CDDU - UKRAINE - Head of mission - M/W

**About La Chaîne de l’Espoir**

Founded in 1994, La Chaîne de l’Espoir (CDE) is an international NGO headquartered in Paris, France. Its mission is to strengthen healthcare systems and to provide everyone, especially children, with equal chances and opportunities of survival and development.

CDE is currently active in twenty-five (25) countries with a global approach, mainly focusing on children, mothers and disadvantaged communities.

Our main activities consist of :

- Prevention and screening from an early age, particularly through school health Programmes.
- Care and surgery to meet the most urgent needs of children and women.
- Training and transfer of skills to local teams (capacity building) thanks to our international network of experts in all areas of surgery.
- Construction and equipment of hospital facilities adapted to local needs.

## Crisis context

La Chaîne de l'Espoir has been working in Ukraine since March 2022 with the goal to increase access to quality, medical and surgical care for the Ukrainian population and with emphasis on the war-wounded. As of 2026, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has supported dozens of hospitals in the most affected oblasts (Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Sumy, Lviv, Kyiv), providing pharmacy, consumables, traumatology kits, and a range of high spec, high value biomedical equipment.

Working alongside several NGO and hospital partners, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has provided training to thousands of healthcare specialists and surgeons across Ukraine in war medicine techniques e.g. Damage Control Surgery, Tactical Ultrasound, Pain Management, Advanced Life Support, Psycho Trauma etc… We also have a growing network of support from French hospitals and surgeons and have regular international missions into Ukraine.

Given the evolution of the situation in the country La Chaîne de l‘Espoir plans to continue its support to the hospital health system, especially to ensure better access to trauma and surgical care in the most affected oblast and newly accessible areas. La Chaîne de l’Espoir is also networking and conducting ongoing assessments in areas of interest for example Biomedical support, Antibacterial Stewardship and Infection Prevention Control.

## Mission context

Since 2022, La Chaîne de l’Espoir has supported healthcare efforts in Ukraine and has been expanding its reach and impact. Due to global financial reduction, the programmes for 2026 have decreased from previous years yet there remain interesting programmes to continue and various interesting options for future funding. We are well-positioned with a strong core staff team, multiple long-term implementing partners, strong donor and other external relationships.

By continuing to monitor the context, and humanitarian needs in respect to secondary and tertiary healthcare services, the mission aims to ensure the safety of its personnel and visiting missions while identifying strategies to deliver aid effectively in a volatile environment. La Chaîne de l’Espoir is committed to ensuring global compliance with humanitarian principles, legal frameworks, and local regulations. Building on its longstanding experience, the mission will also focus on establishing meaningful connections with local authorities, civil society organisations and humanitarian actors.

## **The position**

The Head of Mission holds overall responsibility and is accountable for the country office’s performance in terms of impact, quality, and accountability. He represents La Chaîne de l’Espoir vis-à-vis national authorities and all external partners and leads the development and implementation of the mission’s strategy.

In this capacity, he defines operational priorities and ensures their effective execution. He/She guarantees the sound management of financial, administrative, human, and logistical resources.

The Head of Mission is also responsible for mission security. He ensures the continuity and strengthening of the existing operational strategy, as well as the consolidation of established partnerships.

## Essential duties and responsibilities

**Representation** :

- Represent the association with partners, donors and different authorities, building a comprehensive network of relevant and reliable external stakeholders;
- Represent the association at external meetings for example Ukrainian government authorities, hospital management teams, donors, embassies
- Attend bilateral meetings with other NGO agencies/ consortium and participate in meetings with coordination bodies e.g. NGO platform, INSO
- Build CDE profile through broader networking, encouraging communications/ social media efforts

**Business Development and Grant Management**:

- Lead on business development/ strategy, budget planning and general grant management;
- Manage donor mapping and fundraising strategy, understanding which donors are present and their funding priorities
- Reinforce our positioning to create highly valued, high impact programmes using our comparative advantages in respect to high level technical knowledge (e.g war surgery, biomed, IPC)
- Build network of partners, international and national to explore joint implementation
- Lead on tracking opportunities and converting these into donor proposals and concept notes
- Ensure grant management is effective, that donor reports are timely and of good quality and that BFU and financial tracking and reports is effective and accurate

**Project Implementation Oversite:**

- Being responsible for the analysis of the humanitarian needs, project design and implemntation of efficient and high quality programming
- Being responsible for the provision of comprehensive analysis of humanitarian needs in Ukraine
- Support programmes teams in respects to analysis of needs, priorities, resources, feasibility to design essential, high impact projects
- Ensure team manages all aspects of project cycle to maximise our resources and impact
- Oversight of programme implementation and quality; design and monitoring of indicators and ensuring appropriate quantitative and qualitiative analysis of CDE activites

**Human Resources**:

- Manage all CDE staff in the country including needs identification, recruitment, management and welfare
- Direct management of the Ukraine team in respects to planning, contracting and standards
- Periodoic review of our organisational chart, highlights our human resource needs and priorities
- Supervise all national and international staff in the country in ensuring they understand tasks and priorities and are supported to maximise their potential and contribution
- Lead the recruitment process of national staff and further induction, appraisal and development
- Manage disciplinary issues and ensures perfomance management in place as approporiate
- Ensure support is available as regards to staff welfare and stress and that complaint and safeguarding mechanisms are clearly understood
- Ensure CDE’s Internal Regulations and Code of conduct are understood and respected.

**Safety & Security**:

- Being responsible for the safety & security of all CDE staff and resources within Ukraine, leading on risk assessment, strategic oversight and incident management
- Analyse geo-political and localised developments in regards to the context in Ukraine
- Compile all relevant security and safety documentation and protocols (risk assessments, security plan, SOPS, contingency plans) and ensures these are clear and understood
- Oversee and delegate all operational security aspects for example field trip planning and tracking, building management and communications protocols and equipment
- Plan material and personnel resources ensure the optimal safety of staff, assets and equipment and not placing any persons including beneficiaries in harm.
- Communicate and coordinates alerts or important information effectively and timely and lead on any potential security incident management

**Logistics, Procurement and Administration:**

- Ensure that all logisti