Jobs at International Rescue Committee

• The Program and Award Advisor plays a vital role within the Global Program and Award Support Team overseeing an award portfolio of humanitarian relief and post-crisis recovery programs. The Program and Award Advisor liaises with country programs, Implementing Units, HQ departments and donor contacts to ensure high quality guidance and support throughout the award lifecycle. The role works with Implementing Units (Technical Excellence, Research & Innovation Lab, and Emergency Units) to ensure compliance with donor rules and regulations and IRC systems and processes and leads on the review and submission of high-quality donor deliverables. The Program and Award Advisor represents the region and country offices to internal and external stakeholders and manages donor relationships.

Scope and Authority

• Line management of Program and Award Officer(s) as applicable.

Key Working Relationships

• Reports to Deputy Director, Technical & Global Awards. Works closely with all Regional Program and Award Support team members, and across all teams within Awards Management Unit, Crisis Response Recovery and Development Department, Global Partnerships and Philanthropy, Global Supply Chain, Finance, Office of General Counsel, Technical Excellence, and other key departments within IRC. Donor and partner point of contact as applicable.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Awards Management and Compliance (50%)

• Oversee a portfolio of awards for the Global region. Main donors in portfolio will include USG & UN but may also include other donors as assigned.
• Serve as the first point of contact for country office and other Implementing Units Grants and Partnerships teams and provide guidance and support on matters related to donor compliance and communication, project management (e.g. project cycle meetings), OTIS and partnerships (PEERS).
• Participate in in regular meetings with country offices and other Implementing Units to provide support and collaborate with country program teams on issues related to donor compliance, submissions of reports and other post award deliverables, and/or monitoring/awards management.
• Guide country offices and other Implementing Units in managing partnerships with local or international partners, ensuring that IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS) is being followed, review and process sub-grant/partnership agreements in alignment with PEERS, and coordinate with the compliance team in supporting compliant and effective partnerships as needed.
• Review agreements and lead negotiation of award terms and conditions with donor counterparts in alignment with internal processes.
• Guide country offices and Implementing Units, in partnership with other relevant departments, in the development and submission of award amendments/modifications, ensuring high-quality, compliant submissions.
• Provide support to and monitoring of projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines and IRC internal requirements. Monitoring of awards can take the shape of monitoring visits, participation in project implementation meetings and other regular calls.
• Facilitate and build interdepartmental relationships to address country office/Implementing Units needs and solve problems in relation to awards management, partnership management and compliance.
• Maintain a strong relationship with regional and AMU leadership and escalate issues of concern as needed
• Supervise direct reports in carrying out necessary functions as they relate to country program/Implementing Units support
• Stay informed about programmatic issues and security and political developments and how they might affect program implementation
• Coordinate with PAAs for other regions for information sharing and to establish a coherent program support and backstopping function between headquarters and the field.
• Travel to country offices/Implementing Units to provide surge support and monitoring across the areas of programs, awards, and partnerships, including for gap-filling purposes as requested.

Donor Liaison and Representation (25%)

• Maintain contact with donors regarding updates, amendments, or key programmatic changes.
• Liaise with donors on ongoing and future opportunities.
• Represent IRC externally to donors and stakeholder networks, as appropriate.
• Participate in representational visits, events and meetings as requested.

Capacity Building and Training (20%)

• Mentor and coach Grants and Partnerships staff on IRC systems and processes to ensure capacity is built.
• As requested, develop training materials and deliver training to IRC country program staff and other Implementing Units in coordination with the Directors, Awards Management and the AMU Training and Compliance team.
• In coordination with the Directors, Awards Management, develop and maintain work-processes and checklists for awards implementation and reviews, as well as record lessons learned.
• Onboard new country office Grants and Partnerships staff and new Program and Award Support team to assigned donors, policies and/or IRC processes.

