Country Director

Country Director

Location: Kathmandu, with travel within Nepal
Reporting Line Manager: Global Programmes Director (UK Based)
Direct reports: Technical Lead (SMT), Head of Finance and Operations (SMT), MEAL Manager and Project Managers
Contract: 24 months initial fixed term contract with potential for extension
Salary: Upwards of 225,000NPR per month basic salary, based on experience

Role summary
We are seeking a Country Director in Nepal to represent Renewable World, develop new programmes, expand our portfolio and lead the country office and its programmes in a manner that reflects our mission and values, and ensures technical excellence in delivery of all of our activities.

The Country Director reports directly to the Global Programme Director and leads the Nepal Senior Management Team (SMT). The position supervises an interdisciplinary team of professional staff, works closely with colleagues across RW’s global management structure, ad may be called upon to participate in global working groups.

RW’s programming requires close relationships with government at all levels, private sectors partners, NGOs and donors. The Country Director will represent RW at relevant external meetings and actively raise the profile of RW’s work within Nepal, and on occasion globally.

About Renewable World
1.2 billion people are still living in poverty, inequality is rising, and the world is failing to decarbonise quickly enough to avoid climate disaster. The world’s poorest people contributed little to climate change, yet they are most impacted, and least able to adapt. This is not fair. And it is not sustainable.

Renewable World (RW) is an ambitious and dynamic International NGO (INGO) headquartered in the UK, with branches in Nepal and Kenya.

We envision a sustainable and fairer world where clean energy is accessible to all-because with clean energy, both people and planet can thrive. By2030, we aim to enable over 500,000 people living in poverty to transform their lives by improving their access to clean energy, empowering them to develop sustainable and resilient livelihoods, and mitigating the impact of climate change.

We have recently surpassed our 2022 goal of reaching 100,000 people by the end of 2022, and now have ambitious plans to scale our impact to 2030 and beyond. We focus on four key areas where we believe we can achieve the greatest impact in transforming lives through clean energy:

• Energy for Livelihoods: Improving incomes and welfare through using energy for productive purposes, with a focus on reaching the poorest and empowering women and the socially excluded.
• Energy for Climate Change: Helping people adapt to climate change and protect ecosystems through energy-enabled climate-smart agriculture and early warning systems and mitigating climate change through clean energy and carbon offsetting.
• Energy for Health and Education: Using renewable energy to supply clean water for drinking, health and sanitation, electrifying remote health centres and schools to improve health and education outcomes, and enabling cleaner cooking.
• Energy for Catalytic Impact: Developing systemic impact and activating demand through the productive use of energy, sustainable multi-stakeholder partnerships, and piloting scalable innovations.

We aim to live and breathe our ENERGY values which are: Excellence; Networked; Empathy;
Resourceful; Gravitas; and Yes we can.

We have doubled in size over the last three years, with an income of over USD3.5 million p.a. and 30 staff. This growth has been driven largely through programme expansion in Nepal and RW’s voluntary carbon offsetting programme. At present, we have a portfolio of eight projects, of which six are in Nepal and two are in Kenya, and we are expecting to bring new projects on board in the coming year. Our new Country Director will be pivotal in shaping an ambitious, innovative and impactful pipeline of new projects, and overseeing their delivery.

Detailed purpose
The Country Director plays a key role within RW Nepal, driving the team forward through a high level of strategic leadership, innovation, and quality assurance. The Country Director is ultimately accountable in-country for all aspects of RW’s work, leading the delivery of our existing programmes whilst driving the development of our future programming portfolio, overseeing impact measurement, strengthening accountability initiatives, and ensuring robust and compliant financial management and organizational setup.

The Country Director sets the direction of the country office, in line with the global strategy, leads, maintains team morale, safety and welfare, while managing resources, delegating specific duties as necessary, and maintaining oversight and accountability. Alongside strategic level direction, the Country Director is responsible for day-to-day operational management, including the safety and security of all country office and visiting RW global staff.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

1. Programme Development, Oversight and Representation

• Lead the development of and adherence to the country office programme strategy, within RW’s global strategic framework.
• Lead the country team to meet national level strategic programming objectives, oversee and coordinate the programme portfolio to ensure the highest level of project quality and accountability.
• Lead and oversee timely transformational changes required to align RW Nepal’s programming to RW ‘s global programming priorities, and operational models.
• Ensure implementation of strong program monitoring, evaluation, and learning functions.
• Ensure that RW maintains excellent and productive relations with all key stakeholders, especially beneficiaries, government at all levels, implementing and consortium development partners, private sector partners and donors.
• Represent the country programme locally, nationally and internationally, at a wide range of appropriate forums.
• Showcase RW’s strategic work and strengthen the organisation’s position as a partner of choice nationally.

2. Strategic People Management

• Lead the Senior management Team (SMT), ensuring that its members (including the Technical Lead and Head of Finance and Operations) have clear and realistic goals and objectives.
• Lead regular and participatory SMT meetings to review and drive the overall financial and operational performance of the country office.
• Lead by example, communicate clear vision to staff, leadership and inspiration to the team and partners, show accountability and hold staff accountable for demonstrating RW’s organisational values.
• Effectively consult and inform colleagues to maximize efficiency and knowledge sharing and integrate guidance and direction from subject matter experts in your office and elsewhere in the global organization to maximize performance.
• Ensure that the SMT functions effectively, mutually supportive and sufficiently involved in key decision-making processes.
• Be responsible for the overall management of the operation, including appropriately resources staffing plans, and timely and quality recruitment and development of staff.
• Provide leadership support to staff and promote best practices in people management.
• Support and take the lead in initiatives related to performance management and staff
  development.
• Regularly travel to field offices for direct operational support and representation.

