Coordinator, Research (Community Engagement and Accountability)

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian network, with 191 member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. IFRC uses the Triple R – response, resilience and respect – to deliver on Strategy 2030. IFRC responds to disasters and crises, ensuring timely, coordinated and locally led humanitarian action. IFRC supports its members in building community resilience in the areas of climate and environment, health and wellbeing, and migration and displacement. IFRC promotes respect for our fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality, including in our work on values, power and inclusion. The IFRC focuses throughout on our core mandate – our raison d’être – of strategic and operational coordination, humanitarian diplomacy, National Society development, and accountability. 

IFRC is led by its Secretary General and has its Headquarters in Geneva and five regional offices in Africa (Nairobi); the Americas (Panama); Asia Pacific (Kuala Lumpur); Europe (Budapest); and MENA (Beirut) as well as representation offices, service centres and delegations across the globe.

The IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles. 

The National Society Development and Coordination Division is organised in three departments: the National Society, Development Services Department; the Disasters, Climate and Crises Department; and the Health and Care Department. It also includes the Movement and Membership Coordination Team, and hosted projects of the IFRC, namely: the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), the Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership (REAP), and the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response (SCHR). 

The Disaster Climate and Crisis Department, led by the Director, consists of four units: The Operations Coordination Unit, The Socio-Economic Empowerment Unit, The Climate, Environment and Resilience Unit and The Migration and Displacement Unit.  This position is located in the Socio-Economic Empowerment Unit, based in Geneva with frequent international travel to support the IFRC regions and to participate in internal and external meetings, and reports directly to the Manager, Community Engagement.  

Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) is an essential, proactive way of working that recognises and empowers all community members as valued, equal partners. Their diverse needs, priorities, and preferences guide and drive all IFRC activities. We achieve this by integrating robust, meaningful community participation, ensuring open and honest communication, and establishing responsive mechanisms to listen to and act on feedback across all our programmes and operations. This fundamentally builds community trust and strengthens humanitarian action.

To realize this vision, timely evidence, research, assessments and deep context analysis are critical. The reality of recent polycrises demands data-driven approaches maximise accountability and fully harness the collective strength of the IFRC’s global network. Reliable insights into vulnerabilities, risk perceptions, community coping mechanisms, and crisis impacts on marginalized communities are essential to effectively address challenges such as climate shocks, disasters, food insecurity, disease outbreaks, displacement, and conflicts.

The Coordinator, Research will lead research, data, and global training initiatives aligned with current and emerging global priorities.

This role supports the global integration and analysis as a core element in designing and delivering work on on climate, health and migration, and building lasting community resilience. It strengthens social science research as a critical component for designing and delivering effective public health and humanitarian response strategies.

A primary focus of this position is on proactively building and enhancing research capacity within IFRC and its member National Societies. Furthermore, the role oversees the development and global implementation of the Community Trust Index, delivering valuable and actionable insights into trust in aid providers across diverse contexts.

This work aligns with and directly supports the priorities of National Societies and includes collaboration with IFRC and its membership and Red Cross and Red Crescent Reference Centres to successfully scale up Research and the implementation of the Community Trust Index globally.

1. Develop and implement a global CEA research capacity strengthening strategy for the IFRC Secretariat and its membership, providing technical guidance, training and peer support to National Societies.

2. Oversee rapid, participatory context analysis and research across emergency responses.

3. Lead on multi-thematic research initiatives with communities, collaborating across different thematic and teams, including DCC Units and other departments and divisions, as well asthe IFRC’s network leadership and managers to transform innovative ideas into actionable research proposals and enhance data-driven outcomes.

4. Deploy in emergency contexts, including complex emergencies, to support National Societies and IFRC offices in integrated approaches for rapid the collection, analysis and use of community insights, assessments, and socio-behavioural data. This includes providing remote support and quality assurance to deployed personnel.

5. Strengthen strategic partnerships and agreements at all levels (national, regional, and global) to ensure the systematic inclusion of community evidence and socio-behavioural intelligence in public health and humanitarian response for greater action and impact.

6. Lead the development and localization of the Community Trust Index at the National Society level, coordinating the establishment of thematic modules to regularly provide the IFRC network with standardized data on the barriers and drivers of trust, enabling more effective and impactful local programming.

7. Develop an implementation guide and lead the capacity strengthening efforts to support a step-by-step implementation of the Trust Index by National Society stakeholders.

