Urban Resilience Expert

About US

Action Against Hunger leads the global movement to end hunger. We innovate solutions, advocate for change, and reach 24 million people every year with proven hunger prevention and treatment programs. As a non-profit organization that works across over 50 countries, our 8,300 dedicated staff members partner with communities to address the root causes of hunger, including climate change, conflict, inequity, and emergencies. We strive to create a world free from hunger, for everyone, for good. 

 

Action Against Hunger USA is part of the Action Against Hunger International network. As an independent NGO, Action Against Hunger USA currently manages operations in 8 countries: Kenya, South Sudan, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Zambia and Haiti.  Action Against Hunger-USA has over $100 million in programs, and approximately 1,100 permanent staff based in New York City, Washington D.C, Nairobi, and country offices. Additional growth is anticipated. 

 

Organization context and rationale for this position 

Action Against Hunger (ACF), in consortium with IGAD/ICPAC, is implementing the DG ECHO-funded Regional Disaster Preparedness Program across Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti, operationalizing the SCALAA methodology and the IGAD Anticipatory Action Roadmap through four interdependent Result Areas.  

Under Result 3 of the project, the intervention focuses on Urban Preparedness and Service Continuity in High-Density Urban Settlements in Djibouti. This recognizes the acute vulnerabilities of urban populations. Particularly those residing in informal settlements to compound hazards including floods, extreme heat, disease outbreaks, and infrastructure failure, all of which are intensifying under climate change. The Urban Resilience Expert position exists because the technical depth, data analysis and stakeholder engagement demands of the heatwave and flood preparedness planning mandate require dedicated full-time support through the project lifetime. The expert is expected to work closely with municipal authorities, community structures, national agencies, and ACF local implementing partners to operationalize a comprehensive urban preparedness and risk reduction agenda. 

 

SUMMARY OF POSITION 

This position wil be hired through our local partner in Djibouti

The Urban Resilience Expert will provide technical leadership for the design, implementation, monitoring, and documentation of urban disaster risk reduction (DRR), preparedness, and climate adaptation activities under Result 3 in Djibouti. The role combines field-level engagement with strategic coordination, requiring both technical depth and the ability to work with diverse stakeholders including local government, civil society, communities, and international humanitarian and development partners. Based within IGAD's Djibouti operational presence, this role bridges ICPAC climate science, municipal government planning and community-level preparedness activities, conducting technical analyses, supporting stakeholder consultations, preparing planning documents and tracking preparedness indicators, under the direct operational guidance of the Project Manager and Coordinator and in close coordination with the Regional Climate and AA Modeling Specialist and IGAD AA TWG. 

Purpose To drive direct community mobilization and implementation support across all ten target neighborhoods in Djibouti Ville, building Urban DRR and Resilience Committee structures, supporting field delivery of urban preparedness activities, coordinating with local partners and documenting field evidence that demonstrates the program's impact on all fifty-two thousand, two hundred and eight beneficiaries. 

Engagement To engage daily with community leaders, Urban DRR Committee members, residents, school administrations, women's groups, youth associations, disability-inclusive community structures, local health workers and local partner organizations across all six target municipalities, serving as the program's primary face in the community. 

Delivery To contribute to the delivery of all eight Result Area 3 activities through sustained, quality community engagement, mobilizing, training and supporting community structures, facilitating field activities, coordinating local partners, and producing high-quality, timely field reports and MEAL data that feed into DG ECHO Results Framework reporting. 

 

ESSENTIAL JOB ROLES 

1. Community Mobilization and Awareness Raising 

Lead all community mobilization activities across the ten priority neighborhoods, conducting household and community outreach to raise awareness of program objectives, urban hazard risks including flash flooding, heatwaves, epidemic outbreaks and waste-related environmental hazards, and the Urban DRR and Resilience Committee structures being established under the program, using accessible communication approaches tailored to the diverse linguistic, literacy and cultural contexts of Djibouti Ville's local, refugee and displaced populations in French, Somali and Afar. 

Facilitate community entry processes and stakeholder mapping at the start of program implementation, identifying community leaders, women's groups, youth associations, disability inclusion focal points, refugee community representatives and existing community-based organizations in each target neighborhood, building trust and program acceptance with community members, local authorities and municipal counterparts, and documenting community engagement protocols that can be replicated across all ten neighborhoods. 

Lead seasonal community preparedness awareness campaigns ahead of peak risk periods, organizing community information sessions, distributing IEC materials, supporting Urban DRR Committees in leading neighborhood preparedness messaging and ensuring that all fifty-two thousand, two hundred and eight direct beneficiaries are reached with accessible, actionable information on flood protective actions, heatwave precautions, WASH hygiene practices and health surveillance reporting, coordinating outreach with IOM and ONARS for refugee and displaced populations. 

