In this role my main deliverables are as follows; • Provide high quality management support and direction to Country Directors across the region and ensure consistency across country, regional and global programme ambition and delivery. • Supporting the alignment of our advocacy, programming and campaigning work, and maximise the effectiveness of our advisory capacity in promoting high quality programme design and implementation.• Play a leading role in the development, refresh and implementation of regional strategies and programme approaches. • Ensuring that we have the financial and human resources required to deliver on our ambition. • Leading/supporting organisational change processes as required• Providing leadership to large scale Humanitarian responses• Develop and maintain effective links with senior head office based staff in areas of monitoring, evaluation and impact measurement, business compliance, programme management and information systems development, programme quality, organisational development and staff learning and development

4 month interim posting during which I revised the overarching regional programme and operational strategies for West Africa, and developed plans for a 25% leaner headcount and 30% reduced budget absorption by the Regional center.

(a) Provide high quality management support to Country Directors(b) Establish and oversee virtual networks and teams to support the implementation of a “one programme” approach, which combines humanitarian, development and advocacy based approaches.(c) Maximise the effectiveness of our advisory capacity, and develop clear and well considered Programme Quality standards and guidelines which successfully contextualise global approaches. (d) Play a leading role in the development, refresh and implementation of Regional Strategies.(e) Define and roll out our core programme approaches - sectorally this focussed on building community resilience, effective humanitarian response, participatory governance and more effectively integrating campaigns and advocacy approaches into our development work(f) Supporting Country Directors in reviewing and refocusing their existing programme portfolios and ensuring that we have the financial and human resources required to deliver on these (g) Leading or supporting organisational change processes as required(h) Ensuring that strong Knowledge Management and Impact Monitoring systems are being fully utilised, with a view to maximising learning and external influence, and promoting the efficient use of available funds. (i) Providing leadership to our largest rapid onset and chronic Humanitarian responses in both Asia and West Africa.(j) Actively involved in high level multi agency operational forums. (k) Develop and maintain effective links with senior head office based staff in areas of monitoring, evaluation and impact measurement, business compliance, programme management and information systems development, programme quality, organisational development and staff learning and development

Led the programme through a significant step change which realigned our work with corporate goals, and saw the programme exerting significant influence both within the region and globally, whilst positioning us as a key development player within the Indonesian context.

Here I built robust programes which meshed local needs with the policy and principles of key stakeholders to ensure deep and sustainable impact. My experiences at this time taught me the value of medium term strategic planning processes in making the move from shallow, low impact work towards more focused and synergistic programming. In Vanuatu our entire programe was refocussed towards building village level participation in governance processes to ensure that the potential economic and social benefits of political decentralisation were realized. This required significant advocacy on our part to ensure that Government, donors and local NGO initiatives would align in the delivery of the plans which were developed though improved participatory processes.

This position focused on evolving the strategic direction of our programme to ensure that it had the potential to deliver tangible changes across a well defined set of sectors. One example of this would be our work in the legal sector which focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the countries legal systems. Using long term training of police, public solicitors and legal advisors, a framework for support was set up which ensured the law would be implemented in a way which benefited the general population. The emerging insecurity in the country meant that that a significant amount of attention had to be paid towards ensuring that staff and volunteers were working within a safe and secure environment and that we had clear systems in place to evacuate and hibernate our programme. This action was required following the coup in May 2000.

In this role I was responsible for working with local Kenyan partner organisations to develop roles for volunteers coming predominantly from Europe and North America. In addition to developing and recruiting to the role I was responsible for pastoral care and security management for these volunteers. I was also responsible for the development of VSO's sectoral strategies in Kenya.As one example of this sectoral strategy development I led on the delivery of a joint initiative with Provincial and National Governments which aimed to revitalize the moribund Youth Polytechnic system. Funded by the EU for €1.5m, it aimed to build these into skills acquisition centers with relevance to the entire community.

This was an interim role while the Country Director was on maternity leave.

Following a three year apprenticeship I worked as a production engineer with responsibilities for designing the processes for the manufacture of various parts for aircraft engines