8. Coordinate national analysis on trust drivers and enablers, global communication tools, and advocacy materials to maximize the impact of the Trust Index, transforming data into actionable insights that strengthen and sustain trust within communities.

9. Supervise the work of consultants, contractors, and perform quality assurance of the work of staff at the regional and National Society levels contributing to the development of the Trust Index.

10. Develop an operational workplan for research and community insights priorities across the IFRC Secretariat, providing direct mentorship to regions in conducting studies. Engage with leadership and managers in areas such as climate, early warning and anticipatory action, social protection, migration, inclusion, and health to identify and support on evidence needs related to specific challenges faced by communities.

11. Recommend harmonized and adaptable approaches to capacity strengthening and social science research, and provide technical support, to all regional offices.

12. Engage with leadership and key stakeholders to prioritize community evidence and localized analyses for advocacy efforts and humanitarian diplomacy. Represent the IFRC network in high-level research forum and consortia, and foster collaboration with Red Cross and Red Crescent reference centres, academia, and partner agencies.

13. Lead the community engagement/accountability Impact initiative by developing evidence-based tools, both quantitative and qualitative, to support National Societies in implementing high-impact strategies and interventions, such as community participation, evidence-based participatory planning, etc.

14. Develop, localize, and scale up a structured framework and guidance for measuring and tracking the impact of community engagement/accountability in achieving tangible outcomes, including fostering community access, protective behaviours, and effective actions, which ultimately enhance effective humanitarian action.

15. Identify and create opportunities to build internal and external partnership networks to support capacity strengthening and research opportunities.

16. Work closely with leads of IFRC strategic priorities and coordinate with Operations, Information Management Team, the PMER unit, and other relevant departments to identify community-level evidence needs, develop quality data tools and processes, and lead global data initiatives such as the Trust Index for measuring and fostering trust in humanitarian action.

17. Liaise with donors and agencies to identify funding opportunities and develop case for supports, proposals, and submit them for generating funds to support the strategic priorities of the community engagement/accountability strategy at the national society level, regions, and global levels.

Duties applicable to all staff

1. Work actively towards the achievement of IFRC’s goals. 
2. Abide by and work in accordance with the Red Cross and Red Crescent principles.
3. Perform any other work-related duties and responsibilities that may be assigned by the line manager.

Required

• Advanced degree (Master) in public health or social sciences related discipline – preferably in anthropology, sociology.

Preferred

• Basic delegate training course, IMPACT or equivalent knowledge.

Required

• Min. 5-7 years of CEA experience, including in public health programmes and with at least 3 years of experience in the Global South in response settings.
• Proven experience in coordinating diverse range of teams, partners and networks to strengthen community-centred approaches.
• Experience in leading community engagement approaches and delivering/coordinating capacity building efforts of local organizations.
• Experience in data collection, aggregation, and analysis.
• Experience in an international organization or NGO.

Preferred

• Experience in leading teams and managing people.
• Experience within the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

Required

• Good understanding of current developments in the field of communication with communities, behavioural and social sciences, community engagement processes, strategic communication, research approaches.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct operational research in humanitarian crisis and/or public health emergencies.
• Demonstrated ability to use mixed methods with an emphasis on qualitative research methods and approaches.
• Commitment to being deployed at short notice to difficult environments.
• Excellent analytical skills and knowledge of quantitative, qualitative and participatory research methodologies and analysis.
• Excellent project management skills, able to work under pressure and manage multiple projects simultaneously, to a high standard and to deadline.
• Strong interpersonal, coordination and negotiation skills, with the capacity to build partnerships with internal and external organisations. 
• Advanced planning and management skills, with the ability to work with minimum supervision, capture learning and use it to make improvements in operations and NS/IFRC ways of working for the integration of CEA approaches and activities.
• Cultural sensitivity with excellent ability to work effectively as part of multicultural teams and engage in a respectful, considerate manner with local staff and communities. 
• Facilitations and training skills.
• Demonstrated core proficiency in (a) digital communication & collaboration, (b) basic digital content creation, (c) digital safety & security, (d) data literacy, and (e) problem solving with technology (including responsible use of AI assistants).

Preferred

• Good understanding of risk communication, community engagement and accountability issues in emergencies contexts.
• Sensitivity to challenging political contexts and understanding of risk management processes.
• Able to capture learning and use it to make improvements in programming and operations.
• Good knowledge of gender and diversity issues in humanitarian programming.

Languages

Required

• Fluent spoken and written English.

Preferred

• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic).

Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability.

Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust.

Application Instruction

Please submit your application in English only.