Scaling and System Senior Specialist at International Rescue Committee

• The Scaling and Systems Senior Specialist will play a pivotal role in supporting technical advisers and where required country programs in using governance strategies and approaches to support IRC country programs outcome targets, scaling efforts, and effectively engaging national and local systems.
• The Scaling and Systems Senior Specialist will be the custodian of the improved scaling manual/handbook that was first developed under the Ahlan Simsim Early Childhood and Development project, revise and adapt as necessary to support uptake and utilization by country programs. The position will also help to facilitate an adaptive learning and iterative change process. The role will also include co-designing and co-facilitating an initial scaling workshop and subsequent in-person and virtual workshops to continuously adapt and scale proven interventions as well as feeding into a global publication drawing insights from multiple IRC country programs.

Specific responsibilities will include:

Functional Leadership

• Lead on designing and deploying scaling resources and tools in collaboration with technical sector leads supporting CPs with their outcome targets and scaling ambitions.
• Develop in close collaboration with IRC Director – Impact at Scale – plausible scaling pathways informed by and aligned with country-level strategies and donor priorities.
• Be an internal Scaling Champion across the IRC to ensure that country programs' scaling plans and approaches are visible and understood by the organization.
• Work closely with the Senior Director, Governance Technical Unit, and Vice President, Humanitarian Systems Change to support key internal leadership stakeholders in understanding the importance of in-country policy influencing and advocacy for scaling and systems change.
• Work closely with the Senior Technical Adviser on Governance and Systems Strengthening to research and understand donor partnership philosophies, strategies, and priorities and align with country scaling strategies/plans.
• Liaise with colleagues in the Policy and Advocacy team on policy change and advocacy efforts as they relate to scaling.
• Work in coordination with the Governance and Systems MEAL specialist to develop monitoring and evaluation (M&E) strategies and indicators for scaling and support utilization of data to inform the scaling work and process.

Technical Support

• Support Governance TAs in the delivery of a strategy that drives scale through systems-strengthening/change interventions in countries that have scaling ambitions around the treatment of malnutrition for example.
• Directly provide technical support to CPs, multi-country, and/or multi-region with strategic ‘big bet’ business development opportunities where ‘impact at scale’ is a significant component.
• Support work in coordination with the governance unit on political economy analysis (PEA), stakeholder analysis, and other context analysis tools as relevant for each country context.
• Use data and information from context analysis (PEA and stakeholder analysis) to inform and support co-design workshops with country programs.
• Develop training resources to increase the understanding of TE staff of scaling strategies and pathways.

Learning

• Lead on learning as it relates to scaling and systems internally and externally.
• Draw on lessons from ongoing IRC strategic projects such as Ahlan SimSim, Gavi, and Playmatters amongst others, and systematically apply them in new business development opportunities including providing backstop support to various technical teams working on and with sector-related service delivery systems.
• Coordinate closely with the IRC global partnerships team to ensure learning from scaling and partnerships work is embedded and influencing IRC partnership and scale ambitions.
• Lead on learning agenda and learning goals for Scaling and Systems in collaboration with the Governance Researcher and Best Use of Resources team (Airbel) including learning about the process and challenges of scaling and working with the government, sharing learning and experience across the organization to promote learning across contexts (including facilitating learning spaces and forums).
• Represent the governance technical unit in meetings and conferences to ensure that learning is shared externally.
• Document learning from scaling and inform the adaptation of the scaling handbook.

Key Working Relationships:

• Position Reports to Senior Director, Governance Technical Unit
• Position indirectly reports to: N/A
• Position indirectly supervises: N/A but may potentially supervise occasional consultants and/or interns.

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

• Internal**:** Director, Impact at Scale; Deputy Director, Governance; STA, Governance and Systems Strengthening; other technical unit staff (Education, Health, Violence Prevention and Response, Economic Recovery and Development), Airbel and GEDI unit; Deputy Director of Programs, Governance coordinators.
• External**:** Government officials; Civil Society leaders; Implementing partner organizations; Community representatives

Requirements:

• At least 8 years of experience working in partnership with Government, CSOs, or other local organizations at an international NGO or similar organization.
• Knowledge and experience working in a developing and conflict-affected country context.
• Experience facilitating or co-facilitating workshops and meetings; comfortable managing group dynamics, leading workshops, and activities, and keeping agenda on track and directed at end goals.
• Experience in developing and deploying context-relevant scaling strategies and pathways in multiple contexts.
• Experience in managing or co-managing multi-stakeholder initiatives, capacity to understand and adapt to different institutional cultures, and relational ease with both high-level government representatives and technical staff.
• Knowledge and practical application of scaling literature and systems change processes is preferred.
• Strong interpersonal communication and problem-solving skills.
• Strong planning, organizing, and team-building skills.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:

• Excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Strong organizational and time-management skills; proven ability to prioritize and deliver projects on time and independently.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate a dynamic, cross-functional, global team structure in a large multi-national organization.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with internal and external stakeholders at all levels.
• Strong analytic problem-solving skills.
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office suite.
• Ability to manage and work through change proactively and positively.

Education: 

• Bachelor’s Degree in public administration, development economics, conflict management, public policy, political science, international development, or another relevant field. Master’s Degree preferred.

Language Skills: 

• Excellent spoken and written English. Proficiency in an additional IRC language (Arabic, French and Spanish,) is desired.

Working Environment: Standard office working environment. This role may have some international travel up to 40% of the time.