With 75 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 31,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Key Responsibilities:

Job Purpose

The Country Director (CD) provides overall leadership and oversight of World Vision’s humanitarian and recovery response in the Central African Republic, ensuring programs are timely, effective, compliant, secure, and adequately resourced. The role is accountable for strategy execution, program quality, financial and operational performance, risk management, donor compliance, and delivering measurable impact for vulnerable children and communities affected by humanitarian crises.

As the senior leader and principal representative of the response, the CRD engages with government authorities, donors, UN agencies, NGOs, church partners, and other stakeholders to strengthen coordination, mobilize resources, and advance recovery outcomes. The position ensures alignment with World Vision’s Child Well-Being (CWB) objectives, humanitarian principles, national priorities, and organizational policies.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

1) Strategic Leadership and Response Management

Provide overall vision, leadership, and direction for the response, ensuring humanitarian and recovery programming remains relevant, evidence-based, integrated, and responsive to evolving needs of vulnerable children and communities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the development, implementation, monitoring, review, and adaptation of response and transition strategies in collaboration with regional leadership, response leadership, and key stakeholders.
• Provide overall leadership for response design, implementation, performance management, and operational excellence.
• Ensure humanitarian, recovery, resilience, development, and advocacy priorities are integrated across all sectoral programming.
• Guide emergency preparedness, contingency planning, scenario analysis, and response readiness processes.
• Ensure strategic decisions are informed by needs assessments, context analysis, learning, and evidence.
• Monitor implementation progress and adapt strategies to maximize impact and effectiveness.
• Secure and maintain required operational agreements, MoUs, contracts, waivers, and authorizations with government authorities, donors, and partners.
• Promote innovation, continuous improvement, and sustainability across response operations.

Grant Management

• Ensure grant-funded projects are implemented in accordance with approved proposals, budgets, award conditions, donor regulations, partnership commitments, and World Vision policies and standards.
• Chair or oversee regular grant performance reviews, monitoring programme quality, expenditure, burn rates, procurement, staffing, risks, compliance, deliverables, and reporting deadlines, and ensuring timely corrective action.
• Ensure timely and high-quality narrative and financial reporting, effective donor communication, and proper documentation of grant decisions, approvals, amendments, waivers, and correspondence.
• Oversee grant risk management, compliance reviews, audits, and the timely resolution of findings, disallowed costs, underperformance, and other implementation issues.
• Ensure effective management and oversight of sub-grants, consortium agreements, and implementing partners, including due diligence, contracting, capacity strengthening, performance monitoring, and compliance.
• Build organizational grant-management capacity by clarifying roles, strengthening systems, and ensuring relevant staff understand donor requirements and grant-management standards.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with institutional donors, UN agencies, support offices, and funding partners.

Ensure adequate funding is secured to support response goals and long-term program sustainability.

2) Program Quality, Accountability, Learning, Reporting and Information Management

Ensure humanitarian programs are implemented to high-quality standards, deliver measurable impact, promote accountability to affected populations, and support evidence-based decision making, learning, coordination, and continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities

• Ensure compliance with humanitarian standards, safeguarding requirements, donor regulations, and organizational policies while integrating protection, gender, and inclusion across all interventions.
• Lead program quality assurance through monitoring, evaluation, accountability mechanisms, data quality management, learning reviews, and the application of lessons learned and best practices.
• Oversee reporting, information management, and performance monitoring systems to ensure timely, accurate, and reliable information for decision making and donor accountability.
• Establish and maintain effective coordination, knowledge management, and information-sharing mechanisms that strengthen operational performance and organizational learning.

3) Resource Mobilization

Ensure sustainable and diversified funding to achieve response objectives by leading donor engagement, strategic partnerships, proposal development, and grant acquisition efforts.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead donor engagement, resource mobilization, and fundraising efforts.
• Identify and pursue strategic funding opportunities aligned with organizational priorities.
• Oversee high-quality proposal development, donor negotiations, and grant acquisition.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with institutional donors, UN agencies, support offices, and funding partners.
• Ensure adequate funding is secured to support response goals and long-term program sustainability.

4) Financial Management & Stewardship

Ensure sound financial management, stewardship, accountability, and optimal utilization of organizational resources to maximize program impact, maintain financial sustainability, and uphold stakeholder confidence.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead budgeting, forecasting, financial planning, and resource allocation processes.
• Monitor budget performance, expenditure trends, and burn rates, implementing corrective actions where required.
• Ensure compliance with donor regulations, grant agreements, support office requirements, and organizational financial policies.
• Strengthen financial controls, accountability frameworks, and fraud prevention mechanisms.
• Oversee supply chain, procurement, contracting, and asset management processes to ensure efficiency, transparency, and value for money.
• Provide timely financial analysis and decision-support information to senior leadership.
• Ensure accurate financial reporting and effective cash flow management.

