World Vision’s global strategy, Our Promise, recognizes the significant need for the organization to adapt programming, operations and funding models to respond to the needs of children living in severely poor, fragile and violent urban environments. Since the launch of the global strategy, urbanization has continued to increase leading to more children, especially most vulnerable among them, located in cities; in informal and impoverished neighborhoods. Urban violence and wars in cities have also been on the rise. Cities have been gaining attention from the UN and other international agencies given all these issues and for the first time ever a global stand-alone urban goal is included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), indicating the key role cities play in sustainable development.
The Ministry Strategy and Evidence teams work with colleagues across the World Vision Partnership, and with external experts, to provide global technical and thought leadership on quality, adaptive programmes that catalyse transformational change across contexts, integrating the foundations of WV’s ministry, sectors, and themes for sustained, holistic child well-being. The team also provides clear, reliable impact data, analysed and communicated effectively, internally and externally.
The Urban Programming Advisor will work closely with the Urban Programming Technical Director to progress WV’s Transformational Development mandate in urban contexts, stable and fragile. She/he will work directly to support and provide technical guidance to Field, Regional and Support Offices, Global Capitals and select Global Centre teams to improve our impact on the most vulnerable children, youth and families in urban contexts.
The purpose of the Urban Programming Advisor position is to:
- Support in the preparatory work needed for the scale up of WV’s Urban Ministry, including in the development of case studies of promising practice, pre-reads and communication materials for high-level discussions and presentations.
- Advise in the refinement of the Urban Ministry Model based on contributions from Urban Task Team and other sources and support Field Offices (FOs) implementing it.
- Develop case studies based on adaptation of WV’s approaches and models to urban fragile and stable environments to be used for internal and external purposes.
- Advise the application of Fragile Context Programming Approach in cities and other urban environments.
- Contribute to management of the urban Community of Practice and urban websites.
- Contribute to WV’s global evidence agenda from the urban lens and support in Design, Monitoring & Evaluation (DME) and capturing evidence of impact in urban programs.
- Support external engagement related to WV’s urban ministry.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Advise the scale up of WV’s Urban Ministry:
- Contribute to the development of pre-reads and communication materials needed for high level discussions and presentations to progress WV’s mandate in the remaining of phase 1 and phase 2 of Our Promise.
- Support in the development and implementation of scale up plan for WV’s Urban Ministry in the second phase of Our Promise.
Advise the continual improvement of WV’s urban programming across the Partnership:
- Support the refinement of the Urban Ministry Model and the Urban Programming Approach based on input from Urban Task Team.
- Test alignment of existing urban programs with the Urban Ministry Model and the Urban Programming Approach.
- Provide guidance and support to FOs in application and further adaptation of the Urban Ministry Model and the Urban Programming Approach in existing (re-designed) and new urban programs.
- Provide technical guidance to FOs, Regional Offices (ROs), Support Offices (SOs) and Global Centre (GC) teams when pursuing grants for urban contexts.
- Develop case studies of innovative, promising urban practices that reflect the key elements of WV's Urban Ministry Model.
- With Global Field Operations (GFO), contribute to development of funding options for urban ministry.
- Work with GC teams and GFO to adapt project models and approaches to urban fragile and stable contexts.
- Work with Evidence and Learning team to support the execution of the global evidence agenda priorities in urban contexts.
- Provide support to FOs in design, monitoring and evaluation of urban programs and generate evidence of impact.
Advise the application of WV’s Urban Ministry Model and Urban Programming Approach in fragile cities and neighborhoods:
- Support FOs applying Fragile Contexts Programming Approach in cities.
- Ensure existing guidance and tools are relevant for fragile cities, including citywide assessment tool.
- Work with the Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding team to ensure adaptation and application of context analysis and conflict sensitivity tools in fragile cities and neighborhoods.
- Work with the Conflict Sensitivity and Peacebuilding team to ensure the integration of peacebuilding approaches where applicable, in fragile cities and neighborhoods.
Lead Knowledge Management on Urban Programming:
- Manage the urban Community of Practice, the urban page on wvcentral and the urban page on wvi.org.
- Regularly update urban website with new communications material based on promising practice from WV’s urban programming.
- Develop urban newsletter to be disseminated internally every quarter.
- Organize webinars to stimulate and expand the urban Community of Practice through sharing resources and promising practice based on adaptation of project models and approaches and innovation in the Urban Ministry across the Partnership.
Advise External Engagement:
- Contribute to the development of case studies, articles and blogs to be shared externally, including on our work in fragile cities.
- Support in the development of communication materials on WV’s Urban Ministry and Urban Programming Approach to be used in key global events and networks.
- Minimum of 5 years-experience in International Development and Urban Programming, including at least 2 years direct field experience involving programme related work.
- Direct programming experience in complex urban contexts.
- Rich, diverse background in multiple sectors in urban environments.
- Experience in working in violent/fragile cities and/or on peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity in urban environments in developing countries.
- Proven cultural sensitivity and political/social astuteness of complex urban settings.
- Proven expertise in written and verbal communication in English.
Preferred Skills, Knowledge and Experience:
- Strong understanding of the urban development and humanitarian industry.
- Experience of working with urban communities in stable and fragile developing countries.
- Strong communication and influencing skills, especially with departmental leaders.
- Strong analytical, organizational, coordination, planning, facilitation skills.
- Strong negotiation and problem-solving skills.
- Understand financial management and resource allocation.
- Demonstrated collaboration skills and effective relationship management skills.
- Excellent verbal and written English communication skills, command of additional languages (especially Spanish) is desirable.
- A mature and committed Christian.
- Ability to structure and manage own’s work.
- Experience in developing case studies and communication materials and presentations to senior management (internal and external).
Work Environment/Travel:
- The position requires ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 30% of the time.