3. Fundraising and advocacy

• Lead the process of identifying and exploring potential options for funding.
• Oversee the team in the development of concept notes, project proposals and budgets in line with the approved country strategy, with an emphasis on technical and business model innovation, and scale up within a market systems development approach.
• Develop and nurture in-country donor relationships and identify potential partners to participate in joint proposals.
• Define, develop and play a leading role in implementing the country’s advocacy strategy, focusing on the scale up of clean energy solutions to identified problems.

4. Support services (Finance and Operations)
Through line management of the Head of Finance and Operations:

• Work with global colleagues and the Nepal Head of Finance and Operations to manage the development and implementation of the annual country budget, including financial management and expenses control, compliant with RW minimum requirements.
• Ensure that allocated resources are managed effectively and transparently by respecting and meeting all legal and contractual requirements.
• Oversee finance and administrative services within the country office.
• Ensure the accurate and timely submission of financial and narrative reports that comply with grant or contract agreements and ensure compliance with all aspects of donor funding and RW policies.
• Achieve financial viability of the country office by ensuring that that project budgets are able to cover the running costs of the country office and generate adequate overheads; monitor and analyse the country office cost structure, particularly in anticipation of changes in the programme portfolio.
• Together with the Head of finance and Operations, analyse and develop strategic staffing plans and budgets to secure the right people with the right skills to deliver RW’s ambitious programme.

5. Safety and security

• Ensure that country office emergency preparedness plan is in place and reviewed regularly in collaboration with RW global management.
• Be accountable for ensuring that RW’s programmes are delivered in a safe and secure manner, driving forwards adherence by the team to RW’s risk management systems.
• Have overall accountability for security, including the development of and ensuring adherence to security procedures, monitoring of the safety situation, analysing and provision of recommendations.

6. Governance, accountability and quality

• Negotiate with the Nepal government to ensure that the country office has the legal agreement needed to operate transparently, including a live General Agreement and necessary Project Agreements.
• Ensure that RW standard policies and operational procedures are followed, and that RW Nepal specific policies and procedures are regularly reviewed and updated to remain effective and compliant.
• Continuously monitor and lead the development of relevant accountability initiatives across RW’s field offices, as well as strengthening documentation and showcasing of programme impact and learning.
• Ensure the team is following RW’s policies and procedures, and that staff complete mandatory training, including annual refreshers.

7. Cross-cutting duties

• Ensure all business models promoted are gender and socially inclusive.
• Adhere to RW’s Code of Conduct and follow Renewable World’s Safeguarding Policy at all times.
• Represent RW, our values, vision and mission in the regions where RW operates in a professional, honest, transparent and positive way to help build RW’s image and brand.
• Ensure resource availability and efficient usage of resources.
• Be flexible and responsive, undertaking reasonable tasks and responsibilities as requested by your direct line manager.

Qualification, Experience and Attributes
Essential

• Minimum of 10 years management experience in development contexts as Country Director and/or Senior Manager of a development organisation, or similar.
• A master’s degree in relevant discipline including energy, business, international development etc.
• Demonstrated experience in leading programme development, management and evaluation.
• Demonstrated skills and experience in leadership and staff management.
• Experience leading the review and reformulation of strategic plans.
• Experience representing an organisation to donors, external partner and authorities and
  developing strategic partnerships.
• Experience of managing budgets and multiple donor contracts.
• Confidence in public speaking and strategic networking.
• Experience with networking, advocacy and coordination.
• Fluent in English (speaking, reading and writing).
• Excellent interpersonal skills, including an ability to effectively lead a team, communicate a vision, make timely and transparent decisions, and manage conflict.
• Proven commitment to accountability practices and knowledge of quality assurance systems.
• Demonstrated ability to supervise key administrative, procurement, logistics and financial functions, including developing and creating budgets and monitoring financial status.

Desirable

• Well-developed understanding of market systems thinking, and public-private sector
  collaboration approaches.
• Technical knowledge in at least one of RW’s four strategic areas:, Energy for : i) Livelihoods; ii) Climate Change Adaptation ad mitigation; iii) Health and Education; iv) Catalytic Impact.

Ability and willingness to

• Flex work hours to accommodation multiple time zones, as needed.
• Travel up to 15-20% of time within Nepal, and occasional international travel.

This job description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. However, it is inevitable that responsibilities and tasks may be varied and unpredictable. It is expected of the staff to respond with a flexible approach when tasks arise which are not specifically covered in this job description. Should an additional responsibility or task become a regular part of an employee’s job, the job description will be amended in consultation with the employee.

Applying for the post:
Please send your CV and a covering letter (2 pages maximum) to jobs@renewable-world.org.
Closing date for applications: Sunday 4th June 2023
First interview date: Expected to be week commencing 12th or 19th June 2023

Interested candidates (women and disadvantaged groups are highly encouraged to apply) meeting above criteria are requested to send a complete CV, not exceeding 4 pages, and a cover letter, not exceeding 2 pages, stating salary expectation. Only short-listed candidates will be called for further selection process. The employer reserves all the rights to accept or reject any or all the applications without any reasons thereof. Undue influence will result in automatic rejection of application.

Tagged as: Director, Kathmandu, NGO INGO, Renewable World