Other Responsibilities (5%)

• Contribute to AMU and regional strategic priorities and initiatives.
• Liaise with communications and external relations staff to inform IRC media products as needed.
• Participate in special projects as needed and other tasks as assigned.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Five years of progressive work experience in award management or business development with donors such as USAID/BHA, the U.S. Department of State/PRM and UN agencies
• Two years of international field experience highly desirable, familiarity with countries in the region preferred
• Project management experience preferred
• Financial analysis skills preferred
• Excellent written and oral communication skills, including experience in speaking on relevant issues with internal and external audiences
• Proven ability to effectively manage relationships (e.g., with internal actors, peers, donors)
• Effective people management skills: ability to lead staff and promote productivity in a pleasant work environment
• Proven ability to manage multiple and complex tasks and thrive under pressure
• Solid organizational and creative problem-solving skills: ability to be flexible and work well under pressure in a fast-paced multi-tasking team environment
• Good computer skills
• Fluency in English (French desirable) both spoken and written
• Ability and willingness to travel internationally

Experience:

• Experience in working at a distance and supporting field-based staff
• Experience writing, reviewing and editing narrative and financial reports and excellent attention to detail

go to method of application »

• The MEAL Officer will report to the MEAL Manager. He/She will be responsible for working alongside the MEAL manager and MEAL Assistant in spearheading monitoring, evaluation, learning and reporting activities in the IRC Kakuma program by working with the Health, Nutrition, SGBV and Safe Programming programs to ensure that all activities are carried out and challenges addressed on time for overall project goal realization.

Major Responsibilities
Supervision of M&E systems and tools in use.

• Liaise with the Kakuma west Sub County Monitoring and Evaluation team to avail all the MOH tools required for data collection and reporting in the facilities.
• Conduct continuous on job trainings to the program staff on the MOH and IRC tools utilization on an ongoing basis to ensure data collected meets the quality requirements.
• Conduct support supervisory visits to the facilities to ensure the data management systems are used effectively and take part in meetings aimed to improve the systems in place.
• Document any challenges reported by the users in regard to the usage of the data collection tools and share with the M&E manager.

Monitoring and evaluation

• Work closely with the MEAL manager to ensure presence of a robust monitoring plan in, developing monitoring and evaluation guidelines, frameworks and indicators for the projects action plan.
• Take lead in conducting regular data review meetings at the field office noting the actionable points and lessons learnt.
• Update data in the respective databases in use and provide information to the program staff on request.
• Participating actively in enforcing of quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement measures for all field programs intervention.
• Conduct routine data quality audits to identify and resolve systemic problems affecting data quality; and document findings from data quality audits and store in project files to ensure collective and sustainable access.
• Support the program staff in their routine activities by participating in facilitating and documentation.
• Design data collection tools and databases required by the program staff for aggregation and analysis of information.
• Conduct field monitoring visits and document learnings and share lessons.
• Work with partners staff to ensure that data is collected and entered into databases and/or tracking sheets, and/or the data platform on a regular basis.
• Data management of KHIS data, HIV & TB data, Nutrition reports, Knowledge and attitude surveys and Disease surveillance.

Grant Management And Compliance

• Work with the field teams to ensure that program indicators are tracked through regular field visits.
• Review all reports to ensure that data provided is reliable and accurate and that target indicators are met and explanations provided where indicators are not met;
• Ensure that programs are on track through keeping and updating indicators tracking matrix.

Staff capacity building

• Train staff on data management procedures, quantitative and/or qualitative data (support on; Cleaning, sorting, categorizing and organizing data)
• Provide consistent, supportive supervision to strengthen program staff performance as necessary to meet monitoring objectives.

Administrative duties

• Administratively manage the M&E Assistant.

Client Responsiveness and Accountability

• Lead and coordinate processes to collect, review and respond to client feedback at the field level.
• Set up feedback mechanisms to collect and respond to client feedback – both. proactive and reactive (technological improvements to existing mechanisms), with support from the CR Manager.
• Conduct regular FGDs and meetings with different stakeholders to solicit feedback on IRC's work.
• In health facilities, establish a help desk/information table for the community members to answer beneficiary comments/questions.
• Prepare help desk reports from the CFR and share with the managers.
• Prepare CRA reports based on consolidated analysis of client feedback recorded via
• proactive and reactive channels, to be discussed at field meetings, project review meetings for analysis and decision making at the field level.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor of Science degree in Health Information management or equivalent.
• Computer literacy with possible advanced Ms Word, Ms Excel, Ms PowerPoint and Ms access.
• Knowledge in computer statistical packages (EPI INFO, SPSS and Stata).
• At least 3 years’ experience in M&E and Managing Health Information System
• Strong data interpretation skills, report writing and presentation skills.
• Demonstrated experience in capacity building and mentoring of staff.
• Knowledge, skills and experience in participatory methods
• Experience in use of data to inform decision-making, planning, and performance monitoring.
• Strong communication skills; oral, written and presentation skills.
• Strong management skills (Managing, motivating and developing staff)
• Team player.
• Ready to work in difficult environmental conditions.
• Must be flexible and culturally sensitive.