Early Warning Coordinator at Search for Common Ground (SFCG)

Search for Common Ground (SFCG) is an international non-profit organization that promotes peaceful resolution of conflict. With headquarters in Washington, DC and a European office in Brussels, Belgium, SFCG’s mission is to transform how individuals, organizations, and governments deal with conflict - away from adversarial approaches and toward cooperative solutions. SFCG seeks to help conflicting parties understand their differences and act on their commonalities. With a total of approximately 600 staff worldwide, SFCG implements projects from 55 offices in 34 countries, including in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

The organization is an exciting and rewarding place to work, with a dedicated and enthusiastic staff that is committed to its mission and values. You will be joining a highly motivated staff with a good team spirit and there will be opportunities to grow in the role.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Early Warning Coordinator

Location: Delta, Nigeria

About The Project
Search for Common Ground with support from USAID is starting a two-years project titled “Sharing the Green Grass: Cultivating a Locally-led Peace Architecture in the Niger Delta”. The Action aims to strengthen local capacities to peacefully manage conflict and prevent violence from escalating within a locally-led peace architecture in the Niger Delta. The project pursues two specific objectives: “Farmer and herder communities cultivate the skills and relationships to collaborate on peace and security issues” and “Farmer and herder communities develop effective, sustainable local mechanisms for early warning response, dispute management, and violence mitigation.”

The project will be implemented in Ethiope East LGA, Isoko North and Ndokwa West and Ughelli NorthLGA of Delta State. This “Peace Architecture,” will work to cultivate a culture of cohesion for communities to be at peace with themselves and equipped to build upon that foundation. Search and her partners will work with authorities first at the lowest level (local administration, authorities, the judiciary) and other higher levels (State, Federal) where necessary. This approach, as developed has successfully applied, in USAID-funded “Building Bridges Between Herders and Farmers in Plateau, Nasarawa, and Kaduna States” program in the Middle Belt, consists of conflict prevention, dispute resolution, and sustainability beginning from the local level and conflict-affected people themselves. The project will support community-based Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) to identify risks and partner with civil society, security or government actions to institutionalize strategies and approaches that will build community capacity and skills for sustainable peace.

Additionally, the project seeks to ensure conflicts identified through the EWER feed into multi-stakeholder forums for dispute resolution and higher-level policy change and create open and neutral spaces for farmer and pastoralist community members and leaders to identify collective solutions.

Position Summary

• The Early Warning Coordinators’ role requires experience in conflict transformation and peace building conversant with project management cycles and compliance requirements of United States Government (USG) funded grants
• The position holder must be a planner and experienced conflict and context analyst capable of steering various project activities in the North East to respond to real peace, security and conflict transformation needs
• The Senior Project Coordinator must have good diplomacy skills and capable of negotiating with challenging stakeholders. The position holder advises the Head of Office and Security Manager on project needs, strategies, staffing issues, local context and dynamics.
• S/he will work under the direct supervision of the Security Manager and the project team to achieve the following core deliverables:

Roles and Responsibilities

• Ensures proper implementation of the EW/ER project based on continuous monitoring and analysis of: the most critical early warning signs, peace and conflict transformation needs; partner capacities; operational environment; and security issues.
• Provides orientation of Search at local level and supervises all staff under the Early Warning/Early Response (EW/ER) project;
• Build Coalition and provide strong coordination support to NGOs, partners, and national authorities.
• Responsible for the coordination of  all project activities and collaborates with relevant staff in other Search offices for quality program development and planning;
• Develop and monitor project work-plans, effectiveness and achievement of results;
• Monitors the context regularly and support Early Warning Offices to draft regular context updates;
• Steer the project’s activities to meaningfully address needs in the context;
• Ensures all donor and internal reports are submitted within internal deadlines and to expected quality;

As job descriptions cannot be exhaustive, the position holder may be required to undertake other duties that are broadly in line with the above key duties.

Desired Profile
Education:

• Bachelor's Degree in Peace Building, Conflict, Security Studies, Political or Social Science, International Studies, Public Administration, Development Studies and experience in a related area. Master's Degree preferable

Required Experience:

• Minimum three years of progressively responsible professional experience in peace, conflict transformation, governance, civil society strengthening preferably in the Niger Delta
• Experience and exposure to a wide range on EW/ER response mechanisms; peace; conflict transformation; human rights, governance  and development-related, and humanitarian issues;

Other Relevant Requirements:

• Analytical capacity, including ability to analyse and articulate peace, human security and conflict issues;
• Ability to identify issues and use sound judgment in applying technical expertise to resolve a wide range of problems;
• Good knowledge of the political, economic and social dimensions of Niger Delta region
• Ability to work under extreme pressure in a highly stressful environment;
• Willingness to keep abreast of new developments in the EW/ER field;
• Excellent communication (spoken and written) skills, including the ability to draft/edit a variety of written reports and communications and to articulate ideas in a clear, concise style;
• Ability to plan own work, manage conflicting priorities and work under pressure of tight and conflicting deadlines;
• Fully proficient computer skills and use of relevant software and other applications;
• Very good interpersonal skills and ability to establish and maintain effective partnerships and working relations;
• Strong advocacy skills
• Demonstrate integrity, alignment with Search’s values and ethical standards;
• Promote the vision, mission, and strategic objectives of Search;
• Capacity to adapt to a multi-cultural context, and tolerance and respect to issues related to gender, religion, race and nationality;
• Excellent ability to multi-task and produce time-bound deliverables.
• Expertise in writing reports and success stories
• Treats all people fairly without favouritism and solves problems in collaborative ways.
• Knowledge of and prior exposure to a wide range peace; community peacebulding, prevention of violence; conflict transformation; human rights, governance  and/or development-related issues;

Language Requirement:

• Fluency in English language, knowledge of local dialect in Delta state is a strong added advantage.

Application Closing Date
28th February, 2019.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Application Instruction
Interested candidates should send the following:

• Current Resume
• Cover Letter (which includes expectations of compensation and projected start date)

Note

• The system only has the functionality to upload two documents per application. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.
• Only applicants invited for an interview will be contacted. No phone calls please.