Support the integration of DRM awareness in schools across target neighborhoods, coordinating with school administrations, facilitating student DRR awareness sessions, supporting the establishment of Student DRR Committees in coordination with the Project Manager and Coordinator, and ensuring school DRM education reaches all school-age beneficiaries across the program's six target municipalities. 

Maintain accurate, up-to-date community mobilization records documenting outreach activities, participants reached by sex, age, disability status and displacement status, community feedback received, issues and concerns raised by communities, and adaptive actions taken, and submitting regular mobilization progress updates to the Project Manager and Coordinator and Data Analyst for Results Framework and DG ECHO reporting. 

2. Field Implementation Support for Urban Preparedness Activities 

Provide direct field-level implementation support for Activity A3.1 Urban Vulnerability Mapping, coordinating participatory community consultations and focus group discussions in all ten target neighborhoods, mobilizing community participants including women, older persons, youth, persons with disabilities and displaced community members, recording community risk knowledge, perceptions and coping strategies, assisting in the production of neighborhood-level risk profiles and vulnerability maps, and ensuring all community consultations are inclusive, culturally appropriate and documented in line with ACF AGDI inclusion standards. 

Support field implementation of Urban DRR Committee establishment under Activity A3.3 and Urban Resilience Committee strengthening, identifying, mobilizing and facilitating selection processes for committee members in all ten neighborhoods, assisting in delivering committee capacity-building workshops on urban risk awareness, early warning procedures, evacuation coordination and seasonal preparedness planning, and supporting committees to independently organize seasonal preparedness activities between formal ACF training events. 

Provide field implementation support for Activity A3.5 Evacuation Route Mapping and Improvement, assisting in community walk-through safety audits of evacuation routes, documenting drainage bottlenecks, debris-filled pathways and infrastructure barriers identified by community members, coordinating community labor mobilization for drain clearance and minor pathway improvement works, and monitoring completion of physical works against the approved procurement plan, ensuring all works undergo Do No Harm and NEAT+ environmental screening. 

Support field implementation of Drain Maintenance Committees under Activity A3.6, identifying and mobilizing neighborhood volunteers for committee membership, supporting training delivery on drainage inspection and desilting techniques, distributing maintenance toolkits, facilitating coordination between committees and municipal solid waste management services, and tracking committee operational performance through monthly inspection records submitted to the Project Manager and Coordinator. 

Contribute to field implementation support for Activities including supporting early warning system community testing sessions, facilitating community hygiene promotion activities linked to WASH preparedness, mobilizing community participants for heatwave health worker training sessions, and supporting distribution of any pre-positioned community-level preparedness supplies ensuring proper documentation, beneficiary registration and distribution records meeting DG ECHO standards. 

3. Partner Coordination and Liaison 

Support the Project Manager and Coordinator in coordinating with all local implementing partners and service providers engaged in Djibouti program delivery, attending partner coordination meetings, taking and distributing meeting minutes, tracking partner activity progress against agreed milestones, flagging delays or quality concerns to the Project Manager and Coordinator, and ensuring partner activities in the community are complementary to ACF's direct implementation activities. 

Maintain daily coordination with Urban DRR Committees, Urban Resilience Committees and Drain Maintenance Committees across all ten target neighborhoods, providing hands-on support and mentoring to committee members between formal training events, monitoring committee meeting calendars, ensuring committees receive the technical support they need to fulfill their preparedness functions, and documenting committee activities and outputs systematically for MEAL reporting. 

Coordinate with IOM Djibouti field staff on community-level activities in mixed refugee-host community neighborhoods, ensuring joint outreach covers both local and displaced population members, supporting IOM staff in mobilizing persons on the move for community preparedness events, maintaining coordination logs of joint activities, and flagging to the Project Manager and Coordinator any boundary issues or coverage gaps requiring inter-agency resolution. 

Coordinate with Red Cross Djibouti community volunteers in target neighborhoods, confirming that ACF DRR Committee structures do not overlap with existing Red Cross structures, supporting joint community preparedness activities where agreed, and ensuring consistent messages on urban risk and early warning communication reach all community members across both organizations' networks. 

Maintain systematic records of all partner coordination activities, preparing written summaries of coordination meetings attended, tracking joint activity implementation, and reporting any partner performance concerns to the Project Manager and Coordinator in a timely and professional manner in accordance with ACF's partnership management standards. 

