This position is only currently open to IRC staff and the deadline to apply for this role is October 1st, 2024.
We aim to make our programs a model for the highest global standards and to cultivate lasting change not just for our clients but for all people affected by humanitarian crises. To achieve that vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) group, located within the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department, provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and shares what we learn to influence policy and practice globally.
IRC’s Technical Excellence team is comprised of five sector teams or “Units” which have deep expertise in their respective fields: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, and Violence Prevention and Response, as well as teams which provide measurement and finance/grant management support. Technical teams are also matrixed with a team that focuses on the quality and content of cross-sectoral programming in emergency responses.
IRC’s Technical Excellence teams offer five core services to IRC country programs and the wider organization:
1. Program Design: We support country and regional teams to design state of the art programming, incorporating the best available evidence, cost data, and expertise of what has worked elsewhere, together with the knowledge that country teams, partner organizations and our clients bring to the table.
2. Quality Assurance: We partner with our measurement teams to design and drive the use of indicators to measure progress towards outcomes. We partner with regional and country teams to review program delivery progress and help address implementation challenges and adapt interventions to changed circumstances.
3. Business Development: We partner within and outside the IRC to design winning bids and identify winning consortia; we deploy technical expertise in public events and private meetings to position IRC as a partner of choice.
4. Research & Learning: We partner with our research lab to design cutting edge research to fill evidence gaps, and with country teams to learn from implementation such that we continuously improve our future design and delivery.
5. External Influence: We showcase the IRC’s programs, technical insights and learning in order to influence and improve the humanitarian sector’s policy and practice.
Technical Excellence is currently going through a change process called "Regional and Technical Alignment." We are doing this to ensure that the impact of our programs and the influence of our ideas create meaningful change for people affected by crisis. This next phase of IRC's commitment to program quality will more deliberately resource and link global thought leadership with practice on the ground. Updated Technical Unit structures will have new roles with clearer mandates. The Regional Lead is a new leadership role introduced by this change process.
The Economy Recovery and Development Unit at the IRC
The Economy Recovery and Development (ERD) Unit is one of IRC’s five Technical Units alongside Health, Education, Violence Prevention and Response, and Governance. Technical Units provide support to our country programs in the design, delivery, quality assurance and continuous learning for programs advancing the outcomes areas the IRC supports and driving thought leadership around those areas of work.
The ERD TU is a dynamic team of more than 30 professionals responsible for supporting the development, implementation, and monitoring of client-centered economic wellbeing (EWB) programs. These include, but not limited to, cash and voucher assistance (CVA), agricultural & climate-resilient livelihoods, financial inclusion, and employment (including self-employment/enterprise development) promotion across emergency, recovery and resilience programming contexts. The TU’s technical assistance to this wide variety of programs ensures quality and use of evidence-based practices; promotes innovation, diversity, equity, and inclusion; and drives data-based management and decision making, to achieve positive change in people’s lives.
Job Overview
Economic Recovery and Development (ERD) East Africa Regional Lead provides coherence and direction to the provision of technical support for Cash & Markets; Resilient Food Systems; and Economic Inclusion programming in East Africa. As a member of both the regional team and the technical unit senior management team, the ERD East Africa Regional Lead has accountability for technical quality and responsibility for assuring the advice from Technical Advisors is taken into appropriate action by the country office.
The ERD East Africa Regional Lead will lead a highly effective, strategic ERD regional team to ensure the East Africa Region has high quality, sound technical support needed to deliver on global program goals and effectively serve our clients. The role will serve as a functional leader, advisor, and a thought partner to both TU leadership and regional leadership, with a particular focus on leading the operationalization of the Economic Wellbeing strategy in East Africa, multi-sector and sub-sector program integration, mainstreaming of Gender Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion across programming, evidence-based design, business development, and quality assurance for high-impact and scale strategic projects. The ERD East Africa Regional Lead will coordinate across individuals and projects, ensuring clear priorities are set and communicated, and navigating the challenges inherent in being an advisory function. They will be excellent people managers, with great team building/animation skills, able to help technical staff succeed and grow in their careers. The ERD East Africa Regional Lead will invest deeply in understanding the context and dynamics of the country and regional teams and the challenges they face. They will ensure coherent ways of working within and across the regional technical team, as well as within the wider ERD TU, to align high quality technical support with the operational realities of the country offices. The Regional Lead will champion technical external representation in regional fora for promoting learning, advocacy and showcasing IRC's programming as well as engage with regional colleagues on donor facing engagement. By doing so, the Regional Lead will ensure high quality programming across the Cash & Markets; Resilient Food Systems; and Economic Inclusion practice areas in East Africa, high quality coordination and partnership with regional teams, effective team performance, and efficiency and impact of technical excellence service offering to the East Africa region and country programs. In East Africa, ERD programming operates in all IRC’s EA countries (Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan) with at least 3 technical advisors working across the 3 practice areas.
Major Responsibilities
Functional Leadership, Coordination and Implementation Support:
Staff management, learning, and development
Program Design and Business Development
Knowledge Management, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning
External Influence and Representation
Key Working Relationships
o 1 Cash & Markets Technical Advisor
o 2 Livelihood Technical Advisors
Key Internal Relationships:
Key External Relationships:
Desired Experience and Skills
Education: Masters’ degree in economics, business management, international development, agriculture or any other relevant fields or an equivalent professional experience of background is required. Sound training on the use of data and research evidence for programmatic decision making and rigorous analytic skills are an advantage.
Compensation:
Posted pay ranges apply to UK-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.
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