Program Lead, Humanitarian Response - 2025826

About the Role

World Relief is seeking a Program Lead for Humanitarian Response to provide leadership for our role as co-lead on an anticipated multi-country humanitarian consortium project. This position will have primary responsibility for a rapid response mechanism that addresses sudden onset humanitarian needs in complex fragile contexts. The role involves leading the design, implementation, monitoring, and accountability of the rapid response mechanism, representing World Relief in consortium management, and supporting effective implementation across participating country programs.

The Program Lead will also contribute to World Relief’s broader humanitarian response and Program Quality & Impact priorities, including support for sudden-onset disaster response, emergency response design, crisis response funding mobilization, and development of technical guidance for disaster response opportunities. This position includes direct managerial supervision of a designated Program Officer.

Responsibilities

• Supervisory Duties: Monitor daily work activities, track and approve timesheets and time off, monitor performance, document performance concerns, and manage staff promotions, transitions, and separations in HRIS. Lead staff in a manner consistent with Christian values, including prayer, devotionals, and fostering a Christian environment.
• Rapid Response Mechanism Leadership (55%):
  • Provide strategic leadership, oversight, and technical guidance for sudden onset disaster work led by World Relief in the consortium project.
  • Support and oversee World Relief country offices implementing non-sudden onset programming in collaboration with Country Office leadership and Technical Advisors.
  • Ensure effective coordination, quality implementation, financial management, compliance, and achievement of project objectives.
  • Maintain and refine rapid response guidance, tools, templates, and operating procedures for efficient crisis assessment and response.
  • Coordinate context monitoring, rapid needs assessments, response level recommendations, and internal decision-making for rapid response activations.
  • Support mobilization of crisis response funding, including program design, partner selection, and coordination of internal inputs for emergency submissions.
  • Draft or contribute to concept notes, donor-facing narratives, response strategies, assessment summaries, and other emergency response materials.
  • Facilitate rapid design processes with country teams and partners, including development of response logic and review of proposed activities.
  • Coordinate with Business Development, Operations, Program Quality & Impact, regional leadership, finance, and safeguarding teams for technically sound and operationally realistic emergency submissions.
  • Collect, review, and consolidate project reports from World Relief country offices and implementing partners, ensuring timely and high-quality submissions to the consortium lead.
  • Lead or coordinate rapid emergency needs assessments in non-operational countries and prepare consolidated assessment reports and recommendations.
  • Support partner mapping, selection, and review of partner readiness for sudden-onset response opportunities.
  • Ensure rapid response activations are grounded in humanitarian need, operational feasibility, partner capacity, donor requirements, and risk analysis.
  • Develop and maintain a project management framework to ensure effective coordination among project implementers.
• Representation and External Engagement (25%):
  • Serve as World Relief’s primary point of contact with consortium co-leads and the project Prime, coordinating inputs into consortium planning, decision-making, reporting, and learning.
  • Develop and build effective partnerships with program partners, in-country stakeholders, and local government authorities.
  • Collaborate with stakeholders and implementing partners to ensure activities conform to requirements and regulations.
  • Provide oversight to project sub-awardees and maintain strong collaborative relationships with them.
  • Oversee all project consulting relationships, including recruitment, vetting, and contracting of consultants.
  • Translate consortium decisions and requirements into clear internal actions for World Relief country programs and home office teams.
  • Prepare briefings, updates, and recommendations for World Relief International Programs leadership on consortium performance and implementation risks.
• WR Program Quality & Disaster Response Technical Leadership (20%):
  • Serve as a technical and program design resource for World Relief’s disaster response portfolio, with emphasis on sudden-onset humanitarian response.
  • Support the development of disaster response guidance, tools, standards, and internal decision/action documents.
  • Review emergency response program designs for clarity, appropriateness, operational feasibility, partner capacity, risk, and alignment with World Relief standards.
  • Advise country programs, regional teams, and home office colleagues on emergency response quality, assessments, response strategy, and adaptive management.
  • Support organizational response planning for sudden-onset emergencies, including public health emergencies, natural disasters, and conflict-related displacement.
  • Collaborate with Program Quality & Impact leadership to strengthen World Relief’s preparedness and response design capacity.
  • Maintain strong relationships with country teams to promote project quality and support critical project decisions.

Qualifications

• Strong humanitarian program leadership experience in fragile, conflict-affected, disaster-affected, or complex emergency contexts.
• Demonstrated experience designing or supporting rapid humanitarian responses, including needs assessment, response strategy, partner selection, program design, and implementation monitoring.
• Strong consortium coordination skills, including ability to represent an organization in multi-agency governance or project management structures.
• Proven managerial experience, strategy development, and staff oversight, with preference for experience with US Government administrative, management, and reporting procedures.
• Excellent diplomacy skills and ability to establish and maintain interpersonal and professional relationships with co-leads, donor representatives, host-country counterparts, NGOs, and UN agencies.
• Ability to lead through influence across country teams, regional leadership, home office functions, and external partners without relying on direct line authority.
• Excellent written communication skills, including ability to draft concept notes, program design documents, donor narratives, decision memos, and technical guidance under time pressure.
• Comfort and familiarity with representing World Relief at external events and technical working groups.