5) Risk Management, Compliance & Governance

Strengthen organizational resilience, accountability, governance, and ethical conduct by proactively identifying and managing risks, ensuring compliance with regulatory and donor requirements, and maintaining effective oversight mechanisms.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise risk management and maintain the organizational risk register.
• Identify, assess, monitor, and mitigate strategic, operational, financial, compliance, and reputational risks.
• Ensure compliance with donor, legal, regulatory, and organizational requirements.
• Strengthen governance structures, accountability mechanisms, and internal control systems.
• Coordinate internal and external audits, investigations, and compliance reviews.
• Monitor implementation of audit recommendations and corrective action plans and ensure timely closure.
• Build organizational capacity through risk management, compliance, ethics, integrity, and fraud awareness training.
• Prepare risk, compliance, governance, and internal control reports for leadership and governing bodies.
• Provide strategic advice to senior leadership on emerging risks and compliance matters.

 

6) External Representation, Partnerships, Advocacy, Communication and Visibility

Represent World Vision externally and strengthen strategic relationships that enhance humanitarian impact, resource mobilization, organizational visibility, and influence.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the principal representative of World Vision with government authorities, donors, UN agencies, NGOs, churches, civil society organizations, media, and other key stakeholders.
• Maintain active engagement and leadership within national coordination mechanisms, including the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), Inter-Cluster Coordination Group (ICCG), clusters, and other relevant forums.
• Build and strengthen strategic partnerships, consortiums, and collaborative initiatives that contribute to humanitarian and development objectives.
• Promote coordinated advocacy, policy influence, and collective action on humanitarian priorities, protection concerns, and access issues affecting vulnerable populations.
• Support and advance child-focused advocacy initiatives aligned with World Vision’s strategy and mission.
• Act as organizational spokesperson when required and ensure consistent external messaging.
• Enhance organizational visibility, credibility, reputation, and influence among key stakeholders.

7) Faith and Community Engagement

Strengthen engagement with churches, faith leaders, and faith-based organizations while promoting World Vision’s Christian identity, values, and faith-inspired approaches to sustainable change and child wellbeing.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain strategic partnerships with churches, faith-based organizations, and faith networks.
• Engage and collaborate with interfaith leaders and platforms to support community resilience, peacebuilding, and humanitarian action.
• Promote World Vision’s Christian identity and foster an organizational culture grounded in Christian values, integrity, and respect for diversity.
• Support faith-inspired approaches that contribute to sustainable development, humanitarian response, and child wellbeing.
• Facilitate dialogue and collaboration between faith leaders, communities, and humanitarian actors where appropriate.
• Encourage staff engagement in faith and values initiatives consistent with World Vision’s mission and ethos.

8) People Leadership and Organizational Culture
Build and sustain a high-performing, accountable, and values-driven workforce with the leadership capacity, organizational structure, and culture required to deliver quality programming and achieve response objectives.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead workforce planning, recruitment, and organizational design to ensure the response is adequately staffed and structured.
• Approve staffing plans and ensure critical positions are filled in a timely manner.
• Ensure all staff have clearly defined roles, current job descriptions, and measurable performance objectives.
• Build and sustain a high-performing leadership team through leadership development and succession planning.
• Drive performance management, talent development, and organizational capacity strengthening.
• Promote staff wellbeing, safety, diversity, inclusion, safeguarding, and employee engagement.
• Ensure effective internal communication, collaboration, and operational support systems across teams.

9) Safeguarding, Ethics, Accountability and Compliance

Provide strategic leadership and oversight for safeguarding, ethics, accountability, and compliance to ensure a safe, ethical, transparent, and accountable operating environment across all response operations, while protecting children, vulnerable adults, staff, and affected communities.

Key Responsibilities

• Promote a culture of safeguarding, accountability, transparency, integrity, and ethical conduct across all operations.
• Ensure safeguarding, child protection, misconduct reporting, whistleblowing, and community feedback mechanisms are fully operational, accessible, and trusted.
• Drive staff awareness, capacity building, and compliance with safeguarding, ethics, accountability, and child protection policies through regular training, communication, and engagement.
• Oversee the timely reporting, investigation, management, and follow-up of safeguarding, ethics, fraud, misconduct, and compliance incidents in accordance with organizational policies and standards.
• Ensure appropriate protection of children, vulnerable adults, staff, and affected populations through effective safeguarding systems and preventive measures.
• Ensure implementation and follow-up of corrective actions arising from safeguarding, ethics, misconduct, fraud, and compliance cases.
• Ensure compliance with organizational policies, donor requirements, safeguarding standards, and applicable legal and regulatory obligations.

