Consultant, Development of Surge Leadership Programme

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian organization, with a network of 192-member National Societies (NSs). The overall aim of IFRC is “to inspire, encourage, facilitate, and promote at all times all forms of humanitarian activities by NSs with a view to preventing and alleviating human suffering and thereby contributing to the maintenance and promotion of human dignity and peace in the world.” IFRC works to meet the needs and improve the lives of vulnerable people before, during and after disasters, health emergencies and other crises.

IFRC is part of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (Movement), together with its member NSs and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The work of IFRC is guided by the following fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. The Headquarters are organized into three main Divisions: (i) National Society Development and Operations Coordination; (ii) Global Relations, Humanitarian Diplomacy and Digitalization; and (iii) Management Policy, Strategy and Corporate Services.

IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. IFRC also has country cluster delegation and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat.

As part of the IFRC commitment to the localization agenda, IFRC strives for a model that is “as local as possible and as global as necessary”. Following a comprehensive review of the IFRC surge personnel and asset system, the ‘Surge Optimisation’ implemented several transformative changes to the way IFRC is coordinating deployment of international surge personnel and assets to emergencies. The aim is a system facilitating competency-based deployments, as local as possible and as international as required.

However, based on the analysis of deployments for the past 5 years, the competency-based deployments need to be further strengthened especially for the leadership roles in operations with considerations on diversity and gender in Asia Pacific. In 2022, out of 12 rapid response personnel that were deployed in Asia Pacific region for leadership roles, only 3 were deployed from the region (Australia Red Cross, Hong Kong Red Cross Branch of the Red Cross Society of China, New Zealand Red Cross), and only 3 out of the 12 were female. Initial discussions on the lack of representation from Asia Pacific indicate that this is due to lack of experience in managing IFRC operations, lack of opportunities in skill and knowledge development within the region and lack of experience in working internationally.

As a way to reduce the gap, IFRC Asia Pacific Regional Office (APRO) is initiating a Surge Leadership Programme. This programme is an initiative to increase the readiness to respond in Asia Pacific and improve the diversity of people deployed from Asia Pacific and to promote “local response and preparedness capacities alongside complementary international support mechanisms, so that our network will respond effectively to any emergency”.

The programme aims to register and develop individuals from National Societies and IFRC in Asia Pacific who will be deployed as Operations Manager, Operations Coordinator, Deputy Operations Manager or Field Coordinator in response to disasters and crises in the region with specific focus on operations funded through DREF and Emergency Appeals.

This consultancy will lead the development of the modules for this programme to maximize the learnings of the participants for the programme. This includes looking into modalities of learning and design appropriate programme syllabus incorporating adult – learning theory. The programme has to also be aligned to IFRC Developing Head of Emergency Operations programme that is organized globally.

Alignment with overarching IFRC frameworks and strategies

 The development of this programme must align to the IFRC “Core Competency Framework for Surge Personnel” which a tool to ensure a consistent and competency-based approach to recruitment, selection, performance management, and learning and development of surge personnel across the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. It must also align to the existing IFRC Surge learning programmes and training modules as well as the IFRC Developing Head of Emergency Programme.

Project objectives

IFRC APRO is initiating the Surge Leadership Programme. The programme is divided into two phases: (i) development phase; (ii) implementation phase. During the development phase, the concept and mechanism of the programme will be further expanded and detailed. At the same time, a toolbox for the programme – Surge Leadership Programme Toolbox will also be developed to support the implementation phase of the programme. This consultancy is supporting IFRC during the development phase of this programme and will provide the blueprint for the Surge Leadership Programme.

Desired outcome

A fully developed concept of Surge Leadership Programme that is aligned to the IFRC Core Competency Framework with tools and mechanism for implementation

Consultancy outputs

• Surge Leadership Programme outline/syllabus – following the different modalities to be utilized (mentoring, training, internship, shadow mission, certification mission) with alignment to the IFRC Core Competency Framework. The components of the design are:
  • Designing learning structure and instructional strategies
  • Defining learning objectives for each modality
  • Developing an assessment strategy in alignment to the learning objectives
• Surge Leadership Programme Learning Toolbox – content preparation
  • Detailing a plan for the resources aligned with the assessments
  • Resources include assessments, activities, media, and other content that will support the learning objectives.
  • Defining technology and tools to be used with each modality
  • Defining sequence of learning
• Surge Leadership Programme Toolbox
  • Defining the tools required for a successful implementation of the programme (end – to – end) as visualized below.

Required Information in Submission:

Significant experience in conducting a review related to Optimization Road Map.

Field experience in conducting reviews of humanitarian or development programmes, with prior experience in evaluating Red Cross Red Crescent programmes.

Deployment conditions and duration

It is anticipated consultants will be contracted on a results basis, or a “per day” basis.  Terms of reference will be provided.   

The consultant should have strong analytical skills and the ability to clearly synthesize and present findings, draw practical conclusions, and make recommendations.

Excellent English communication skills.

The consultant will work with the Health, Disaster, Climate and Crisis (HDCC) IFRC APRO (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) as well as the Surge team across IFRC APRO (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) and IFRC Geneva.

As part of the design and development work, the consultancy will include desk research and qualitative data collection and analysis. For qualitative data collection, the consultant will do interviews with key informants within IFRC regional office, the delegations in the region as well as Surge team in Geneva.

The Health, Disaster, Climate and Crisis (HDCC) Unit will support the Consultant to have access to existing tools, information, and to key informants in IFRC delegations. All the products will be shared with IFRC HDCC team at the close of the consultancy.

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