Your mission
We are looking for an experienced, strategic leader with excellent networking, fundraising and people skills
About us War Child: the charity for children affected by war. We are a specialist charity for children in conflict, delivering high-impact programs that are rebuilding lives across Afghanistan, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Colombia, Ukraine, Uganda, Burundi, South Sudan, Jordan, oPt, Syria and Yemen. We understand children’s needs, respect their rights, and support their efforts to find lasting solutions to address the underlying causes of their specific vulnerabilities.
We look forward to a world in which the lives of children are no longer torn apart by war. This is a vision that can only be realized through the collective actions of children themselves, communities and their leaders, organizations like War Child, governments, and key decision-makers.
Your Challenge
War Child is going through a period of exciting change, with a scale-up in its portfolio of programs in DRC and expansion of our emergency response in East DRC. Since 2024, the conflicts dynamics in the region became more complexed and the humanitarian needs increased considerably. Despite the challenging external context, War Child Alliance has the ambitious plans to increase the scale and sustainability of our program. The Head of Programs in DRC will lead the country program, including our emergency response agenda to the challenges link to this context. The position will drive a growing team forward and ensure the effective implementation of new and existing programs, lead the development of additional programs and expand our emergency response to conflict affected children.
An integral part of the Country Leadership Team and reporting to the country director, the Head of Programs will be responsible for ensuring good strategic leadership of programs, managing key risks, and supporting the Programs team to deliver their goals in DRC. It is a critical role requiring a motivated and experienced individual with a desire for a new and exciting challenge in a small but rapidly growing organization. The role also ensures information from the country program is shared across stakeholders and will represent War Child at the highest levels with donors, national authorities, clusters and national partners in DRC.
What you will do:Program development and integration: Actively participate, in coordination with the Country Director, Partnership and Resources Mobilization Managers, in program development implementation and funding strategy in the themes of Child protection, education, mental health, and livelihoods, ensuring cross-cutting themes (gender, disability, and accountability) are integrated into program engagements.
Strategy contribution: Participate in the country strategy development, ensuring to maximize the benefit of War Child Experience in DRC, programming expertise, and strategies such as those on Scaling and on the Evidence-Based Interventions
Emergency preparedness and response: Own the development and implementation of response plans to existing and new emergencies, ensuring structures and capacities are in place to respond, preparedness plans are in place and War Child is positioned to respond with value to the needs of children most impacted by conflict.
Strategic positioning and partnerships: Ensure War Child’s strategic positioning in DRC’s Humanitarian Sector by ensuring active and constructive presence, in key humanitarian and development forums and clusters; foster strong operational partnerships with donors and partners (INGOs, local NGOs, authorities).
Support to fundraising: Assist the CD in fundraising efforts at the country level by providing strategic information and analysis for proactive fundraising and donor positioning.
Grant management oversight: Lead on the management of all grants: coordinate and ensure timely and effective reporting (internal and donor/partner), monitor grant management plans and BVAs, proactively raise concerns and risks, and manage operational donor communication.
Compliance and risk management: Working with CLT and support teams to ensure that War Child and donor guidelines/policies are fully followed during all project implementation, reducing the risk of disallowable costs.
Project quality assurance: Ensure the quality of projects implemented by War Child, by monitoring and driving their compliance with internal and sector standards. Maintain an overview of internal and external programmatic audits and ensure any findings/ recommendations are acted upon.
Operational coordination: Responsible for operational support (supervision, coherence, coordination, and collaboration) between all the program teams in DRC, the Head Office as well as with various internal and external stakeholders of the organization to achieve DRC program strategy. Monitoring of Security-Access context and contributing towards the problem-solving and troubleshooting required to keep the program progressing.
Child safeguarding focus: Ensure that child safeguarding is central in all project designs, implementation and monitoring, in accordance with War Child’s child safeguarding policy and related management tools.
Integrity and protection standards: Ensure that WCA Policies around SEA and Integrity are fully respected during program implementation.
Team leadership and supervision: Provide line management leadership to all Program Managers and, where gaps exist, Project Managers, ensuring they are well supported and guided to supervise the projects in line with the organizational Achievement and Development process.
Internal capacity building: Lead on the organization and chairing of internal capacity-building, strategic design and planning workshops/trainings for the Programs department by identifying needs, mapping internal capacities, and knowledge sharing.
What we offer
- Location : DRC - Bukavu, South Kivu.