4. Field Reporting and MEAL Data Collection 

Prepare high-quality, evidence-based field reports for all implementation activities, producing weekly activity progress updates and monthly comprehensive field reports for the Project Manager and Coordinator covering all activities across all ten neighborhoods, with accurate data on beneficiaries reached disaggregated by sex, age, disability status and displacement status, outputs achieved against workplan targets, implementation challenges encountered, community feedback received and adaptive actions proposed. 

Support the Data Analyst in primary data collection for MEAL purposes, conducting community surveys, focus group discussions and key informant interviews as assigned by the Regional MEAL Specialist and Data Analyst, operating KoboToolbox digital data collection forms in the field, ensuring data is collected accurately and submitted to the Data Analyst within agreed timeframes, and following all data protection and informed consent protocols required by ACF's data governance standards. 

Operate and maintain the community-level Complaints and Feedback Mechanism, receiving, recording and logging all community feedback, complaints and suggestions received during field activities, ensuring feedback reaches the Data Analyst and Project Manager and Coordinator within forty-eight hours of receipt, and escalating any protection-related disclosures or PSEA concerns immediately and confidentially to the Project Manager and Coordinator in accordance with ACF's PSEA reporting protocols. 

Contribute to After-Action Review documentation, preparing field-level observations and community feedback summaries following simulation exercises, preparedness drills and seasonal campaigns, contributing to the structured AAR process facilitated by the Project Manager and Coordinator, and ensuring field-level lessons are captured and submitted to the Regional MEAL Specialist within the thirty-day AAR completion deadline. 

Maintain comprehensive field activity documentation including signed beneficiary lists, attendance sheets, photos taken with informed consent, community consultation records, distribution documentation, committee meeting minutes and training records, organizing these in accordance with ACF's filing standards and ensuring all documentation meets DG ECHO audit requirements. 

 

5. Inclusive Community and School Preparedness Structures 

Establish and/or strengthen urban resilience committees and school DRM structures in targeted high-density settlements, ensuring meaningful participation of women, youth, children, and persons with disabilities (PwD). 

Design and deliver training curricula for community resilience committees and school DRM teams, integrating gender-responsive and disability-inclusive approaches. 

Develop linkage mechanisms between community-level structures and municipal emergency management frameworks to ensure vertical coherence in preparedness. 

Document community structure capacities and track functionality over the project period. 

5. IGAD Technical Support and Regional Learning 

In close coordination with ICPAC experts, provide dedicated technical support to IGAD's operational functions in Djibouti, assisting in the preparation of IGAD AA TWG meeting materials and technical briefs on heatwave and flood preparedness approaches, supporting documentation of Djibouti's National AA Roadmap development process, and contributing to cross-border SOP coordination across the Somalia-Djibouti corridor by providing Djibouti-specific heatwave and flood risk data for integration into cross-border multi-hazard trigger matrices. 

Contribute to IGAD's regional urban preparedness knowledge base, drafting technical summaries, annotated tools and operational guidelines on urban heatwave and flood preparedness planning for use across the IGAD region, presenting Djibouti-specific evidence at IGAD AA TWG sessions, and supporting the Project Manager and Coordinator in facilitating knowledge exchange visits between Djibouti national staff and counterparts in Ethiopia and Somalia. 

Contribute to the program's MEAL system by supporting data collection for heatwave and flood preparedness indicators, assisting the Data Analyst with survey data collection in target neighborhoods, documenting preparedness activity outputs, contributing community feedback observations to the complaints mechanism, and supporting the Regional MEAL Specialist in preparing evidence needed for the baseline, mid-term and endline evaluations across heatwave and flood preparedness activities. 

Actively seek out and support the participation of the most marginalized community members including older persons, persons with disabilities, non-literate community members, refugees and persons on the move in all program activities, adapting facilitation approaches as needed to ensure all community members can meaningfully participate and contribute to the program's preparedness agenda. 

 

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES  

The Urban Resilience Expert will supervise Project assistance. The Urban Resilience Expert reports to the Project Manager for day-to-day operational guidance and to the IGAD/ACF Djibouti for administrative matters. Works collaboratively with the Consortium coordinator, Regional MEAL and Learning Specialist, Data Analyst and Project Assistant (IGAD) on field activities as assigned by the Project Manager. 

