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Remote Management Operational Researcher/Consultant

TERMS OF REFERENCE

Title: Remote Management Operational Researcher/Consultant
Location: North Sudan, Nyala with travel in South Darfur
Hierarchically Responsible to: Country Director
Functionally Responsible to: Regional Programme Manager
Working with: Merlin’s Country Team and Head Office Country Desk team
Start Date: ASAP
Contract: 3 months
Daily rate: £150 to £200 per day plus travel expenses
Days per week worked: 6 days a week
Insurance Deductions: £5 / day

MERLIN INTERNATIONAL PROFILE

Merlin is the only specialist UK charity which responds worldwide with vital health care and medical relief for vulnerable people caught up in natural disasters, conflict, disease and health system collapse. Each year, Merlin helps more than 15 million people in up to 20 countries.

Background
Remote management is the mechanism to enable the effective running operations from
a distance despite physical absence from the operational area of key management staff. Remote management or distance programming involves 3 main components:
• Appropriate recruitment and adequate local staff capacities of individual national staff or partner organisations to implement project activities and increasingly take decisions and represent the organisation on the ground when international and/or senior staff members are not able to be present. This may require guiding, coaching and empowering local staff
• A project structure or design that maximises flexibility, quality and coverage of activities. This may require project adaptation
• A system of information flows that maximises training, supervision, monitoring, evaluation, review and adaptation
• The aim of remote management is to ensure the implementation of high quality operations are undertaken in relatively insecure and/or geographically spread environments, even when access is limited or prohibited for senior management or technical staff, and to increase the capacity, ownership and empowerment of national staff and partners over time. Challenges to remote management include ensuring high quality service delivery, monitoring and evaluation the programmes and maintaining a strong adherence to organisational procedures and policies in the implementation of programming.

Context
The complex political, social, economic and security context in the Darfur Region has been the main reason causing serious impediment to access by international and senior staff since Merlin started operating in the region 2004. However, implementing a remote management approach tends to be ad hoc rather than planned and although not the ideal and most preferred situation is one to which Merlin intermittently has recourse. For example, in one field site Merlin only had access to only two out of six supported health facilities for over a year.

Activities to promote a remote management approach were started in January 2009, the current approach relies upon a monthly meeting held in Nyala with Heads of the clinics. In the meetings, the team receives monthly reports and discuss operational challenges, reviews performance of services and carries out training on specific themes. However this model currently does not fully consider the monitoring of the programme activities to ensure quality or the design to ensure maximum coverage as well as quality and flexibility.

While remote management is not the preferred option for project implementation, there may be instances when it becomes the most appropriate mode of operation, for example:
• Field site access is restricted by increasing violence, breakdown of control within the geographic zone or restricted access by parties to the conflict or environment impact such as rains;
• The occurrence of a security event, potential threat (e.g. linked to elections), or escalation of events which results in the suspension of operations;
• The changing context and operational need to assess the opportunities and limits of working in situation of staff gaps / absences and through local partners to deliver programmes;

Responsibilities
The aim of this remote management operational research is not to look at remote management generically, but to develop and plan the roll out a model or set of models (with guidance) according to context of distance programming with a practical set of guidelines for each context/scenario to deal with existing and/or potential situations.
• Review practices and lessons learned from Merlin Somalia and other agencies working in Somalia as well as other agencies working in South Darfur
• For all Merlin North Sudan sites analyse the potential threats to ‘normal’ operations, mitigating factors, current adaptations or contingency plans to ensure ongoing programming
• Exam current project design/structure, capacities, and information flow systems to review what is currently working effectively; identify in what scenarios this does not work; and identify different best practice or at least potential remote management models of operation that can be effectively rolled out in Darfur
• Identify the various tools for use in current and potential scenarios, the pros and cons of each, and when and how they might be used
• Identify key recruitment, training and capacity needs of field staff to undertake additional workload and responsibilities in light of remote management.
• Review current monitoring and evaluation means and methods and identify how these may adapted or new/additional methodology to ensure appropriate levels of monitoring and verification / triangulation means, that also enable beneficiary feedback.

Outputs
• A workable model that Merlin North Sudan can use not only for projects where Merlin is forced to undertake remote management but also those where Merlin chooses to do so. The model should take into account the different contexts and scenarios Merlin is operating in.
• Report including following aspects:
o Provide initial content for a Remote Management training package to be rolled out within North Sudan and key persons to be trained and key responsible persons to follow through. Recommendations on possible adaptations to project design for future programme development e.g. HR structure, outputs, finance, planning.
o Recommendations to improve communications, supervision, accountability and monitoring in case of remote management.

Person Specification

Essential Qualifications, experience and competences
• Experience of programme development and management in emergency and development contexts in a senior management position in an INGO environment
• Substantial experience in project, human resource and financial management
• Experience in conducting operational research in a developing country
• Ability to identify and analyse opportunities that contribute to strategic aims, translate them into practical plans and implement them
• Experience in capacity building and preparation and execution of trainings
• Experience of working in conflict affected areas, preferably with some level of distance programming
• Experience of being responsible for security planning, monitoring and management
• Excellent experience of representing an organisation to a broad range of people and organizations including donors, government officials, etc
• Strong communication skills, with excellent written and spoken English
• Confident and proficient in the use of MS Office
• Experience of establishing strong working relationships with colleagues from different functions and cultures
• Experience of a flexible approach to managing and prioritising a high workload and multiple tasks in a fast paced environment with tight deadlines
• An understanding of and commitment to Merlin’s mission and values

Desirable Qualifications, experience and competences
• Previous Merlin experience
• Experience of working in areas with population movement especially IDPs/Refugees and/or Nomadic/Pastoralist communities
• Experience in designing and implementing Health Care programmes

Data Protection
Please note, on submitting your application, you are agreeing to Merlin holding and using the
information that you have given for the purposes of recruitment and employment – should an
offer be made. Where required by donors funding requirements, some job offers are conditional on our ensuring that potential employees’ names do not appear on counter terrorism lists generated by the United Nations, European Union or the United States. On submitting your application, you are agreeing to Merlin using the information that you have given for checking that your name does not appear on these lists.
How to apply
To apply for this position
Please download an application form from our website www.merlin.org.uk Completed form
should be emailed to applications@merlin-uk.org stating in the subject field the job title, country and reference number (if any).