- Contract type: Local contract, salary grid and Terms & Conditions will apply. Expats will be offered an expat package.
- Contract duration: War Child Alliance will offer a 1 year contract with the intention to prolong into an open ended contract depending on mutual agreement and performance.
- Working hours: Full time, 40 hours per week.
- It is an unaccompanied role.
- Travel : Extensive traveling throughout DRC is required.
- Well-being activities to support your health and balance.
- Attractive secondary benefits.
- Professional Development: Opportunities for capacity building and growth, both within the role and through War Child’s broader network.
- Meaningful Impact: The chance to make a tangible difference in the lives of children and families affected by conflict, contributing to long-term, sustainable change.
- Equal Opportunities: War Child is an inclusive employer committed to diversity and inclusion, respecting all individuals regardless of age, gender, religion, ethnicity, nationality, or physical ability.
- Workplace Culture: War Child is dedicated to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and respectful workplace that prioritizes safety and fairness for all individuals. We strictly prohibit any form of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying within our organization
Why You Should Apply- Make a Real Impact: Your work will directly contribute to providing quality education to children who need it most, creating lasting change in their lives.
- Career Growth: Join a dynamic organization that values your professional development and offers opportunities for learning, growth, and innovation.
- Global Reach: Play a key role in scaling a ground-breaking programme that operates in multiple conflict-affected regions around the world.
- Collaborative and Mission-Driven: Work alongside passionate colleagues and partners united in a mission to protect children and help them thrive despite adversity.
How to ApplyQualified candidates are encouraged to submit their applications by
May 16,2025. We are reviewing submissions on a rolling basis, so early applications are strongly recommended.
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By submitting your application you certify that all of the statements made in your application are true, complete, and correct and are made in good faith. You understand that falsifying, misrepresenting or intentionally withholding information will be grounds for rejection of your application or withdrawal of any offer of appointment or, if an appointment offer has been accepted, this will be ground for employment sanctions, such as, but not limited to, instant dismissal. In addition, you understand that you need to submit a Criminal Record Certificate and that, if you fail to submit it, no employment relationship can be established.War Child is an international organisation, and we are committed to be a diverse and inclusive employer, placing human and child rights at the centre of our existence and work. We hire our new colleagues based on their talents, competences and shared values; we do not distinguish them based on their age, gender and gender identity, race, color, ethnicity, religion, culture, sexual orientation, disability etc.The safety of children and youth is a paramount and essential to War Child’s work. War Child has a zero tolerance policy towards any form of abuse. To prevent placing children and youth at any risk this subject is addressed in our recruitment and selection procedures. Moreover, the accepted candidates will be required to state their commitment/ intent to be aware, consider and adhere to the minimum standards applicable in development and humanitarian settings, such as humanitarian values and principles, Sphere Humanitarian Charter, Standards in the Humanitarian Standards Partnership, Core Humanitarian Standard, International Humanitarian Law, Code of Conduct for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Disaster Relief and IASC Six Core Principles Relating to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse.Disclaimer- Only applications received via our website are processed.
- If we appoint a suitable candidate before the given closing date, we reserve the right to remove the vacancy from our website before that date. In such a case, any responses received after that time are not processed.
- It could be that during our selection process the closing date for the vacancy is extended. If so, and you have not yet heard from us, your application will remain active.
About us
About usThe War Child Alliance is an international non-governmental organization committed to providing psychosocial support, child protection, youth empowerment programming and quality education to the children affected by armed conflict. We implement evidence-based interventions to empower key stakeholders—including governments, educators, caregivers, and communities—to foster children’s wellbeing, education, and self-determination. War Child has a presence in 19 countries: Jordan, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territory, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Colombia, Burundi, DR Congo, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Uganda, Ukraine, Germany, Sweden, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and the United States of America.
Learn more about War Child and our programmes
https://www.warchild.net/ SafeguardingWar Child is committed to
humanitarian values, standards and norms and we expect the same from job applicants. War Child is especially committed to safeguarding the children and youth we support and doesn’t tolerate any form of abuse. Because we want to prevent and deter any actions that place children and youth at risk, conduct references are an important part of our recruitment procedure. As part of the selection process, War Child will request standardized references in accordance with the
Inter-Agency Misconduct Disclosure Scheme and a recent Criminal Records statement.
The safety of children is essential to War Child. War Child does not tolerate or accept any form of abuse. This subject is addressed in our recruitment and selection procedures.
