Global Surge Team Roster: Emergency Partnerships Coordinator

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) 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 30 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure.

The IRC’s Global Surge Team (GST) is a roster of esteemed and highly qualified humanitarian professionals who deploy on short notice to non-emergency and emergency contexts to support the IRC’s mission. Members of the GST provide specialist support where talent is most needed for short-term deployments of up to three months. The GST is a flexible employment opportunity for staff, requiring members to be available for deployments only 50% of the year (with opportunities for additional deployments if incumbent is interested).

Members of the GST who specialize in emergencies are deployed to support either existing country programs in their emergency response, or to initiate a new program in a crisis zone. The overall responsibility of the team is to design, develop, and manage the IRC’s on-site humanitarian response, allowing us to meet the immediate needs of the affected population rapidly and effectively.

Job Overview

Working in partnership with local civil society, government and private sector actors is fundamental to the IRC’s mission to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their futures. We contribute to greater impact and scale, and more sustainable outcomes, when we partner with local actors, particularly in acute emergencies. Our commitment to being an organization that promotes diversity, equality and inclusion requires that we champion and resource leadership and action that comes from the communities in which we work.

The Emergency Partnerships Coordinator represents an exciting opportunity to advance IRC’s strategic commitment to partnering in emergencies. This role will be responsible for ensuring consistent collaboration with partners and promoting and modeling effective partnerships with local actors.

Emergency Partnership Coordinators are expected to be deployed in the field, either in an emergency or roving capacity, and must be able to deploy to the site of an emergency within 72 hours of notification.

Major Responsibilities:

The Emergency Partnerships Coordinator will lay the groundwork for effective partnerships by working alongside teams to prioritize and establish equitable partnerships, and to integrate partnership considerations into emergency response plans and strategies. When deployed, this will include:

• Facilitate stakeholder analysis and support informed decisions in each outcome area as to how IRC can best ‘add value’ supporting, reinforcing and complementing local actors and systems.

• Co-facilitate and guide partner mapping and selection processes to identify new partners as part of emergency readiness and response, including to identify women-led and women/girls serving organizations.

• Support the application of and learning on the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results system (PEERS), ensuring that IRC’s partnership principles, skills and approaches are applied by staff across programs and projects with partners.

• Collaborate with response leadership and technical coordinators to establish and build principled partnerships that prioritize collaboration on strategy, program design and delivery and capacity sharing.

• Coordinate and co-lead partner due diligence, design, support planning and monitoring processes, including:

o 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 coordinate with relevant departments for the timely, quality implementation of the plan.

o Collaborate with technical coordinators to integrate technical capacity sharing approaches, including how IRC can learn from local partners, and to resource support needs.

o Promote and facilitate collaborative project management, including timely and effective partner program, finance, and compliance review and reflection (monitoring), and work with the Technical Coordinator to address any project performance issues.

• Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC’s management of the partnership relationship, including the documentation of, and response to partner feedback.

• Work collaboratively with partners and IRC staff to constructively resolve any issues that may arise.

• Provide regular feedback to the emergency response leadership and/or SMT, incorporating input from technical coordinators and operational leads as appropriate.

• Promote and identify ways for continual learning between IRC staff and partners.

• Foster ongoing learning, honest dialogue and reflection to strengthen partnerships and to promote IRC values and adherence to IRC policies.

• Liaise with other stakeholders across the organization seeking to advance the IRC’s partnership ambition, to ensure that emergency-specific learning and progress feed into the continued development of PEERS and broader organizational change management, dialogue and practice.

Job Requirements:

• Minimum 3 years of program and/or grants experience with NGOs in emergency settings.

• Strong understanding of partnership principles (equality, transparency, results-oriented approach, responsibility and complementarity).

• Demonstrated experience communicating and planning with partners in a way that builds trust and mutual understanding.

• Effective at leading and building programs and/or operations in fast-paced, multifaceted environments. Leadership and team management skills are important.

• Solid track record leading in an emergency environment and/or start-up environment as part of a multinational team, as well as resource mobilization for health emergencies.

• Excellent oral and written communication skills, including demonstrated ability to communicate technical information in a clear, accessible manner.

• Fluency in English. Working knowledge of French, Arabic or Spanish strongly preferred.

• Digital literacy: MS Word, Excel & email applications required.

• Excellent writing and editing skills, and ability to effectively write and edit grant proposals and reports.

• Effective people- and program-management skills in acute emergency contexts: can train and lead staff productively under stressful circumstances.

• Flexible, focused, and reliable in an environment of changing demands.

Standards of Professional Conduct: The IRC and IRC workers adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.