Project Director (PD)

Job Summary

The Project Director (PD) provides overall strategic leadership, management, and oversight of the RISE Fund- Pillar 2 Multi-Sector Complex Emergency Response Project. The PD is accountable for achieving project objectives, ensuring quality implementation, maintaining donor compliance, managing consortium and partner relationships, and representing the project with government, donors, clusters, UN agencies, and humanitarian coordination structures.

The Project Director provides leadership to a multidisciplinary team implementing integrated emergency interventions across Education in Emergencies, Protection, WASH, Health, Nutrition, Shelter/NFI, Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA), Emergency Agriculture, and Humanitarian Information Management sectors. The role ensures effective coordination, adaptive management, financial stewardship, risk management, and achievement of project outcomes in complex humanitarian contexts. The Project Director serves as the principal liaison with the donor and provides strategic direction to ensure that the project contributes to national humanitarian priorities, localization commitments, and durable solutions for crisis-affected populations.

Strategic Leadership and Project Oversight

• Provide overall vision, leadership, and strategic direction for the multi-sectoral emergency project, ensuring alignment with donor agreements, humanitarian principles, and World Vision’s national and global emergency strategies.
• Maintain full accountability for programmatic, financial, compliance, safeguarding, and risk performance across all sectors and regions.
• Lead integrated annual, quarterly, and contingency planning, ensuring priorities reflect evolving humanitarian needs and access conditions.
• Chair project senior management meetings and ensure clear decision-making, accountability, and follow-up across technical, operations, MEAL, finance, and partner teams.
• Provide leadership during acute crises, access constraints, displacement, outbreaks, and security incidents, ensuring timely decisions and continuity of lifesaving services.
• Ensure alignment between national office leadership, regional teams, and field operations.
• Promote a culture of results, integrity, accountability, safeguarding, and learning across the project.

Donor Engagement, Representation and External Relations

• Serve as the primary focal point for donor engagement and communication.
• Lead donor meetings, review missions, field visits, and strategic consultations.
• Maintain strong relationships with government ministries, regional authorities, UN agencies, clusters, and humanitarian partners.
• Represent the project in national humanitarian coordination mechanisms and strategic forums.
• Advocate for humanitarian access, protection of affected populations, and integrated service delivery.
• Promote visibility of project achievements and lessons learned among stakeholders.
• Support resource mobilization and future funding opportunities.

Consortium, Partnership and Localization Management

• Provide oversight and strategic guidance to consortium and implementing partners.
• Ensure compliance with partnership agreements and performance standards.
• Promote meaningful participation and leadership of local organizations.
• Strengthen partner capacity through mentoring, coaching, and institutional development initiatives.
• Lead partnership review meetings and performance assessments.
• Resolve partnership challenges and facilitate collaborative problem-solving.

Program Quality, Accountability and Performance Management

• Ensure robust systems for quality assurance, monitoring, accountability, and learning.
• Review project performance against indicators, milestones, and donor commitments.
• Lead corrective action planning and performance improvement initiatives.
• Ensure Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP) mechanisms are functioning effectively.
• Promote evidence-based decision-making and utilization of monitoring data.
• Ensure safeguarding, PSEA, gender equality, disability inclusion, and conflict sensitivity are integrated throughout implementation.

Financial Stewardship and Operational Oversight

• Provide overall accountability for project budgets and financial performance.
• Monitor budget utilization, burn rates, forecasts, and financial risks.
• Approve major expenditures and budget realignments within delegated authority.
• Ensure compliance with donor regulations, organizational policies, and audit requirements.
• Oversee procurement, logistics, security, fleet, and operational support functions.
• Ensure value for money and efficient resource utilization.

Risk Management, Compliance and Safeguarding

• Lead project risk identification, mitigation, and contingency planning.
• Monitor contextual, operational, financial, security, and reputational risks.
• Ensure compliance with donor regulations and organizational policies.
• Champion safeguarding, child protection, and ethical programming practices.
• Lead incident management and crisis response when required.
• Ensure business continuity and emergency preparedness measures are maintained.

Required Education, training, license, registration, and/or Certification

• Master's Degree in International Development, Humanitarian Affairs, Public Health, Education, Agriculture, Social Sciences, Project Management, or a related field.
• Additional certifications in humanitarian programming, project management, INEE Minimum Standards, Sphere Standards, Cash Programming, or Protection are advantageous.

Required Professional Experience

• Minimum of 10 years of progressively responsible experience managing large, complex, multi-sector humanitarian or resilience programs, including at least 5 years in senior leadership roles such as Project Director, Chief of Party, Deputy Chief of Party, Response Director, or equivalent.
• Proven experience leading donor-funded emergency programs in fragile, conflict-affected, displacement-affected, or access-constrained settings.
• Demonstrated experience managing large budgets, complex grants, partner/sub-award arrangements, procurement plans, compliance requirements, and audit readiness.
• Strong experience in stakeholder engagement with donors, government, OCHA, clusters, UN agencies, INGOs, local NGOs, faith actors, and community structures.
• Experience leading integrated programming across WASH, Shelter/NFI, Protection, MPCA/CVA, Emergency Agriculture, Health, Nutrition, Education in Emergencies, and humanitarian data/coordination sectors.
• Strong understanding of humanitarian principles, Core Humanitarian Standard, accountability to affected populations, safeguarding, PSEA, gender equality, disability inclusion, conflict sensitivity, and Do No Harm.
• Demonstrated ability to lead large, geographically dispersed teams and manage performance in fast-changing emergency contexts.
• Strong analytical, negotiation, decision-making, communication, and report-writing skills in English.

Required Language(s)

• Fluency in written and spoken English is required.
• Working knowledge of Amharic and/or other Ethiopian languages relevant to target regions is an advantage.

Required travel and/or work environment accommodations

• Based in Addis Ababa with frequent travel to field locations across Amhara, Tigray, Afar, Oromia, Somali, and contested/access-constrained areas, subject to security clearance.
• Regular engagement with donor representatives, government, clusters, local partners, field teams, and communities.
• Field conditions may include insecurity, long road travel, limited infrastructure, restricted communications, disease outbreak environments, and emergency response pressure.
• Extended working hours may be required during emergencies, reporting deadlines, audits, distributions, field missions, or critical incident response.

Position’s physical requirements

• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced and sometimes insecure humanitarian environment.
• Ability to undertake field travel, participate in site monitoring, and operate under pressure while maintaining sound judgment and professionalism.

Preferred Experience, Knowledge and/or Key Competencies

• Prior experience with USAID/BHA, DHR, ECHO, UN, OCHA pooled funds, or other major institutional humanitarian donors is strongly preferred.
• Deep knowledge of Ethiopia’s humanitarian architecture, federal and regional government systems, cluster coordination, and operational access dynamics.
• Experience leading cash-based assistance, local partner capacity strengthening, and data-driven adaptive management in emergency responses.
• Strong capacity to influence senior stakeholders, resolve complex operational bottlenecks, and maintain principled humanitarian positioning.
• Experience with World Vision systems, grants operations, finance, supply chain, security, safeguarding, and MEAL processes is an asset.

Skills Required:

• Agricultural / Studies
• Social / Science / Project / Management / Development