The IRC has been working in Ethiopia since 1999 implementing emergency and development work in rural communities and 21 refugee camps, reaching over 3.2 million clients in FY18 through programs in environmental health, health, education, child protection, economic recovery and development, and women’s protection and empowerment. The IRC operates through seven field offices across the country.
Position Overview
IRC Ethiopia seeks a dynamic individual for its Deputy Director for Programs (DDP). The DDP reports to the Country Director (CD) and is responsible for overall leadership in the design, implementation, and management of IRC Ethiopia’s programs to address beneficiaries’ needs and priorities. She/he manages and has direct oversight of the refugee and local community contexts. She/he is responsible for providing strategic direction of the programs, conceptualizing and promoting innovations, and continuing to deepen the impact of IRC’s programs on the ground.
The DDP assists the CD in the integrated planning and implementation of activities crucial to the success of field programs. This includes senior-level, internal and external coordination and stakeholder engagement, including with donors, government and non-government partners, and IRC technical and regional support teams; overseeing multi-sector project design and implementation; managing sector teams to propose, coordinate, and deliver quality programs aligned with strategic priorities and beneficiary needs; and leading strategic funding opportunity tracking, – partnering and pre-positioning decisions. The DDP will work closely with the Deputy Director for Emergencies (DDE), Accountability and Learning Coordinator, and Senior Grants Coordinator (SGC). The DDP will actively collaborate with Deputy Director for Operations (DDO), HR, Finance, Supply Chain (SC) and Field teams. The DDP will directly supervise seven Technical Coordinators and is a key member of the Senior Management Team.
Specific Responsibilities:
Program Leadership and Management
•Provide overall leadership and management to IRC Ethiopia programs, leading and promoting the strategic program direction while ensuring programs align with strategic priorities and beneficiary needs.
•Investigate opportunities for increased integration of IRC Ethiopia projects and approaches.
•Collaborate and coordinate closely with the DDE to encourage holistic programming and ensure that all opportunities for sector integration are utilized in project design and implementation.
•Collaborate and coordinate closely with DDO, SGC, Field Coordinators, HR, DD-Finance to deliver quality programs and timely resolution of implementation challenges and bottlenecks.
•Share responsibility with the DDE in serving as a country program’s focal point, ensuring timely strategy action plan delivery, rollout of related strategic initiatives, monitoring, reporting, and leading strategic action plan review processes.
•Liaise with key donors on funding opportunities, program priorities and strategies, and ongoing program successes and/or support needs.
•Oversee and facilitate decision-making related to project design, pursuance of funding opportunities, and partnership/consortia development.
•Lead design meetings for project proposals, ensure that Technical and Project Coordinators draft sound technical narratives and budgets in close consultation with relevant Field Teams, review proposals to ensure high quality and realistic proposal budgets.
•Lead Project Cycle Meetings, assign Project Leads as per the Project Cycle Meeting policy, ensure Technical Coordinators adequately prepare with up-to-date project information and ensure implementation of the agreed upon actions.
•Ensure that relevant programs Standard Operating Procedures and Guidelines that reflect and conform with the IRC global standards, various donors’ rules and regulations and the Government of Ethiopia’s standards are in place and are adhered to in the implementation of programs.
•In collaboration with Communications Manager and Technical Coordinators, lead the documentation, publication and circulation of papers profiling IRC Ethiopia’s experience and leadership in all sectors.
•In collaboration with the Accountability and Learning Coordinator, support the Technical and Project Coordinators to design monitoring, evaluation and learning activities in order to ensure responsive programs that use data and evidence for project design and course correction.
•In collaboration with the Accountability and Learning Coordinator, ensure that all Ethiopia projects have Client Feedback Mechanisms, as appropriate, and support Technical and Project Coordinators in registering, analyzing and taking actions on the basis of beneficiary feedback, including closing the feedback loop.
•Investigate opportunities to expand existing programs to deepen the impact on the lives of IRC Ethiopia clients/beneficiaries.
•In collaboration with the DDE, initiate new programming relevant to all IRC sector capacities and strategic priorities, and provide senior-level, strategic direction and direct support to the proposal development process.
•With the CD and Senior Management Team, lead, track and institutionalize new strategic initiatives within the IRC Strategy and country office Strategy Action Plan (SAP) frameworks.
•Work with program teams and operational departments (e.g. Finance, Supply Chain, HR) to strengthen and to ensure integrated (financial and programmatic) planning and measure performance against the plan.
•In collaboration with the DD for Finance and DDO, ensure that procurement plans, spending plans and budget versus actual analysis are carried out regularly by Technical and Project Coordinators and support following on recommendations to correct any deviations that impact program delivery.
Human Resources & Capacity Building
•Directly supervise seven direct reports: 2 EH Coordinators, Health Coordinator, Economic Recovery and Development (ERD) Coordinator, Child and Youth Protection and Development (CYPD) Coordinator, Community Wellbeing Initiative (CWI) Coordinator – responsible for Women Protection and Empowerment programming, and SINCE and RDPP Projects Coordinator with a total team of over 554 staff, including Assistant Coordinators, Project Managers, Officers, and Assistants.
• Provide complementary technical support to Emergency Response and Grants Units with the CD and DDE.
•Promote positive and productive teamwork and overall working environment.
•Work with the Technical and Project Coordinators to review staffing structure, analyze continuously if teams are fit for purpose, and implement steps to address identified gaps.
•Support Technical and Project Coordinators in HR management of the staff they supervise, and ensure timely, quality performance review and feedback among program teams.
•Assess and identify capacity building needs of the technical staff and match them with the available capacity building opportunities within and outside of IRC.
•Be an active change agent and support the Technical teams in acquiring the necessary skills and competencies to successfully transition to the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
•Ensure Technical Coordinators develop and follow up on individual capacity building plans of their staff.
Liaison and Special Tasks
•In coordination with the CD, DDE, and DDO, liaise with national and district authorities, donors, NGOs, and other operational partners, including attendance at scheduled and ad hoc meetings, and represent IRC and IRC interests by maintaining positive, constructive relations.
•With the CD, take a lead in donor relations, representing the IRC at various donor and other internal and external stakeholder forums.
•Ensure IRC participation in sector-specific coordination forums and help foster exchanges of program information and lessons learned with partners, client communities, and other IRC country programs.
•Supervise and complete special projects, as assigned, by the CD.
