Environmental Health Global Practice Lead at International Rescue Committee

Job Overview

• The Global Practice Lead, Environmental Health is the organizational leader for Environmental Health for the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) department and is a core member of the Health Unit’s Leadership Team. They are responsible for devising and leading strategies to raise the quality, impact, and scale of IRC’s Environmental Health programming.
• The Global Practice Lead in Environmental Health will ensure the scope, quality and relevance of global technical standards, including the generation and promotion of evidence in their technical area. Global Practice Lead will closely collaborate with Regional Leads , EH Technical Advisors, and Technical Coordinators in promoting technical best practice in CRRD programming. They will facilitate Technical Unit-led and high impact strategic business development by providing excellent technical insights and developing and maintaining strategic relationships and networks. In line with the Health strategy, the Global Practice Lead will lead strategic planning for the environmental health practice area. The Global Practice Lead, Environmental Health reports into the Senior Director, Health Unit and may manage highly specialized experts/specialists colleagues to generate global evidence and best practice as their portfolio requires.
• The EH lead is responsible for establishing a center of excellence on water and coordinate the Health Unit efforts on addressing climate change in health programming.

Major Responsibilities
Strategy, Program Design and Business Development

• Act as the organizational leader for CRRD in Environmental health internally and externally
• Lead strategic direction and delivery planning for Environmental Health in line with the organizational global strategy (both S100 and Health Strategy)
• Lead the development of sustainable and scalable water solutions, mitigating the impacts of climate change on water security and human health.
• Responsible for identifying global areas of programmatic risk in EH and elevating issues to Regional Leads and Health Unit leadership.
• Collaborate with other Global Practice Leads to promote integrated program designs within Health, and across all IRC sectors that increase scale and deepen impact,
• Facilitate collaboration across Health, Nutrition and EH Practice Areas on the development of climate adaptation, mitigation, and anticipatory actions.
• Lead Technical Unit led global business development for Environmental Health and support strategic project level proposals.
• Lead coordination with AMU to drive fundraising from Public and Institutional donors and with ER to drive fundraising from Private donors to meet the Health Unit strategic priorities related to EH

Global Practice Implementation Support

• Responsible for drawing on evidence-based best practice to provide technical oversight of IRC’s global technical standards, methodologies, and tools for EH, in partnership with Technical Advisors and specialists
• Accountable for the development of a limited number of high-value tools and methodologies to better integrate cross-cutting issues into EH programs (e.g., gender equality, diversity and inclusion, climate adaptation, etc.).
• Accountable for establishing information and knowledge management systems that support Regional Leads and Technical Advisors stay up to date on global technical standards, methodologies, and tools.
• Establish competency framework for EH practice area and work closely with Regional Leads to identify competency gaps and drive capacity strengthening.
• Accountable for ensuring Technical Advisors and Technical Coordinators have the tools and resources that are needed to measure EH programs.
• Oversee Technical Unit-led strategic awards in EH, working closely with regional Technical Advisors as applicable and the Grant Operations and Analytics Team
• Line manage global specialists, as applicable.
• Support Technical Advisors and Technical Coordinators with thorny technical problems, career planning support, and mentorship, as appropriate.

Research, Data, Knowledge Management, and Organizational Learning

• Set up and lead a Community of Practice and other channels for EH to ensure pro-active and inclusive management with sustained learning, development, innovation, and best practice sharing.
• Coordinate with Regional Leads and Technical Advisors to lift up program learning for cross-sharing and incorporation into global best practice.
• Guide research and evidence use efforts in EH, the Climate-health nexus, working closely with colleagues and leaders in Airbel, the Health Technical Unit, other technical units, and regional colleagues.
• Provide technical inputs to EH-specific MEAL tools and methodologies, and support data interpretation in learning routines.

External Influence, Relationships and Representation

• Act as a key strategic advisor to Policy & Advocacy, Research & Innovation, and External Relations teams on advocacy campaigns and priority policy and practice shifts related to EH.
• Responsible for identification, development, and maintenance of strategic relationships and global partnerships with relevant stakeholders (e.g. donors, UN agencies, NGOs, research and educational institutions, private sector actors) in EH Global Practice area.
• Represent IRC in external forums as relevant.

Key Working Relationships

• Position Reports to: Senior Director, Health Unit, CRRD Technical Excellence
• Member of Health Unit’s Leadership Team
• Direct Reports: 1-2 Technical Experts/Specialists, TU-led Project Directors as applicable

Key Internal Relationships

• Health Unit Senior Management Team
• Health Unit’s Deputy Director, Enabling Areas Leads and other Global Practice Leads
• Health Regional Lead team across 6 regions, and regional Technical Advisors
• Policy Solutions, Advocacy Influence, and Systems Change Global Teams
• CRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership Teams
• Global leaders in the areas of ERD, Education, Governance
• Global HQ and AMU, EHAU, Airbel Team
• Key External Relationships: INGO counterparts; UN Agencies, Public and Private Donors

Desired Experience And Skills

• Established or growing recognition as an expert in the practice area, at regional or global level, with a minimum of 12+ years of progressive experience of designing, leading and implementing programs with 7+ years in the Environmental Health
• Demonstrated experience leading programs in fragile/humanitarian settings and across the humanitarian development nexus.
• Strong track record of driving uptake of evidence-based practice
• Demonstrated experience in sectoral strategy design and planning.
• Experience with sectoral policy and advocacy efforts and campaigns for change (as relevant)
• Excellent communication, influencing, and storytelling skills.
• Excellent management and leadership skills including coaching, mentoring, and performance management.
• Demonstrated ability to identify and convert business development opportunities for self and staff.
• Demonstrated ability to influence across a wide range of diverse stakeholders internally and externally.
• Demonstrated ability to shape the vision and agenda within the domain area they are working.
• Ability to work, manage, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment; outstanding business acumen, critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making skills required.
• Superb inter-personal, written and verbal communication skills with ability to collaborate across countries, cultures, and departments.
• Track record of scaled innovations preferred, ideally including experience working on both digital and analog solutions.
• Fluency in English required; Arabic, French and/or Spanish also strongly preferred.
• Ability to travel globally up to 25% of the time, occasionally on short notice.

Education:

• Master’s degree in environmental health, Public Health and/or related fields or an equivalent professional experience background is required. Sound training on the use of data and research evidence for programmatic decisions and rigorous analytic skills are an advantage.