Deputy Cell Manager M/F

Médecins Sans Frontières, an international humanitarian medical association created in 1971, provides medical assistance to populations struggling with crises threatening their survival, mainly in the event of armed conflicts, but also epidemics, natural disasters, or exclusion from care. The French section of MSF is present in some thirty countries.

The main objective of MSF France’s operations department is to improve the quality of MSF’s operational response by formulating, supervising, and ensuring the effective implementation of its humanitarian medical activities.

We are looking for a member of this department : Deputy Cell Manager M/F

Context of the cell

In 2021, the Direction of Operations and the General Direction of MSF Paris have decided to create a new cell, located in Nairobi, Kenya. The creation of the cell was effective from September 1, 2021, but its full installation in Nairobi was completed at the end of January 2022.

Nairobi cell / Cell 6 is hosted at the MSF Eastern Africa and shares space with two other operational units – MSF OCA and OCBA. The cell currently manages: South Sudan, Sudan, Chad, and Liberia.

It is composed of a multidisciplinary team of 9:  Cell manager, two deputies, including a deputy in charge of medicine, human resources advisor, finance advisor, logistics advisor, supply chain advisor, comms advisor and an associate.

Missions :

• She/he seconds the Cell Manager in the daily coordination of operations, team, and resources.
• The Deputy Cell manager proposes and steers the medico-operational strategy of the projects of the countries for which the cell is responsible.
• She/he assumes all or part of the responsibilities of the cell manager when the latter is absent.
• She/he is part of the Department of Operations. She/he reports hierarchically and functionally to the manager/RC of Cell 6.

Main responsibilities:

Constitute a trinomial with the cell manager and the deputy cell manager in charge of medicine.

Contribute to the definition of the unit’s medico-operational strategies:

• Participate in the elaboration of the portfolio’s medical-operational strategies (missions, regional, thematic), in line with the orientations set out in OCP strategic plan.
• Ensure clarity of justification of interventions and operational intentions.
• Contribute to ensuring the relevance and quality of mission interventions.
• Guarantee the implementation of policies (medical, logistics, finance, HR, etc.), good practices and the deployment of tools.
• Work with the Cell Manager to create, maintain, and expand a network of key external contacts among a wide range of state and non-state actors (governments, donors, diaspora, academia, NGOs, etc.) to support MSF OCP operations.

Coordinate the activities of the unit, under the supervision of the Cell Manager and according to the sharing of responsibilities:

• Analyze the context (political, security, health) of the countries of intervention and propose the most appropriate operations (opening, adaptation, or closure of projects)
• Support the cell manager to create, maintain, and communicate an integrated medico-operational roadmap of the cell.
• Work with the deputy cell manager in charge of medicine and the Head of Missions to define key medico-operational indicators for each intervention, and ensure they are measured and reported upon regularly.
• Monitor, assess, and flag issues and risks that can negatively impact the agreed mission objectives and engage in proactive identification of practical solutions to remediate them.
• Ensure the execution of operational changes and actions agreed with the Direction of Operations, within the cell, between the cell and missions and with other MSF entities and offices.
• Guarantee that the organizational structure and resources required for the execution of missions and the various phases of projects are defined and adjusted regularly.
• Work closely with other MSF OCP departments and units (evaluations, fundraising, Patient centered approach, etc.) and take responsibility for some transversal dossiers as required.
• Be privileged interlocutor and provide support to Heads of Mission, Emergency Coordinators and Medical Coordinators.
• When required, participate in exploratory missions, emergency interventions and replace Heads of Missions.

Emergency preparedness and response

• Oversee and support mission emergency response strategies and adapt it to operational realities and the evolving needs of the population.
• Collaborate with and give technical support to the field teams during all phases of emergency management (preparedness, surveillance and scanning, detection, and investigation, planning and response, monitoring and evaluation, reporting, follow up and re- orientation, exiting and closure).
• Collaborate with cell members to develop a coherent emergency management approach in the cell.
• Draft concepts of interventions that require emergency envelope financing and animate cell and missions to provide all needed information and after-action reports.

Security management

• Ensure missions have security policies, protocols, and guidelines that are aligned with OCP security policy.
• Advise and follow/up the application of mission security guidelines.
• Develop specific security policies when required by the context (e.g., profiling)
• Reflect and spar with the cell manager and HoMs on security risks and their impact on the operation and propose new or adapted risk response measures.
• Track, consolidate and maintain a record of mission security information at the cell.
• Seek the advice, input, and guidance of the security unit in Paris and guarantee the implementation and follow/up of safety/security recommendation.
• Collaborate with the logistics advisor to ensure the logistics procedures and processes are in coherence with the Security Guidelines of the mission.

Share the Supervision / support of cell functions

• Provide direct support to the HR and logistics functions of the cell.
  • During the planning seasons and throughout the planning cycle and interventions.
  • Ensure that these departments’ activities are aligned with the operational ambitions and plans.
• Supervise transversal HR and logistics initiatives in the portfolio.
• Steer the construction portfolio of the cell including the supervision of the AMOs (Assistant à maître d’ouvrage).
• Participate in the development, management and monitoring of the annual budget and its revisions. Lead the analysis of costs by activity (chronos) for each of the emergencies in collaboration with the fin cell.

 Information and knowledge management

• Be in charge of the portfolio’s reporting (mission situation reports, annual reports, visit reports, and quarterly reports), ensuring key monitoring information is collated and disseminated to the appropriate team members. You’ll also be in charge of making sure that field requests are promptly responded to, and that feedback is given in a timely manner.
• Assist in the development, revision, and quality of key documents: country policies and profiles, project proposals, security plans, emergency preparedness plans and so on. Be accountable to have key mission docs (country policy papers, fiche pays, risk sheets…) updated and accessible to users within the organization (Mymsf, SharePoint)
• Coordinate internal cell events, including the organization of annual planning, regular reviews, cell retreats, workshops and ensure the follow up of major decisions made there.
• Ensure the briefings and debriefings of international mobile staff. Carry out technical briefings and debriefings, involving technical referents when needed.
• Act as the cell focal person for projects and activities of capitalization and evaluations. Propose and participate in evaluations/capitalizations on the projects of the cell.
• As agreed with the cell manager / RC, represent, present, and share information on behalf of the cell in different platforms within OCP/ MSF or outside.
• Together with the Logistics advisor, ensure the overall information management of the cell including appropriate attention to security and privacy.

Training & transfer of skills

• Participate in the definition and the implementation of the trainings in the HQ and the fields.
• Act as a cell Focal Point for the organization of security training and simulations
• Identify and integrate new coordinators and support and coach them during their mission.
• Identify people with potential in the missions of the cell and participate in their development.
• Identify individual training needs of staff under his / her supervision.
• Participate in the definition and implementation of tools specific to cell 6.

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