 

Key Relationships 

Internal Relationships 

IGAD AA expert and ACF Somalia PD: Direct operational supervisor, workplan, technical guidance and output review 

IGAD experts: Administrative line manager, HR management and operational support 

Data Analyst Ethiopia-Djibouti: Operational collaboration, MEAL data collection coordination and field reporting 

Project Assistant (IGAD): Technical coordination, joint field activities for heatwave and flood preparedness 

Regional MEAL and Learning Specialist: Functional guidance on data collection, complaints mechanism operation and MEAL standards 

External Relationships 

Urban DRR and Resilience Committee Members in 10 neighborhoods: Primary community implementing structures, daily support, training and coordination 

Drain Maintenance Committees in 10 neighborhoods: Community maintenance structures, training support and performance monitoring 

CIGRC and ONARS Community Focal Points: Government community-level contacts, early warning coordination and beneficiary targeting 

IOM Djibouti Field Staff: Community-level complementarity, joint outreach for displaced populations 

Red Cross Djibouti Volunteers: Community preparedness coordination and DRR committee boundary confirmation 

School Administrations in target neighborhoods: School DRM, Student DRR Committee support and school awareness sessions 

Community Health Workers: Health surveillance mobilization, heat and flood health preparedness outreach 

Community Leaders and Women's and Youth Groups: Community entry, mobilization and inclusive participation facilitation 

 

PHYSCIAL DEMANDS 

To travel to field sites and communities, the employee must attest to a level of physical fitness capable of enduring outdoor field work in Djibouti's extreme heat environment regularly exceeding forty to forty-five degrees Celsius, walking significant distances across all six target districts, and engaging in outdoor drain clearance and evacuation route inspection activities. 

Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this job. 

 

WORKING CONDITIONS, TRAVEL AND ENVIRONMENT 

The duties of the job require regular attendance at least five days per week. Must be available to work outside normal office hours or on weekends as required, particularly during simulation exercises, seasonal community campaigns, Urban DRR Committee events and crisis alert activations. 

Must be able to travel across all six target districts within Djibouti Ville as required. While performing duties in the field, the employee will be exposed to extreme heat, outdoor weather conditions, basic field settings in under-served neighborhoods, drainage environments and occasionally challenging sanitation conditions. 

 

GENDER EQUALITY COMMITMENT & ZERO TOLERANCE TO ABUSE 

Foster an environment that supports values of women and men, and equal access to information. 

Provide a work environment where women and men must be evaluated and promoted based on their skills and performance  

Respect beneficiaries’ women, men, boys and girls regardless of gender, sex orientation, disability, religion, race, color, ancestry, national origin, age or marital status,  

Values and respects different cultures.  

Promote and uphold the Safeguarding/PSEA policy and procedures 

 

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY 

No direct budget management authority. Supports field expenditure documentation by collecting, organizing and submitting supporting documentation including receipts, beneficiary lists and distribution records to the Project Manager and Coordinator and ACF Djibouti Country Finance function. 

 

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS 

Bachelor’s degree in social sciences, Humanitarian Studies, Development Studies, Public Health, Community Development, Disaster Risk Management or a related field. A diploma or equivalent qualification with significant relevant experience may be considered in lieu of a degree. 

 

 REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE 

Minimum of two to three years of professional experience in humanitarian program implementation, community mobilization, disaster preparedness, urban DRR or community development in a complex urban or fragile context, with demonstrated ability to engage diverse community groups inclusively and effectively. 

Proven experience facilitating community consultations, focus group discussions, participatory mapping processes or community training sessions, with demonstrated application of inclusive facilitation approaches for mixed audiences including non-literate participants, women-only groups, youth and persons with disabilities. 

Experience supporting field implementation of DRR, urban preparedness, early warning or community health activities, with knowledge of community committee establishment and training, awareness campaign design and delivery, and field-level data collection and reporting. 

Proficiency in digital data collection tools such as KoboToolbox or ODK is required; basic computer and reporting skills including MS Word and Excel; ability to produce clear, accurate field reports in French or English on a regular basis. 

Strong understanding of urban risk assessment methodologies, participatory vulnerability mapping, and climate risk analysis tools. 

Proficiency in GIS and spatial data analysis for risk and vulnerability mapping. 

Fluency in English language is required while French is highly desirable.  Knowledge of Afar or Arabic is an additional asset. Knowledge of Djibouti's institutional landscape is highly desirable. 

 

This position wil be hired through our local partner in Djibouti

 

All candidates should apply online at https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/careers/current-openings/Action Against Hunger-USA provides all staff with an attractive salary & benefits package. We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees & qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, ancestry, sexual orientation, national origin, age, handicap, disability, marital status, or status as a veteran. Action Against Hunger-USA complies with all applicable laws governing nondiscrimination in employment.