Vacancy - Head of International Programmes

Head of International Programmes – London EC2 £32,148 - £36,251

Overall purpose

To build and manage relationships with overseas peacebuilders who are funded by Peace Direct programmes, providing moral support and encouragement while ensuring that reporting and evaluation is carried out in accordance with agreements.

To lead in the development of Peace Direct’s policies in relation to overseas peacebuilding work.

Specific Tasks

• Develop and maintain supportive relationships with groups who are funded by Peace Direct, balancing encouragement with the need for accountability

• Take the lead in identifying new groups for funding and agreeing programmes

• Develop Peace Direct’s policies and procedures as regards funding overseas work, keeping up to date with best practice in the field of peacebuilding

• Maintain up to date understanding of the dynamics of conflict in areas where Peace Direct is funding work

• Contribute to writing applications for funding overseas work, and be responsible for overseeing evaluation and procuring reports to funders from the field

• Represent Peace Direct in meetings, gatherings, seminars, continuously develop new contacts

• Contribute to Peace Direct’s overall strategy

Person specification

Essential

• At least one year’s experience of working in a conflict area, preferably in peacebuilding or development
• Proven interest in conflict resolution, empathy and respect for local peacebuilders
• Ability to manage effectively at a distance
• Track record of working in innovative ways to achieve objectives
• Strong project management skills
• Methodical and rigorous approach to reporting
• Fluent in at least one of Swahili, French, Spanish, Arabic

Desirable

• Experience of fundraising for peacebuilding/international development
• Strong existing networks in conflict resolution/overseas development
• Experience of successful risk taking in start up operations
• Private sector experience

Reports to:

Chief Executive

This post is London based, with an average of 3 short overseas trips per year. Package includes annual (discretionary) cost of living increase, 6% pension contribution, season ticket loan.

Apply to Carolyn@peacedirect.org with CV and full covering letter, showing how you meet all the essential requirements. Feel free to call Carolyn Hayman, Chief Executive, for a discussion about the role, on 0207 549 0285.

Deadline for applications midnight 22nd November, interviews 28th November. Telephone interviews may be offered to candidates based elsewhere in Europe.

Head of International Liaison – Background to the role

Peace Direct is a small (8 staff) early stage UK charity which won Best New Charity in 2005. We fund and promote the work of local peacebuilders in conflict areas. We work with incredibly inspiring people, some of whom are risking their lives to carry out work that they believe in passionately.

We are selective about the organizations we fund. We aim to support the most effective organizations in their field, to carry out the work that they think is most needed. The rationale was summed up by Min Shahi, of KIRDARDC. He said ‘£100 from Peace Direct to use with my discretion is worth £100,000 to deliver a donor’s programme.’ We aim to build close long term relationships, which end either when their work is no longer needed, or when we have supported them to develop to a point where larger donors fund them directly.

In most cases we will visit the organisation before funding is initiated, and then on a three yearly cycle, although arrangements vary from case to case. Our UK project, Truce 20/20, gives us the opportunity to bring overseas peacebuilders to the UK two or three times a year to train young people in London, and sometimes the people we support visit London for other reasons. We aim, wherever possible, to set up opportunities to speak to media or diaspora communities on these visits. We also promote the work of peacebuilders through our website www.insightonconflict.org. Increasingly our decisions on where and what Peace Direct funds will be guided by the information collected on Insight on Conflict.

Conflict doesn’t happen by the book, so people seeking to end conflict have to work creatively, seizing opportunities as they arise. We aim to mirror this quality in Peace Direct. Our access to local peacebuilders means that we can often make an almost immediate response when the conflict changes course. For example, we secured funding for Asha Hagi MP in Somalia to work to reinforce the latest peace agreement within six weeks of the agreement being signed. Our Rapid Response Fund was used by Dekha Ibrahim Abdi and others in Kenya to convene Concerned Citizens for Peace in the immediate aftermath of the 2007 elections.

The people we fund are often caught up in situations requiring an immediate response. They may be travelling away from their base, or facing power failures and other disruptions. Perhaps the least enjoyable part of the role is the continuing efforts needed to extract reports and information on their activities. This requires persistence and a judicious combination of stick and carrot. It also needs to be based on a supportive relationship, in which expectations on both sides are set out clearly at the beginning and reviewed regularly.

We raise funds for overseas work with some difficulty. Individual donors support some of the smaller projects with long term core funding – we aim to send them updates three to four times a year. A handful of trusts and foundations fund conflict – more can be persuaded to fund projects presented under a different banner, for example, women. We have just started to access UK Government funding. Because of the frequent mismatch between urgent need and long funding cycles, we take calculated risks with our own time and core funds, if the payoff in terms of impact looks to be substantial. Your judgment on these risks will be important.

Finally, we fund work both for its own sake and to demonstrate the effectiveness of local peacebuilding. Therefore evaluation is critical. We are putting in place an annual evaluation cycle for each project, managed by a locally based ‘critical friend.’ Finding the critical friends requires ingenuity and persistence, but a good critical friend enables us to close the loop between resources and impact.