OCHA-Senior Nexus Coordinator-P5-Juba, South Sudan
Juba, South SudanReceiving Agency: OCHA
P Level: P5
Location: Juba, South Sudan
Duration: 6 months with a possible extension
Language: Fluency in English required; working knowledge of Arabic is desired.
DESCRIPTION OF EMERGENCY
| Brief Description of Emergency Outbreak/Upsurge and the Consequences for OCHA: |
| South Sudan is undergoing a period of risk and opportunity, marked by escalating humanitarian needs, significant economic challenges, and political and security uncertainty, compounded by shrinking financial resources and the spillover from the crisis in Sudan. Amidst this complexity, the UN Country Team (UNCT) and Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) convened a Joint Retreat in June 2025 to make strategic decisions on where, how, and with whom to work in order to deliver more coherent and impactful results. The retreat outcome underscored the need for a paradigm shift in leadership behavior, joint delivery models, accountability, and operational prioritization to drive coherent action across the peace, development, and humanitarian pillars in support of agreed priorities. This call for change comes at a moment when the global UN system is under increasing pressure to rethink how it leads, operates, and delivers amid shrinking resources, the IASC ‘reset’, and preparations for UN80. The development and humanitarian community, including the UN, is seeking renewal and relevance by becoming more effective and responsive to complex and rapidly evolving contexts. In South Sudan, this shift entails breaking down institutional silos in favor of bold, context-driven leadership, shared responsibility, and decisive, collective action. The Senior Nexus Coordination Officer (SNCO) will be embedded in OCHA and will act as the linchpin for translating retreat commitments into action, ensuring sustained follow-up across UN entities, NGOs, and partners but will report to the DSRSG/RC/HC. |
Brief Surge Need Justification: |
| The UNCT and HCT agreed on a 12-month joint plan at the recent retreat, centered around one overarching collective outcome: To enhance population self-reliance and resilience and contribute to a more protective environment. The SNCO will drive and support the operationalization of this plan, which outlines four priority outputs: • Food Security: Scale up local food production and climate-resilient agriculture, leveraging the “Year of Agriculture” and supporting women- and youth-led cooperatives in targeted states. • Essential Services: Ensure sustained access to health, education, and nutrition through pooled supply pipelines and mobile outreach, particularly in high-burden counties. • Durable Solutions: Support safe, voluntary return and local integration of displaced populations, aligned with the Government’s Durable Solutions Strategy. • Rapid Response and Protection: Strengthen early warning systems, pre- position life-saving supplies, and mobilize community-based protection and peacebuilding efforts. The SNCO will lead on the implementation and monitoring of this joint plan, enhance coherence across actors and sectors to ensure delivery against targets, and address persistent bottlenecks to joint action. This role will be key to fostering a culture of shared responsibility and results-oriented leadership within the UN system and among partners in South Sudan. |
OCHA’s Role and Key Challenges: |
| This is a nexus position so OCHA will be involved to ensure the UNCT-HCT outcomes are implemented. |
| Main Partners and Stakeholders in the Field: |
| UNCT, INGOs, NNGOs, RRC, Government ministries, Local governments, Development partners, UNMISS, Peace building partners... |
ROLE REQUIREMENTS
Main Tasks and Duties to be Executed:
The responsibilities will be confined to the implementation of the joint UNCT-HCT plan and targeted outputs. The SNCO will therefore: • Lead the coordination, review and tracking of the 12-month joint plan, ensuring delivery against time-bound commitments, geographic and sectoral priorities, and agency responsibilities. • Ensure alignment of the retreat outcomes with major frameworks, including the UN Cooperation Framework (2023–2026), the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan (HNRP), and other relevant strategic plans. • Collaborate closely with UN agencies, NGOs, IFIs, UNMISS, civil society, and the private sector to ensure the four outputs are delivered in a coherent, context-driven, and integrated manner. • Support the rollout and strengthening of the Area-Based Coordination model with a focus on field-level integration and alignment with subnational and local governance structures. • Promote coordinated engagement with national and local authorities to advance joint plan priorities and improve alignment with government-led processes. • Strengthen collaboration across humanitarian, development, and peace actors, ensuring joined-up planning and delivery, and expanding outreach to emerging donors and non-traditional partners. • Facilitate strategic engagement between the RC and key stakeholders, including UNCT/HCT leadership, government counterparts, donors, and IFIs, private sector and partners to support the joint plan implementation and address systemic bottlenecks. • Serve as adviser to the RC on issues related to integrated planning, coordination, and execution of the retreat outcomes. • Coordinate structured engagement with International Financial Institutions (e.g., World Bank, IMF, AfDB) to align financial and technical support with joint priorities and area-based approaches. • Develop and implement a communication strategy that ensures consistent and coherent messaging on collective UNCT/HCT results, both internally and externally. • Identify opportunities for greater efficiency and mobilization of resources across sectors and agencies, working with the RCO and OCHA to support sustainable implementation. • Draft and support the preparation of donor briefings, partner updates, and mission documents as appropriate.
Expected Outcome of the Deployment:
- Key deliverables and workplan are developed within the first month of the deployment. - A communication strategy and action plan is developed within the first month of the deployment that ensures consistent and coherent messaging on collective UNCT/HCT results, both internally and externally - The joint retreat targets and key deliverables are implemented and the enabling tools in place within two months. - Regular progress updates (quarterly) on the implementation of agreed targets and strategic interventions are provided. - Monitoring dashboard/tool in place and updated to track delivery against agreed outcomes. - The ABC model is fully operational. - Support OCHA and RCO to deliver and support the RC/HC in her key functions
Specific Required Skills:
Education: Advanced university degree (Master’s or equivalent) in international development, humanitarian affairs, political science, public policy, or related field. Experience: Minimum 10 years of progressively responsible experience in development, humanitarian coordination, peacebuilding, or related fields, including at least 5 years in complex or fragile contexts is required. Proven experience driving inter-agency coordination, operational follow-up, or change management initiatives or an international organization is required. Experience working across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, including joint programming or strategic planning processes is required. Familiarity with UN processes and frameworks such as the Cooperation development Frameworks, the humanitarian response plan and inter-agency results reporting tools is required. Experience in UN integrated settings and knowledge of the South Sudan context is desirable. Key competencies Strategic thinking: Ability to analyze complex systems, propose practical delivery models, and connect strategy to action. Leadership: Capable of inspiring collaboration and shared ownership, even in the absence of direct authority. Results orientation: Committed to achieving measurable outcomes and overcoming obstacles to delivery. Coordination and facilitation: Skilled in bringing together diverse actors to make collective decisions and deliver. Political acumen: Navigates sensitive inter-agency and external partner dynamics with discretion and insight.
OPERATIONAL ENVIRONMENT
Security Level: |
| 4-Substantial |
Overall Security Situation: |
| The general situation in South Sudan is calm but unpredictable; there are occasional security incidents of harassment, street robbery, kidnapping and house break-ins in the main cities, with some involving the use of deadly weapons. Petty theft is common in major towns, requiring extra caution. Traffic accidents are also a serious concern so driving must be defensive. A mandatory security briefing will be scheduled with UNDSS upon arrival. Visitors and staff can obtain additional security awareness documents by e-mail through UNDSS in-country. Passports must be always carried during travels in-country as photocopies even if certified are not accepted by the Police in lieu of the original travel documentation. |
Duty Travel: |
| Field mission will be around 30% |