Technical Director

About Action Against Hunger Canada

Action Against Hunger Canada is a global humanitarian organization that takes decisive action against the causes and effects of hunger. Our mission is to save the lives of severely malnourished children while helping communities become self-sufficient. Recognized as a world leader in the fight against malnutrition, Action Against Hunger has pursued its vision of a world without hunger for almost four decades, combating hunger in emergency situations of conflict, natural disasters, and chronic food insecurity.

About the Role

The Technical Director is responsible for the development and execution of the organization's technical strategy, setting departmental goals, and ensuring the effective and efficient delivery of technical services. This includes the design, oversight, and expansion of the nutrition, gender, and technical advocacy portfolio, resource mobilization, partnership building as well as capacity building for internal and external stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

1. Lead the development and implementation of a comprehensive technical strategy for Action Against Hunger Canada and international initiatives hosted by the organization.
2. Provide strategic guidance on the development of new nutrition programs to ensure cohesion and integration of SMART and GNC services.
3. Ensure alignment of technical strategies and programming with the International Strategic Plan 2021-2025 of Action Against Hunger International Network.
4. Identify opportunities to integrate Action Against Hunger Canada's technical services into its International Network programs.
5. Collaborate with the Programs Department to unite technical and program teams for effective program design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation, ensuring successful integration.
6. Lead on the technical components included within the broader programming portfolio of the organization by liaising with the Programs Department and Finance Department to ensure a clear decision-making and effective resource allocation process for the successful attainment of programmatic and overall organizational objectives.
7. Coordinate the monitoring, evaluation, and learning processes for all programs implemented by the Technical Department.
8. Ensure robust financial management of all programs and initiatives under the Technical Department.
9. Ensure the highest quality of technical services delivered through GNC and SMART, and continuously seek creative solutions to enhance their delivery.
10. Integrate the organization's gender technical expertise into the Technical Department to make gender a core component of nutrition technical programming. Identify new opportunities to expand the reach of this expertise within the International Network, particularly in projects that are led or supported by Action Against Hunger Canada.

Diversification and Securing of New Partnerships and Funding

1. Identify and cultivate relationships with new partners for global, regional or national technical programming.
2. Cultivate new donors and diversify the funding base to secure stable funding for the Technical Department portfolio, while also increasing donor exposure to the organization's work and hosted international initiatives.
3. Lead the development of a sustainable business model for delivering our technical professional services, including nutrition and gender.
4. Actively explore ways to diversify Action Against Hunger Canada partnership opportunities for the evolution and growth of the Technical Department.
5. Establish formal partnership strategies and agreements with prioritized partners.
6. Develop and promote with institutional and private donors new and innovative project concepts and budgets.

Representation and Communication of Action Against Hunger's Work with External Stakeholders and Partners

1. Proactively develop and manage relationships with Canadian and international donors, as well as the Canadian government, regarding our technical programming. This includes providing technical representation, delivering presentations on the organization's approaches and ways of working, and offering capacity building as needed to enhance the visibility and credibility of Action Against Hunger Canada and its International Network.
2. Actively represent Action Against Hunger Canada with International and Canada-based nutrition, gender, and health organizations and/or networks/coordination mechanisms including the participation in relevant technical working groups, conferences, and other coordination efforts as relevant to our work.
3. Provide leadership on the development of communications and marketing strategies for the Technical Department in close collaboration with the Fundraising and Communications team.

Team Management

1. Ensure that all human resource management processes for the Technical Department are conducted in compliance with Action Against Hunger Canada's HR policies.
2. Ensure professional development objectives for Technical Department staff are identified, planned for, and actioned on in collaboration with Human Resources.
3. Conduct mentoring and/or coaching for direct/indirect reports as required.
4. Unite the Technical Department by strengthening collaboration between the SMART and GNC teams and enhancing their complementarity.

Coordination within the Action Against Hunger International Network and Hosted Initiatives

1. Serve on and actively contribute to the Technical International Management Group (IMG).
2. Serve on and actively contribute to the GNC Programme Leadership Team, influencing and supporting its strategic direction.
3. Interact and liaise with UNICEF as the lead of the GNC Programme Team on strategic and operational topics to ensure GNC's smooth and effective functioning.
4. Identify common areas of interest and priorities, such as gender, localization, and climate change, between Technical and other IMGs and GNC to facilitate the exchange of information and best practices and explore avenues for collaboration.
5. Provide support and guidance to Technical Department personnel in managing and coordinating relationships with the leadership of Action Against Hunger's regional and/or country offices to ensure smooth implementation of activities and foster synergies between teams.

Requirements

The ideal candidate will have a Master's Degree in nutrition, public health, or related development studies, with a minimum of 10 years of experience working with an international organization on nutrition and specifically nutrition information systems programming. The candidate should have demonstrated field/country level experience directly managing nutrition humanitarian/development programmes and a demonstrated understanding and/or practical experience working with humanitarian cluster coordination mechanisms.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other Attributes

1. Excellent written and verbal English skills. Fluency in French or Spanish will be considered a strong asset.
2. Demonstrated commitment to Gender Equality and a solid understanding of the complexity of Gender Based Violence in humanitarian emergencies.
3. Demonstrated understanding of the creation of an enabling environment for Gender Equality and Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) in the workplace and in humanitarian or development programming.
4. Strong understanding of current humanitarian trends and the architecture of the humanitarian system.
5. Demonstrated coordination experience at national, regional or global levels. Previous coordination experience and knowledge of the cluster system are highly desirable.
6. Demonstrated experience in securing funding from USA, UK, or European-based institutional donors and administering donor compliance rules.
7. Strong partnership-building, negotiation and influencing skills.
8. Strong computer skills and knowledge of MS Office applications.
9. Demonstrated capacity in working in a cross-cultural environment.
10. Demonstrated commitment to the mission, vision, and values of Action Against Hunger Canada.
11. A solid understanding of Adult Learning Principles as well as training design and delivery is preferred.

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