Country Representative for South Sudan, based in Juba Full Time

We are current looking for a Country Representative for our South Sudan mission, based in Juba.

Position: Country Representative

Contract duration: Until August 2026

Location: Juba, South Sudan

Starting Date: 1 August, 2025

Application Deadline: Applications close 01st of July 2025, but early applications are heavily encouraged and will be processed as they are received.

ABOUT IMPACT

IMPACT Initiatives is the world’s leading independent data and analysis providers in crises contexts. Headquartered in Geneva and with a global outreach (35 countries in 2024), we support a range of stakeholders to enable them to make better, more informed decisions in humanitarian, stabilisation, and development settings.

ROLE OVERVIEW

IMPACT is seeking a strategic and results-driven Country Representative to lead the South Sudan office. This role will oversee the strategic and day-to-day running of the office, influence decision-makers, and lead critical projects that inform the humanitarian response in South Sudan.

This is an excellent opportunity for a strategic leader with strong analytical, management, and communication skills. At a time when the humanitarian sector is facing unprecedented challenges, this role will play a pivotal function in ensuring increasingly scarce aid is prioritised according to need.

The Country Representative role at IMPACT is a unique opportunity to shape the humanitarian response in South Sudan. It is different to many Country Director roles, as it requires an understanding of research and analysis, and how this can be used to shape humanitarian programming and decision-making. To be successful requires a nuanced understanding of actors within the humanitarian system in South Sudan, and the ability to build and nurture relationships at the most senior levels to ensure that prioritisation within the response is evidence-based. This role would suit someone with the ability to recognise the big picture and put in place structures and processes to enable execution, but who also gets excited about digging into data to advocate for a more effective and informed humanitarian response.

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• Resilience and high tolerance for ambiguity: the ability to navigate uncertainty whilst shaping decisions with well-structured thinking. Comfortable with working autonomously and with limited direction. Patience when things don’t go your way, and the resilience to continue in difficult situations.
• Critically reading people, institutions and situations: a good understanding of the humanitarian system, including the ability to engage and influence senior leaders, demonstrated through previous engagement with high-level officials and policy makers. Understanding that institutions are made of people, with different levels of influence and interests, and the ability to read these to identify leverage points to achieve organisational outcomes.
• Strategic judgement and moral vision: a strong understanding of the outcomes the office should achieve, and the ability to work backwards from that to make tough choices. The ability to think in a holistic, realistic and futuristic manner to anticipate and mitigate internal and external obstacles to achieving country and organisational strategic objectives.
• Proactivity and effective prioritisation: a proven ability to own complex multi-stakeholder processes and drive execution, proactively identifying when solutions lie outside of the standard remit of organisational behaviour.
• Effective internal and external communication: the ability to communicate effectively on sensitive, nuanced, and uncertain topics. Strong writing and presentation skills are critical, with experience of presenting to senior bodies most important.
• Inspirational leadership: experience of management within a humanitarian organisation, ideally at field level, providing strong leadership and clear management structures to ensure the team has what it needs to succeed. Builds motivation and inspiration towards team and organizational objectives, helping staff to feel part of and committed to the organizational success.
• Humility and willingness to learn: able to identify gaps in your own skills/knowledge, and the capacity to learn or delegate to actively mitigate these
• Experience in sector: Experience conducting assessments or research is desirable but not critical; more important is experience having used data and information to influence high-level stakeholders.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Lead the day-to-day management of the South Sudan office: manage a team of 20 staff to deliver projects focusing on public health, emergencies, cash and markets, among others. This includes direct management of about 5 staff (Research Manager, Operations Manager, several (Senior) Assessment Officers), as well as oversight of REACH-dedicated finance, HR, and operations staff, whilst ensuring effective collaboration with Acted, who host REACH in South Sudan. Regularly liaise with regional support staff, including project development focal point, as well as regional finance staff.
• Work to create an effectively prioritised humanitarian system in South Sudan: proactively seek out and nurture relationships across the sector to enable effective political influencing, ensuring access to forums and discussions where decisions are made, and that these are made based on data and evidence, including the Inter-Cluster Coordination Group, the Humanitarian Donor Group, the Humanitarian Country Team, the Integrated Phase Classification process, among other fora.
• Provide strategic leadership: work with the SMT to design an updated and effective Country Strategy, thinking critically about how country objectives are aligned with the needs of the context, setting clear goals for implementation, and ensuring all staff are aligned to this vision and able to effectively implement.
• Ensure operational structure can meet the needs of the programmatic strategy: work with HQ and sister organisation Acted to provide oversight of the IMPACT operating budget of $ 3.5 million for 2024, logistics for data collection, recruitment of the right staff nationally and internationally, and proper safety and security of staff working in South Sudan. Ensure South Sudan’s alignment with global organisational strategy shifts in operational setups.
• Ensure the South Sudan office is financed to deliver on strategic outcomes: systematically develop strategies for addressing resource constraints, maintaining a clear-eyed view of critical information gaps in the response, donor priorities and needs, and fundraising cycles.
• Provide structure and effective delegation for robust humanitarian research and needs analysis: create and manage structures that enable the effective roll-out of research on food security, nutrition, public health, emergencies, cash and markets, among others. Translate complex organisational objectives into manageable portfolios of work across multiple teams and departments.
• Act as the delegated representative of the IMPACT CEO in South Sudan: oversee communication in-country to ensure HQ/Field alignment, close collaboration, and organizational transparency.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

• For this position, salary between 4’740 CHF and 4’800 CHF monthly (before income tax), etc as well as a monthly living allowance of 500 USD
  NB – IMPACT salaries are strictly determined by our salary grid depending on the grade of the position and the level of education of staff. A location-dependent security and/or isolation adjustment is then applied as a recognition that some staff are required to work in hardship places where living and working conditions are much more difficult than elsewhere.
• Accommodation and food provided in ACTED guesthouse
• Private pension fund, health insurance, and repatriation assistance (& unemployment insurance for EU citizens)
• This is not a family duty station
• Flight tickets every 6 months & visa fees covered
• R&R after 3 months in country (flight ticket up to 500$ + 200$ of living allowance)
• Contribution to the luggage transportation: between 23kg and 100kg, depending on the length of the contract
• Annual leave of 36 days per year
• Predeparture induction – 3 days at IMPACT Initiatives’ HQ in Geneva + one week pre-departure training in ACTED HQ in Paris, including a 4-days in situ security training
• Tax advice (free 30-minute call with a tax consultant)
• Enrolment in IMPACT Initiatives Research Foundational Learning Programme within the first 3 months from the start of contract.
• IMPACT and ACTED prioritize the psychological safety of its staff and the health insurance provided covers, among others, up to 1000 € per year of psychosocial counselling fees.