Expressions of Interest - Social Protection Experts

Background/IRC Summary:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people survive, recover and gain control of their future. The IRC is working to improve the safety, health, education, economic well-being, and decision-making power of people in crisis affected places.

The Economic Recovery and Development Technical Unit (ERD TU) is responsible for providing technical assistance on the design, implementation, and monitoring of programs supporting economic wellbeing outcomes globally. This includes (but is not limited to) cash and voucher assistance (CVA), agriculture, livelihoods, and financial inclusion programming. The ERD TU drives IRC’s innovation and thought leadership (both internal and external) within the economic wellbeing space, supporting evidence generation and dissemination of best practices.

Job Overview/Summary:

Social protection systems and approaches have the potential to play an important role in crisis contexts but are currently underutilized or not designed as effectively as they could be. There is limited evidence, and frequently humanitarian actors require additional knowledge and capacity related to social protection. Where they do exist, social protection systems in crisis often exclude vulnerable populations, such as refugees, or do not adequately consider gender or other inequalities.

In collaboration with a range of other humanitarian and social protection actors, the IRC is participating in an FCDO-funded program to provide timely technical assistance for strengthened social protection approaches in crisis and to address other challenges, such as evidence gaps and capacity building needs. The program will encompass a variety of short to medium term assignments which partner organizations can bid on, often with short turn around (3-10 business days). Assignments may focus on global/thematic questions related to social protection or may be specific to a given country/crisis.

The IRC’s ERD TU is seeking expressions of interest for consultants to join a database of social protection experts. Consultants will be engaged by IRC to respond to assignment call-downs within the overarching program framework. Assignments are anticipated to be short to medium term (around 2-9 months) and depending on the specific deliverables may be entirely remote, require in-country work/travel, or a hybrid. In most instances, consultants will be working in close collaboration with IRC staff (headquarters, and/or country office staff) and potentially counterparts from other program partner organizations and/or FCDO.

Major Responsibilities:

Specific responsibilities will depend on the assignment objectives, below is an indication of the types of responsibilities that might be involved (based on previous call-down assignments):

• Development of policy or programming options, or other technical advice, for UN agencies, government ministries, FCDO, or others
• Best practices research, synthesis, and/or dissemination (potentially including evidence or literature reviews)
• Creating technical resources to guide FCDO and/or implementers, such as guidance notes or tools
• Conceptualizing new programs or developing recommendations to improve existing programs
• Stakeholder mapping
• Mainstreaming of specific considerations to address inequality, such as gender or disability
• Designing and/or delivering capacity building initiatives to strengthen donor or practitioner skills

Depending on experience, expert consultants may also take on team leader functions and/or provide quality assurance of other team members’ contributions to the assignment (including other consultants, IRC staff, or partners).