OCHA is the part of the United Nations Secretariat responsible for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies. OCHA’s mission is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors in order to alleviate human suffering in disasters and emergencies; advocate the rights of people in need; promote preparedness and prevention, and facilitate sustainable solutions.

The Ukraine Humanitarian Fund (UHF) is a country-based pooled fund intended to support coordinated humanitarian action, in line with the Humanitarian Response Plan, and to address some of the most critical needs, which are of strategic priority and which would otherwise would go unfunded.

The UHF allows donors to pool their contributions into single, unearmarked funds to support local humanitarian efforts, which will, in turn, not only enable a coordinated, flexible and inclusive humanitarian response, but also strategically maximize available resources.

Under the overall guidance of the Fund Manager and under the direct supervision of the Deputy Fund Manager and the Associate Programme Officer, the incumbent will be expected to be able to perform the following functions:

Summary of key functions:

• Acting as the UHF focal point in the geographical area of responsibility
• Fund Administration
• Managing the monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian projects in the area of responsibility
• Ensuring quality and accountability of monitoring
• Technical support to UHF partners and key stakeholders (clusters, implementing partners, potential partners)
• Communication and Reporting

Fund Administration:

• Supports UHF allocation development by providing relevant inputs to allocation planning and strategy papers, and setting up UHF allocations in the Grant Management System (GMS).
• Conducts strategic and technical reviews of project proposals submitted by UHF partners, in close communication with Review Committees, Clusters and partners.
• Supports the overall administration of the UHF and liaise as necessary with relevant OCHA sections.
• Liaises with partners as well as Clusters and OCHA field offices to follow up on project progress and overall Fund progress.
• Supports proper communication and support during the allocation process to all stakeholders.
• Liaises with and provides necessary support to recipient organizations of the Fund throughout the life cycle of the projects, promoting coherence between humanitarian needs and response.

Managing the monitoring and evaluation of humanitarian projects in the area of responsibility:

• Monitor progress and effect of the humanitarian response against the strategic priorities as well as promote and support the quality assurance of UHF-funded projects;
• Support the Clusters to monitor the progress and effect of the UHF-funded projects and their coherence with the cluster response plans defined in the HRP;
• Facilitate that cross-cutting issues are monitored by all stakeholders at all levels.

Ensuring quality and accountability of monitoring: 

• Ensure the standards, tools and systems used to deliver quality and accountable monitoring and reporting of monitoring findings including information on levels of compliance achieved against standards and indicators;
• Analyse lessons learned and make recommendations to improve the quality and accountability of UHF-funded humanitarian assistance;
• Promote monitoring, evaluations and audits as means of guiding and supporting agencies implementing UHF-funded projects;
• Propose and facilitate external reviews/evaluations as agreed by the clusters and the HLG;
• Support agencies and clusters to seek innovative methods for remote management and monitoring to improve accountability.

Technical support to the UHF partners and key stakeholders: 

• Provide guidance to potential partners on the UHF partner eligibility process;
• Provide guidance to eligible partners on project design, submission, revisions, and reporting on GMS;
• Establish and maintain strong working relationships with OCHA Field Office colleagues and other key humanitarian actors dealing with UHF partners in the area of responsibility.
• Support partners in their monitoring and evaluation and indicators in order to facilitate effective collaboration and communication.
• Provide technical support to Clusters to monitor and evaluate the progress and achievements of UHF-funded projects, including the Cluster-set objectives and indicators as well as cross-cutting CBPF success indicators and targets;
• Provide technical support to Clusters in the identification of good practices and lessons among current cluster partner programming and monitoring methodologies used by the Clusters;
• Provide technical support/guidance to Clusters in monitoring and reporting responsibilities ensuring coherence with existing reporting requirements.

Communication and Reporting: 

• Support in collecting stories and photos when possible on UHF funded projects for visibility and communication purposes.

Other: 

• Support the Pooled Fund Manager in the management and secretariat work of the CBPF constituencies (Advisory Board, Strategic Review Committee and etc).
• Coordinate with other members of the UHF team, and with other units of OCHA, to perform additional tasks for UHF management as relevant.

Accurate analysis and presentation of information, thoroughly researched and fully documented work strengthens the capacity of the office and facilitates subsequent action by the supervisor.

Incumbent’s own initiative is decisive in results of work and timely finalization.

• Thorough knowledge of the programme cycle (planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation) of humanitarian projects;
• Knowledge and experience in project log frame development, proposal writing, quantitative and qualitative surveys and progress report writing;
• Knowledge on humanitarian principles, standards and emergency response;
• Knowledge and application skills of IT tools and management systems;
• Very good analytical skills and results orientation;
• Ability to manage several activities with tight deadlines;
• Skills to manage relationships and communicate with diverse partners.

Core Competencies:

• Demonstrating/safeguarding ethics and integrity;
• Demonstrate corporate knowledge and sound judgment;
• Self-development, initiative-taking;
• Acting as a team player and facilitating team work; 
• Communicating effectively, facilitating and encouraging open communication in the team, communicating effectively with partners demonstrating strong client orientation.