The IRC’s Global Surge Team (GST) is a roster of esteemed and highly qualified humanitarian professionals who deploy on short notice to non-emergency and emergency contexts to support the IRC’s mission. Members of the GST provide specialist support where talent is most needed for short-term deployments of up to three months. The GST is a flexible employment opportunity for staff, requiring members to be available for deployments only 50% of the year (with opportunities for additional deployments if incumbent is interested).
Members of the GST who specialize in emergencies are deployed to support either existing country programs in their emergency response, or to initiate a new program in a crisis zone. The overall responsibility of the team is to design, develop, and manage the IRC’s on-site humanitarian response, allowing us to meet the immediate needs of the affected population rapidly and effectively.
Job Overview:
Working in partnership with local civil society, government and private sector actors is fundamental to the IRC’s mission to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their futures. We contribute to greater impact and scale, and more sustainable outcomes, when we partner with local actors, particularly in acute emergencies. Our commitment to being an organization that promotes diversity, equality and inclusion requires that we champion and resource leadership and action that comes from the communities in which we work.
The Emergency Partnerships Coordinator represents an exciting opportunity to advance IRC’s strategic commitment to partnering in emergencies. This role will be responsible for ensuring consistent collaboration with partners and promoting and modeling effective partnerships with local actors.
Emergency Partnership Coordinators are expected to be deployed in the field, either in an emergency or roving capacity, and must be able to deploy to the site of an emergency within 72 hours of notification.
Major Responsibilities:
The Emergency Partnerships Coordinator will lay the groundwork for effective partnerships by working alongside teams to prioritize and establish equitable partnerships, and to integrate partnership considerations into emergency response plans and strategies. When deployed, this will include:
•Facilitate stakeholder analysis and support informed decisions in each outcome area as to how IRC can best ‘add value’ supporting, reinforcing and complementing local actors and systems.
•Co-facilitate and guide partner mapping and selection processes to identify new partners as part of emergency readiness and response, including to identify women-led and women/girls serving organizations.
•Support the application of and learning on the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results system (PEERS), ensuring that IRC’s partnership principles, skills and approaches are applied by staff across programs and projects with partners.
•Collaborate with response leadership and technical coordinators to establish and build principled partnerships that prioritize collaboration on strategy, program design and delivery and capacity sharing.
•Coordinate and co-lead partner due diligence, design, support planning and monitoring processes, including:
oFacilitate the collaborative development and delivery of the partner project support plan, ensuring that it appropriately addresses issues identified in the due diligence process, and coordinate with relevant departments for the timely, quality implementation of the plan.
oCollaborate with technical coordinators to integrate technical capacity sharing approaches, including how IRC can learn from local partners, and to resource support needs.
oPromote and facilitate collaborative project management, including timely and effective partner program, finance, and compliance review and reflection (monitoring), and work with the Technical Coordinator to address any project performance issues.
•Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC’s management of the partnership relationship, including the documentation of, and response to partner feedback.
•Work collaboratively with partners and IRC staff to constructively resolve any issues that may arise.
•Provide regular feedback to the emergency response leadership and/or SMT, incorporating input from technical coordinators and operational leads as appropriate.
•Promote and identify ways for continual learning between IRC staff and partners.
•Foster ongoing learning, honest dialogue and reflection to strengthen partnerships and to promote IRC values and adherence to IRC policies.
•Liaise with other stakeholders across the organization seeking to advance the IRC’s partnership ambition, to ensure that emergency-specific learning and progress feed into the continued development of PEERS and broader organizational change management, dialogue and practice.
Job Requirements:
•Minimum 5 years of program and/or grants experience with NGOs in emergency settings.
•Genuine interest in and commitment to collaborating with national and local NGO, CBO, and government partners for effective humanitarian response.
•Strong understanding of the application of partnership principles (equality, transparency, results-oriented approach, responsibility and complementarity) in program design.
•Demonstrated experience communicating and planning with partners in humanitarian emergencies in a way that builds trust and mutual understanding. Experience with IRC’s PEERS system is a significant advantage.
•Effective at leading and building programs and/or operations in fast-paced, multifaceted environments. Leadership and team management skills are important.
•Solid track record leading in an emergency environment and/or start-up environment as part of a multinational team, as well as resource mobilization for emergencies.
•Demonstrated experience in an inter-departmental coordination role and the ability to communicate with and balance the priorities of a range of stakeholders.
•Excellent oral and written communication skills, including demonstrated ability to communicate technical information in a clear, accessible manner.
• Fluency in English. Working knowledge of French, Arabic or
Spanish strongly preferred..
•Digital literacy: MS Word, Excel & email applications required.
•Excellent writing and editing skills, and ability to effectively write and edit grant proposals and reports.
•Effective people- and program-management skills in acute emergency contexts: can train and lead staff productively under stressful circumstances.
•Flexible, focused, and reliable in an environment of changing demands.
IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
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