Crisis Anticipation and Risk Finance Officer 2023

Save the Children UK has an exciting opportunity for a Crisis Anticipation and Risk Finance Officer to join our Start Network to provide administrative and programmatic support to the team, engaging in grant administration and reporting on both day-to-day operations and the roll out of new projects and pilots across a range of disaster risk financing and crisis anticipation initiatives

About us

We are Save the Children (SCUK). Together, we fight for children every single day so that they can make their mark on the world and build a better future. We stand side by side with children in the toughest places to be a child. We do whatever it takes to make sure they survive, get protection when they're in danger, and have the chance to learn.

The Start Network was incubated by SCUK over the last 10-years and became an independent entity comprised of multiple humanitarian agencies and an operational team referred to as the Start Platform, in May 2019. The Start Network is made up of more than 40 aid agencies, of which Save the Children is one, working across five continents, ranging from large international organisations to national NGOs.

The aim of the Start Network is to deliver more effective emergency aid, harnessing the power and knowledge of the network to make faster and better decisions to help people affected by crises. It advocates for radical change to the system so that the world can better deal with the humanitarian challenges of today and in the future.

The Start Platform maintains a strong relationship with Save the Children as the grant custodian of many of the Start Network's programmes. This role is based within the Anticipation and Risk Financing Team within Save the Children UK's Humanitarian Business Transformation Team but sits with the wider Start Programmes team (SCUK dedicated grant custodian team) and works closely with colleagues in the Start Platform.

About the role

This role presents an exciting capacity building opportunity to an experienced and dynamic Officer looking to expand their experience and knowledge of early action, risk financing,network coordination and humanitarian innovation.

The Anticipation and Risk Finance Officer will play an important administrative and programmatic support role, engaging in grant administration and reporting on both day-to-day operations and the roll out of new projects and pilots across a range of disaster risk financing and anticipation initiatives.

This will include capacity building activities as well as activities relating to MEAL. In addition, you will play an active support role in the substantial external coordination and convening work that both teams carry out with a wide range of stakeholders including academic institutions. You will also provide general administrative and coordination support to the team.

Responsibilities

Team operations

• Support the Operations Lead with team-wide initiatives, specific operational pieces of work including but not limited to proposal and report writing, programme briefs and budget tracking of projects etc.
• Support the team with navigating Save the Children UK processes linked to HR, award management, procurement and contract management
• Maintain a complete, accessible and updated filing and archiving system of projects
• Support meetings, conferences, workshop and training events by supporting the logistical arrangements, developing and compiling documents for discussion taking minutes, developing action trackers and following up on progress against this.
• Support the delivery of communications resources to help raise the profile of our work
• Logistic arrangements for team travel
• Supporting the sign off processes for anticipation and risk financing documentation within Save the Children legal, risk, insurance, programmes, recruitment, etc.
• Supporting communications with members on disaster risk financing and anticipation work. (i.e. developing surveys, sending out group emails etc)
• Facilitate and strengthen knowledge management and work with team members proactively to identify potential areas of collaboration and overlap
• Support the Technical team with the alert cycle for anticipation alerts (including integrating advisory inputs from the FOREWARN community)
• Support the Partnerships Advisor with organisation of FOREWARN events, including event planning and running
• Provide programme and coordination support to global and national level initiatives and pilots.

MEAL and wider support to Technical team

• Support the development of project specific communications materials (e.g.: case studies/1-pagers) that demonstrate best practice in anticipation and risk financing.
• Arrange learning exchanges and workshops and keep the risk financing and anticipation learning log up to date
• Support the development of the Anticipation and Risk Financing training packages, working with internal and external technical experts to bring together the core materials and facilitators notes. Coordinate the roll-out and testing of the training in different locations

Country/hub pilot operations

• Assist the ‘Country Support Manager' to set up and manage anticipation and risk financing systems in country where needed

About you

To be successful, it is important that you have:

• Proven project support skill set
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including computer literacy and confidence in using Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Experience of organising or helping to organise events
• Experience of general administrative work in an office environment
• Excellent problem-solving and organisational skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills, with an ability to work with people from a range of backgrounds and cultures
• A ‘can-do' attitude, ability to work on own initiative and to deliver results against tight deadlines with good quality results
• A flexible approach to working and ability to respond at short notice to a wide variety of tasks
• An awareness of the challenges of distance support and cultural differences
• Understanding of and commitment to humanitarian work
• Commitment to Save the Children's vision, mission and values.

What we offer you

Working for a charity provides one of the best benefits there is – a sense of purpose and reward for helping others. However, we understand the importance of giving back to our employees to ensure a happy and healthy working environment and work/life balance.

• We focus on flexibility, inclusion, collaboration, health and wellbeing both in and outside of work.
• We provide a wide range of benefits which will reward your hard work, motivate you, and inspire you to work to improve the lives of children every day. You can read more about our benefits here.

To avoid disappointment, you are advised to submit your application as soon as possible as we reserve the right to close the vacancy early if a high volume of applications are received. This is to ensure that we can manage application levels whilst maintaining a positive candidate experience. Unfortunately once a vacancy has closed, we are unable to consider further applications.

Candidates should note that unfortunately it is not our policy to reimburse expenses accrued when attending interviews at Save the Children UK unless you are requested to attend an interview in an alternative location to where the role is based.

Ways of working

Remote first

The majority of our roles can be performed remotely, however you may work from the office as often as you wish. Whilst you will be predominantly working from home, we may at times require you to come to your contracted office (up to 2-4 days per month or 6-8 days per quarter). Note: This will be agreed with your Line Manager and team. This is intended to be time spent on collaborating with colleagues and relationship building.

On-site

There are certain roles that cannot be performed remotely and so your role will be based in an office location and you may occasionally be able to work from home.

Flexible working

We are happy to discuss flexible working options at interview.

Commitment to diversity & inclusion

Save the Children UK believes in a world that is fair, inclusive and equitable where all children have the opportunity to change their world. We apply this to our workforce and we are committed to developing and supporting a diverse, equitable, and inclusive organisation where all employees have a sense of belonging and feel that they can be "Free to Be Me". We are not looking for just one type of person - we want to recruit people who can add fresh perspectives, innovative ideas or challenge that disrupts the risk of group think.

We are especially interested in people whose childhood experiences - of life on a low income, of migration, of being in a racialised community, of the care system, of being LGBT+ or in an LGBT+ family or living with (or with someone with) a disability - help us to see things we might otherwise miss. Whatever your story is we want to hear it because we know that different voices, ideas, perspectives and knowledge, working together will enable us to better the lives of children around the world. This is the reason why we are all here.

Pre-employment checks

Any Employment with Save the Children UK will be subject to the following checks prior to your start date:

• a satisfactory police record check to include a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and/or an International Criminal Record Check (If applicable)
• receipt of satisfactory references
• proof of eligibility to work in the national location for this role