Partnerships Senior Officer - Operations

Job Description
Position: Partnerships Senior Officer - Operations
Band / Level / Grade: 8A
Department: Partnerships
Location: Aden, with frequent visits to partners locations across Yemen
Start Date: April 1, 2023
Duration: 6 months (with high likeliness of extension)
Reports to: Partnerships Lead with a technical line to the Operation department leads


Background/IRC Summary:
The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and in 22 US cities, the IRC restores safety, dignity, and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure.

The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

The IRC Yemen Country program was established in 2012 and is currently implementing integrated Health, Nutrition, Environmental Health (WASH), Economic Recovery and Development, Women Protection and Empowerment, and Education programming in eight governorates. The IRC Yemen Country Program operates with its Country Office in Aden and other main Office is in Sana’a. Other subfield offices include Abyan, Hodeida, and Al Dhale, with the Al Dhale office covering Lahj, and the Abyan office covering activities in Shabwa.

Job Overview/Summary:
The Partnerships Senior Officer - Operations is a key position for the Partnerships Department (PD). In line with the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results (PEER) System, which is IRC’s guiding document for working with partners, this position will support the PD and build the operational/support capacity of IRC’s NGO and government partners in areas of Supply Chain (SC) (logistics and procurement), Human Resources (HR) and Organizational Governance (OG). This will include reviewing sub-award proposals, taking part in due diligence processes, identifying any support needs, implementing relevant plans, coordinating the in-kind support to partners, along with conducting monitoring to ensure partners follow IRC and donors’ principles and standards.

Major Responsibilities:
Program Delivery and Partnership Management
- In relation to operations aspects, promote and apply the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS) and contribute to building a strong understanding of PEERS throughout the IRC office.
- Participate in the selection of partners through stakeholder analysis, preliminary meetings with partners, and Due diligence, as required.
- Ensure partner staff sticks to internal schedules for delivering their contributions for proposals and donor reports, and ensure inputs are in the required format and to the desired quality.
- Provide partners with standard mentorship based on IRC experience and local partner capacity on issues related to procurement and logistics management, while ensuring to reflect partners' specific needs.
- Use partnership departments toolkits (including excel sheets and other survey tools) to support operational assessment.
- Engage in the Partnership Capacity Analysis (PCA) of potential partners focusing on partner logistics, procurement, HR, and organizational governance
- Coordinate with the Humanitarian Access and Security (HAS) and gender equality, diversity, and inclusion (GEDI) departments focal points of the IRC to provide their inputs into the Partnership Capacity Analysis (PCA) of potential partners
- Contribute to efforts to collaboratively analyze and handle material risks identified during the PCA, including support needs.
- Coordinate with the partnership, program, and SC leads to determine the appropriate partnership agreement type and requirements for in-kind support and draft agreements, taking into account the due diligence outcomes and specific project and donor requirements.
- In relation to in-kind contributions to partners, working with technical, supply chain, and PD teams to ensure the distribution of these items is timely and ensures the completion of documentation.
- Provide internal surge support to IRC’s procurement and/or other operational departments to facilitate timely program delivery during emergency responses, as the need arises
- Develop and maintain effective and positive working relationships with relevant collaborators, including partner agencies, community leaders, and service providers.
- Participate in Partnership Project Opening, Review, and Closure Meetings, to ensure all supply chain processes and HR requirements are adhered to.
- Take part in compliance review and reflection (monitoring) sessions, including spot checks; identify appropriate follow-up actions, and provide completed reports to Partnership Lead.
- Support in the close-out of partnerships, as required.

Partner Support & Capacity Sharing
- Facilitate the collaborative development and delivery of the partner project support plan, ensuring that it appropriately addresses issues identified in the due diligence process, and coordinates with relevant departments for the timely, quality implementation of the plan.
- Provide HR and SC training and mentoring support to partners, in accordance with partner project support plans, with a focus on supporting the partner to strengthen HR and SC systems and capacities that are responsive to the needs of the partner (rather than replicating IRC’s systems and policies).
- Coordinate with the Humanitarian Access and Security (HAS) and gender equality, diversity, and inclusion (GEDI) departments of the IRC to provide training and mentoring support to partners, in accordance with partner project support plans.
- Ensure IRC understands partner capacity strengthening priorities, and identifies opportunities and plans for IRC to support partner capacity strengthening efforts.
- Support the resourcing of organizational development support where appropriate for partners; coordinate organizational development support to partners.
- Collaborate with technical coordinators to integrate technical capacity-sharing approaches, including how IRC can learn from local partners.
- Promote and identify ways for continual learning between IRC staff and partners.
With the support of the SCC, support partners set up and adapt standard supply chain structures to the local environment.
- Provide operational mentoring support and training to partners on topics related to logistics, procurement, human resources, risk, compliance and accountability, and organizational governance.
- Guide partners to ensure they have effective procurement processes, including procurement tracker, reporting, and asset management.
- Regularly supervise the procurement, asset, and warehouse management process of partners and produce monthly reports to be shared with the Partnership Coordinator
- Ensure implementation of the capacity building components, hold regular meetings on operational progress and improvements required, and provide solutions to challenges of partners.
- Regularly mentor partner staff to coordinate the implementation and consistent adherence of human resource policies and procedures, ensuring full compliance with all Legal, HR, and administrative guidelines
- Closely work with Human Resources and Supply Chain departments to support local partners in putting in place systems and to develop new tools, processes, and policies that promote and sustain quality and standard methodologies within partner operations and to ensure sub-grant processes make meet IRC standards and are efficiently implemented

Team Management
- There are no direct line management responsibilities; however, coaching, training, and mentoring of partner staff is essential to strengthen their technical capacity, exchange knowledge, and for professional development.

Other
- Any other duties as assigned by the Partnerships lead.

Key Working Relationships:
- Position Reports to: Partnerships Lead with technical lines to the SC and HR Coordinators.
- Position directly supervises: N/A
- Other Internal and/or external contacts: The IRC Programs, Partnerships, Finance, SC, HR, HAS, GEDI teams and external stockholders and partners.