10) Security, Staff Wellbeing and Safety

Provide strategic leadership and accountability for security, risk management, staff safety, wellbeing, and business continuity to safeguard personnel, assets, operations, beneficiaries, and organizational reputation while enabling effective programme delivery in a complex operating environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide overall leadership and oversight for security, safety, risk management, and business continuity across the organization.
• Ensure implementation and compliance with World Vision Security Policies, Core Security Requirements, donor requirements, and applicable legal obligations.
• Monitor security, political, operational, and contextual risks and ensure appropriate mitigation measures are identified and implemented.
• Lead crisis management, emergency response, incident management, and business continuity efforts.
• Chair security, safety, risk, and incident review meetings and oversee implementation of agreed actions.
• Ensure organizational risks are identified, assessed, mitigated, monitored, and reported through established risk management processes.
• Promote a culture of safety, staff wellbeing, duty of care, and security awareness.
• Ensure staff receive appropriate security training, briefings, and preparedness support.
• Oversee the development, maintenance, and testing of business continuity, contingency, and emergency response plans.
• Support informed operational decision-making in insecure and high-risk environments.

KNOWLEDGE/QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE ROLE

 

Required Professional Experience

• Over 15 years of progressive humanitarian leadership experience, including more than 7 years in senior country-level management roles, leading large-scale emergency and recovery operations in fragile, conflict-affected, and high-risk environments.
• Proven track record managing complex multi-sector humanitarian responses, overseeing portfolios exceeding USD 20 million, and administering grants from major institutional donors such as Global Fund, USG-funding, ECHO, UN agencies, EU, SDC, Philantrhopy, etc..
• Extensive experience leading multicultural, multidisciplinary teams and engaging effectively with governments, donors, UN agencies, NGOs, civil society, media, and private-sector stakeholders, including serving as an organizational spokesperson.
• Strong expertise in humanitarian operations within war zones and crisis settings, fostering innovation and calculated risk-taking while managing competing priorities under pressure.
• Preferred background includes experience as a Country Director or Response Director, work in Central or West Africa, and service with faith-based organizations and international NGOs.

Required Education, training, license, registration, and certification

• Master's degree in International Development, Humanitarian Affairs, Public Administration, Business Administration, International Relations, Public Health, Social Sciences, or a related field.
• Alternatively, a university degree in a relevant field combined with extensive humanitarian leadership experience.
• Advanced certification in Humanitarian Leadership, Emergency Management, Project Management, Organizational Leadership, or related disciplines.

Preferred Knowledge and Qualifications

Technical Knowledge

• Humanitarian leadership, including humanitarian principles, standards, accountability frameworks, coordination mechanisms, and engagement with key humanitarian actors.
• Program and organizational management, including strategic planning, organizational development, MEAL, change management, and talent development.
• Financial, grant, and donor management, including financial stewardship, donor compliance, resource mobilization, and donor engagement.
• Risk and safeguarding management, including security, safeguarding, child protection, and operational risk management.

Skills and Competencies

• Strategic thinker with strong analytical and decision-making capabilities, including the ability to operate effectively in complex and uncertain environments.
• Exceptional leadership, influencing, negotiation, and diplomacy skills, with the ability to build partnerships and manage diverse stakeholders.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to inspire, motivate, and lead high-performing teams.
• Highly adaptable and resilient, with strong emotional intelligence, crisis leadership, and emergency management capabilities.

Work Environment/Travel:

• The position requires ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 25% of the time.
• Work hours are often in excess of 12 hours per day during difficult periods of the response.
• Responses are often mounted in insecure or natural disaster-prone contexts, which may disrupt normal work patterns and generate staff safety issues.
• Work and housing environments may at times be well below normal standards in terms of facilities, equipment, food availability and hygiene.

Language Requirements

• Full professional fluency in English and French (written and spoken).

Applicant Types Accepted:

Local and International Applicants (IA's) Accepted

World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organisation with a mission centred on following Jesus Christ in service to the world´s most vulnerable children. Therefore, in all locations to the fullest extent legally permissible, the successful applicant will affirm our core documents, observe conduct compatible with Christian principles, serve at a high level of professional ethics and strive to act in accordance with cultural sensitivities. Furthermore, regular attendance with team and office devotions, chapel and prayer gatherings are expected in line with policies in the World Vision host location and its departments.