Violence Prevention and Response Regional Lead, East Africa

ABOUT THE COMPANY

The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is at work in over 40 countries and 26 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities.

JOB SUMMARY

Violence Prevention and Response (VPR) East Africa Regional Lead provides coherence and direction to the provision of technical support for Women’s Protection and Empowerment, Child Protection, and Protection - Rule of Law in East Africa. As a member of both the regional team and the technical unit senior management team, the VPR 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 VPR East Africa Regional Lead will lead a highly effective, strategic violence prevention and response 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 Safety 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 VPR 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 an excellent people manager, with great team building/animation skills, able to help technical staff succeed and grow in their careers. The VPR 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 VPRU, 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 Child Protection, Protection – Rule of Law, and Women’s Protection and Empowerment 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.Desired Experience And SkillsHighly seasoned professional with at least 8+ years of progressive technical and management experience leading and managing technical teamsEstablished technical expertise in at least one of the VPR Global Practice Areas relevant to East Africa. Professional and/or lived experience in East Africa context and sound understanding of the region is a huge advantage.Excellent management and leadership skills including coaching, mentoring, and performance managementStrong track record of leading multi-location technical programsStrong track record of driving uptake of evidence-based practiceExperience managing multiple projects with multi-disciplinary collaboratorsDemonstrated ability to influence across a wide range of diverse stakeholders internally and externallyStrong track record of identifying and converting business development opportunities (when leading and managing the leader)Knowledge and understanding of the respective regional contextAbility to work, manage, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment; outstanding business acumen, critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making skills requiredSuperb inter-personal, written and verbal communication skills with ability to collaborate across countries, cultures, and departmentsFluency in English required. Additional regionally spoken language is a huge advantage.Ability to travel regionally and globally up to 35% of the time, occasionally on short noticeEducation: Masters’ degree in Social Sciences, International Law and/or related fields or an equivalent professional experience background is required. Sound training on the use of data and research evidence for programmatic decisions and rigorous analytic skills are an advantage.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Functional Leadership, Coordination and Implementation Support:Provide technical leadership across the region, including by contextualizing the Safety Strategy at the regional level in partnership with Technical Advisors, DRD, + Deputy Director of Programs (DDP) and in line with Country Program Strategic Action PlansPromote programming coherence and strategic direction of the VPR programming portfolio including identifying opportunities for intra and cross-sectoral integration.Closely coordinate with Global Practice Leads and HQ functions to facilitate translation of global standards to the region and of country-generated innovation and learning to global practiceSupport regional Technical Advisors to address implementation bottlenecks and critical quality concerns in the region’s programming portfolio, in partnership with the Deputy Regional Director (DRD)Increase quality of technical collaboration across the region by fostering cross-regional dialogue with other regional technical teamsProvide technical oversight of regional strategic projects in collaboration with the Global Practice Leads as appropriate and/or budgeted, escalating quality assurance challenges as neededFoster relationships with a wide range of both internal and external stakeholders to make strategic connections and identify opportunitiesProvide stop-gap direct implementation support as/if appropriate and budgeted on CP-grantsStaff management, learning, and developmentLead and line manage a high performing team of VPR Technical Advisors and GEDI in Programs staff to design and support VPR programming across the region, and generate evidence and learning for local and global strategiesAccountable for ensuring TAs maintain core knowledge and expertise and apply global best practices to their work across health sub-sectorsWork closely with Regional and CRRD HQ People & Culture colleagues to devise strategies of attracting, onboarding, developing, and nurturing diverse regional technical staff at the Advisor and Coordinator levels, and ensuring an inclusive work environment. In collaboration with the DRD, Regional and CRRD HQ P&C, and Global Practice Leads, plan and implement professional development for staff ensuring targeted learning.Program Design and Business DevelopmentProvide technical leadership and oversight to region-led (multi-country) business development, as well as particularly large single-country opportunities, together with the Technical Advisors, Global Practice Leads and others as relevant.Support and promote technical and programmatic innovation in the region, based on technically-sound and contextually-grounded creativity and/or insightsCollaborate with other technical area Regional Leads and Technical Advisors to promote regional uptake of solutions that are proven to increase scale and deepen impact, with close attention to where integrated programming would multiply efficacy and efficiencyWork with DRD, Director of Awards Management and DDPs for country programs to understand the region’s donors for the protection sectors, the donors’ priorities in the region, and the regional funding priorities of Country Programs for the Safety OutcomesSupport regional donor engagement to deepen donor understanding of IRC’s work the region, strategically foster and develop new donor relationships in close coordination with the regional team, and support the development of regional business development opportunitiesSupport the development and growth of strategic partnerships with mission-aligned organizations at the regional level who share commitments towards scale and impact and have complementary areas of expertise for collaboration towards delivering better outcomes for clientsAccountable for coordinating across expert staff to better integrate cross-cutting issues into VPR programs (e.g., gender equality, diversity and inclusion, climate adaptation, etc.).Knowledge Management, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and LearningLift up program learning for sharing across the region and to inform global strategic direction of (relevant) Global Practice AreasFacilitate interpretation and use of sector data in regional learning routines and put in place routines and accountability mechanisms to encourage uptake of data-driven recommendations made by TAsCollaborate with Regional Measurement Advisors to ensure that Regional Technical Advisors support good MEAL practice for VPR programming in East Africa, including the use of high-quality indicators, the use of IRC standard data tools, and the inclusion of MEAL activities in project plansExternal Influence and RepresentationEngage in regional sector coordination groups and bilateral relationships as appropriate, to represent IRC, showcase learning from our client-centered program implementation, and support priority policy and practice shiftsSupport regions in addressing policy & practice shifts needed to enable program impact and scaleIn close collaboration and partnership with the DRD, regional Awards Management and Advocacy focal points, ensure effective networking and representation in relation to Child Protection, Protection – Rule of Law, and Women’s Protection and Empowerment, through mobilizing input from global practice leads.Key Working RelationshipsPosition Reports to: Dual reporting line to Deputy Director, VPRU and DRD, East AfricaDirect Reports:2 Women’s Protection and Empowerment Technical Advisors1 Child Protection Technical Advisor1 Protection Rule of Law Technical AdvisorRegional GEDI in Programming staff, if applicableKey Internal RelationshipsVPRU Senior DirectorGlobal Practice Leads for Child Protection, Protection – Rule of Law, and Women’s Protection and Empowerment.VPR Regional Leads across 5 other regionsRegional Measurement AdvisorRegional Leadership Team, Country Directors, DDPs, CRRD colleagues across multiple rolesRegional Advocacy and Comms leadsRegional Safety & Security leadEast Africa Awards Management Unit teamCRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership TeamsGlobal HQ and AMU focal pointsKey External RelationshipsGlobal Protection Cluster leads and stakeholders, INGOs, Red Cross/Crescent Movement counterparts, International Protection Coordination Platforms and Coalitions, Donor and policy makers, GBV counterparts in relevant UN agencies

REQUIRED SKILLS

Project management, Business development, Research and development, Leadership skills, Team leadership, Research planning, Research publication

REQUIRED EDUCATION

Post-graduate education