Technical Advisor, Governance

Job Description :

Founded in 1933 at the behest of Albert Einstein, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping communities rebuild. The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation, creative partnerships, and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. At work today in over 40 countries and 28 U.S. cities, IRC restores safety, dignity, and hope to millions who are uprooted. The IRC’s vision is to lead the humanitarian sector through implementing high-impact, cost-effective programs for people affected by crisis and by using our learning and experience to shape policy and practice. To achieve that vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and share learnings to influence policy and practice. TE is comprised of five technical units: Economic Recovery and Development; Education; Governance; Health; and Violence Prevention and Response.

The Technical Advisor, Governance, provides leadership and project oversight to governance programming in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, such as health and education systems strengthening, peacebuilding, social accountability, civil society strengthening, and city government technical assistance.

Join the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in this role if you would like to support West Africa-based staff in person or remotely to craft, implement and evaluate projects that bring to life our mission! Do you also want to influence, advocate, support research and internal initiatives? If so, come and join a small, dedicated, tolerant and inclusive team of governance advisors!

The Governance Unit supports IRC country programs in crafting and implementing programs that amplify the voice of people whose lives have been impacted by conflict and crisis. Governance programs help them regain control of their future by championing their right to influence the issues affecting their cities, towns, and communities.

To achieve this, we

• Strengthen the ability of people to have a voice in decisions that affect their communities
• Enable governments, civil society organizations, community representatives, and the IRC to respond to their voices and provide effective and inclusive services, and
• Promote constructive communication between leaders and the people they represent so that actions are meaningful and lasting.

Position Overview

As the Governance Technical Advisor for West Africa, you are responsible for ensuring high quality technical assistance to one IRC region comprised of 7 country programs. You will promote and collaborate with relevant stakeholders to achieve high quality, high impact interventions that are informed by evidence and best practice, contextually appropriate, driven by client and partner voices, and widely inclusive.

Program Design & Business Development

You will support country programs to design winning submissions and generally position IRC for continued success in our technical domains:

• Support designated country programs’ proposal technical lead through participation in and/or facilitation of program design meetings
• Promote and support design collaboration with partners and clients
• Advise on program modalities, and strategic partnership development based on how we can best support, complement, and reinforce local systems
• Advising and/or providing hands-on support on assessments, including application and contextualization of technical standards
• Reviewing technical design quality, including alignment of narratives, log-frames, and budgets to IRC standards and outcomes

Implementation Support

You will support country program staff and other key stakeholders in implementing technical interventions:

• Support country programs and other stakeholders with the recruitment and training of technical coordinators
• Assess program quality and inform improvements, providing follow up support to country programs as needed
• Collaborate with country program colleagues to monitor and analyze key indicators to inform periodic review, program adaptation, and course-correction as needed
• Provide technical capacity strengthening through ongoing mentoring, coaching, and trainings with country program focal points

Knowledge & Learning: You will support continuous sectoral learning and IRC technical leadership:

• Document learnings from program activities and sharing takeaways and opportunities
• Share cross-contextual learnings with country program staff across the region
• Refresh the sectoral evidence-base in collaboration with global and regional staff to influence approaches
• Collaborate with other technical advisors within the region to promote integrated programming leadership
• Contribute to the delivery of Governance Technical Unit’s strategic priorities
• Maintain currency with sectoral best practices through continual learning and development

• A minimum of 5 years of relevant experience in implementing and/or managing Governance programs, with on the ground programmatic experience in a service delivery organization, NGO or comparable international agency required.
• Experience and familiarity with related donors, peer agencies and national contexts required, preferably in humanitarian and transitional, post-crisis contexts.
• Demonstrated expertise in technical program design, monitoring and evaluation, with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action.

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 in a proactive and positive manner.

Education : Master’s/post-graduate degree in public administration, development economics, conflict management, public policy, political science, international development, or another relevant field.