Requisition ID: req53282

Job Title: Partnerships Coordinator

Sector: Grants

Employment Category: Fixed Term

Employment Type: Full-Time

Open to Expatriates: No

Work Arrangement:In-person

Job Description

The IRC began planning to reopen an oPt country program in mid-2022 and launched an emergency response in Gaza in October 2023. The organization is currently supporting a network of local partners in both Gaza and the West Bank to sustain critical health, protection, food security, cash, education, and early childhood development interventions. The IRC is also deploying emergency medical teams to provide surge clinical capacity in hospitals and other health facilities.

The IRC is working to scale its emergency response while building a longer-term oPt country program in parallel. This effort is being jointly managed by the Emergencies and Humanitarian Action Unit (EHAU) and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with a view to eventually transition the country program fully under the MENA region.

Position overview

The Partnerships Coordinator will support the oPt country program in the strategic management and oversight of partnerships in Gaza and the West Bank. The position is responsible for facilitating the delivery of high-quality partnerships with local actors and will ensure compliance with IRC and donor requirements, quality services and outcomes for the communities we serve, and consistency with the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS- IRC’s partnership management system). Working in close collaboration with the programs, grants, and operations departments, the Partnerships Coordinator will oversee all steps in the partnership management lifecycle and will ensure that partnerships are appropriately integrated into overall project cycle management, ensuring that IRC:

• defines our role in collaboration with local actors based on how we can best support, reinforce, and complement local actors and systems,

• promotes long-term, principled partnerships that share power, resources, and learning and elevate the knowledge and expertise of each partner,

• maximizes power and resources for people impacted by crises and the organizations closest to them to respond and drive lasting change,

• collaborates with partners to identify and manage risks to program outcomes, communities, the partner, IRC, and the donor,

• promotes the core partnership principles of equality, complementarity, mutuality, solidarity, results-orientation, and humility in all aspects of our partnerships.

The Partnerships Coordinator reports to the Deputy Director for Programs (DDP). The position will work closely with the MEAL Coordinator, Grants Coordinator, finance department, and program sector leads.

Responsibilities

Partnership Management

• Facilitate partnership management processes to ensure well planned, timely, coordinated, and coherent partnerships across technical sectors. Lead the Partnership Working Group, including referral of issues to senior management as appropriate.

• Oversee all aspects of partnership management; from identification, development, risk management, project and agreement development, sub-award management, monitoring and accountability, through to closure – ensuring cross-collaboration with partnerships team and all program, operations and finance component.

• Facilitate and lead the development of the portfolio structure and approach to individual partner relationships; including the selection of the appropriate funding mechanism and the development of appropriate reporting, monitoring and advance terms - based on the findings of due diligence, donor regulations and in line with IRC policy, appropriately analyzing and mitigating risks.

• Co-facilitate and guide competitive and non-competitive partner selection processes to identify new partners and follow-on applications from existing partners.

• Coordinate and co-lead the due diligence process including contributing to and facilitating collaborative risk analysis and management.

• Determine appropriate partnership agreement type and draft agreements, considering the due diligence outcomes and specific project and donor requirements. Liaise with HQ for review and approval; obtain donor approval as necessary.

• Liaise with finance and technical teams to oversee partners’ implementation including achieve timely funds transfers, coordinate partner narrative and financial reporting processes, including review and provision of feedback.

• Work collaboratively with partners and IRC staff to constructively resolve any issues that may arise.

• Support effective partnership project close out processes, incorporating reflection and lessons learned.

Partnership Strategy and Program Approach

• Lead IRC’s external engagement with NGO, INGO and UN actors with respect to local partnerships to establish and maintain strategic partnership relationships.

• Ensure that we ‘Partner First and as Equals’ in accordance with the IRC Strategy Action Plan.

• Collaborate with technical coordinators to proactively identify potential strategic partnerships with NGOs, government bodies, and the private sector, including deliberate pursuit of partner entities that are led by women and serve women and girls.

• Collaborate with Grants and program leads to proactively engage partners in program development efforts and ensure that partnership is integrated into and resourced in all new business development and support the development of new business development concepts while maximizing partner collaboration in program design and development, including with respect to budget allocation, ensuring that we maximize resources for those leading delivery.

Partnership Accountability and Results

• Establish and maintain the six core building blocks of partnership success – self-assessment, working group, defined and resourced role, training, stakeholder analysis and collaborative design.

• Facilitate a process that defines clear roles, responsibilities and management structures to ensure efficient and responsive processes with respect to sub-award partnerships, consistent with PEERS.

• Ensure that IRC includes key partnership competencies in recruitment for relevant technical and operational positions; provides staff with necessary support for skills development for core partnership skills (mentoring, negotiation, etc.), and includes performance objectives for relevant positions that incentivize effective partnerships.

Promotion of Effective and Respectful Partnerships

• Serve as a leader in building a culture of effective and respectful partnerships. Foster and Promote attitudes and values conducive to collaborative partnerships across the country program based on a clear and shared understanding of IRC’s strategy, role and approach, and IRC’s core partnership principles.

• Promote and apply the IRC’s PEERS approach. Contribute to building a strong understanding of PEERS throughout the IRC oPt offices.

• Ensure that IRC’s partnership principles, skills, and approaches are applied across programs and projects.

• Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC’s management of the partnership relationship, including documentation of and response to partner feedback.

Partner Support and Capacity Sharing

• Ensure partners have collaboratively developed project support plans in place where relevant and oversee the delivery of timely and effective support, ensuring that it appropriately addresses issues identified in the due diligence process, and coordinate with relevant departments for the effective implementation of the plan.

• Ensure IRC oPt understands partner capacity strengthening priorities and identifies opportunities to support partner capacity strengthening efforts.

• Support the resourcing and implementation of organizational development support as required.

• Collaborate with technical coordinators to integrate technical capacity sharing approaches, including how IRC can learn from local partners.

• Promote and identify ways for continual learning between IRC staff and partners.

• Work to ensure IRC identifies and takes opportunities to learn from partners.

Staff Performance Management, Learning & Development

• Support in establishing the Partnership Unit that is appropriately resourced and structured.

• Hire, supervise, and build the capacity of team members in relevant technical and management competencies.

• Coach, train, supervise and mentor direct-report staff, including communicating clear expectations, setting annual performance objectives, providing regular and timely positive and constructive performance feedback, and providing documented semi-annual performance reviews.

• Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.

• Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.

• Promote and monitor staff care and well-being. Model healthy work-life balance practices. Support appropriate interventions in response to identified staff care needs of both national and international staff.

Other

• Other relevant duties as assigned by supervisor to further IRC partnerships.

Qualifications

• Minimum of six years of experience managing humanitarian programs, including substantial experience managing partnerships with NGOs and government entities.

• Technical understanding of and experience working with IRC’s PEERS approach (or another similar partnership management system) is preferred.

• Genuine interest in and commitment to collaborating with local partners for effective and context-appropriate humanitarian response.

• Demonstrated understanding of project planning and management cycles, including strong program design skills.

• Knowledge of grants processes and key donor compliance regulations, particularly BHA and ECHO.

• Demonstrated experience in an inter-departmental coordination role and the ability to communicate with and balance the priorities of a range of stakeholders.

• Experience training, facilitating dialogue, and promoting action across both internal colleagues and external partners.

• Demonstrated advance planning skills. Able to effectively prioritize and follow multiple activities and deadlines simultaneously. Highly organized with close attention to detail.

• Excellent English and Arabic writing and editing skills and strong computer skills required.

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