience in leading and motivating multi-disciplinary teams, operating in geographically remote locations.
• Proven records of successional investment in start-up programming to ultimately achieve impact at scale
• Committed to a rights-based approach including an active commitment to putting women’s rights at heart of all we do.
• Experience of managing complex change processes and relationships involving a wide range of both internal and external multi-cultural stakeholders across a variety of disciplines and geographical areas;
• A high degree of self-awareness and an understanding of how to drive and support excellent team performance and individual development in line Oxfam’s values and policies
• Proven track record of success in representing an organisation with partners; government agencies, private sector organisations, media and donors at senior level; national and globally
• Knowledge and understanding how Regional Bodies/Institutions work
• NGO Sector experience in the country or region, is an asset
• Proficiency in French and English

Appointment details

Salary: Accompanied position. In line with Oxfam International’s pay range. Core benefits. Global benefits for internationally relocated candidates only. Contract length: Two years fixed term (renewable)

How to apply

Closing date: 7th August 2022 @ 23:59 GMT

Please click on the link here to be redirected to the Red Sea site. For this role, kindly submit a MS Word version of your CV (maximum 3 pages) and a 1-page cover letter detailing your motivation and how you are suited to this role.

Please name your submitted files with the following reference: OX_CD_DRC

Please note that the interview dates for this role will be confirmed with you should your application be successful.

Red Sea is committed to meeting the standards set out in their Equality and Diversity recruitment policy; this includes not discriminating under the Equality Act 2010 and building an accurate picture of the make-up of the workforce in encouraging equality and diversity.