3 New Jobs at International Rescue Committee (IRC) Tanzania

• Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, United Republic of
• Dakar, Senegal
• Nairobi, Nairobi Municipality, Kenya

Requisition ID: req55038
Job Title: Regional Lead, Central Africa
Sector: Senior Executive Leadership
Employment Category: Regular
Employment Type: Full-Time
Open to Expatriates: No
Location: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Work Arrangement: Hybrid

Job Description
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) Central Africa Regional Lead provides
coherence and direction to the provision of technical support for Cash
& Markets; Resilient Food Systems; and Economic Inclusion
programming in Central Africa. As a member of both the regional team and
the technical unit senior management team, the ERD Central 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 Central
Africa Regional Lead will lead a highly effective, strategic ERD
regional team to ensure the Central 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 Central 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 Central 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 Central
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 Central Africa,
high quality coordination and partnership with regional teams, effective
team performance, and efficiency and impact of technical excellence
service offering to the Central Africa region and country programs. In
Central Africa, ERD programming operates in all IRC’s CA countries
(Tanzania, DRC, CAR, Cameroon, and Chad) with at least 3 technical
advisors working across the 3 practice areas.

Major Responsibilities
Functional Leadership, Coordination and Implementation Support:
•
Provide technical leadership across the region, including by
contextualizing the Economic Wellbeing at the regional level in
partnership with Technical Advisors, DRD, + Deputy Director of Programs
(DDP) and in line with Country Program Strategic Action Plans
•
Promote programming coherence and strategic direction of the ERD
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
practice
• Support 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 teams
• Provide technical oversight of regional strategic
projects in collaboration with the Global Practice Leads as appropriate
and/or budgeted, escalating quality assurance challenges as needed
•
Foster relationships with a wide range of both internal and external
stakeholders to make strategic connections and identify opportunities
• Provide stop-gap direct implementation support as/if appropriate and budgeted on CP-grants

Staff management, learning, and development
•
Lead and line manage a high performing team of ERD Technical Advisors
to design and support ERD programming across the region, and generate
evidence and learning for local and global strategies
• Accountable
for ensuring TAs maintain core knowledge and expertise and apply global
best practices to their work across health sub-sectors
• Work 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 Development
• Provide
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 insights
• Collaborate 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 efficiency
• Work with DRD, Director of
Awards Management and DDPs for country programs to understand the
region’s donors for the ERD sectors, the donors’ priorities in the
region, and the regional funding priorities of Country Programs for the
Economic Wellbeing Outcomes
• Support 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 opportunities
• Support 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 clients
• Accountable for coordinating across
expert staff to better integrate cross-cutting issues into ERD programs
(e.g., gender equality, diversity and inclusion, climate adaptation,
etc.).

Knowledge Management, Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning
•
Lift up program learning for sharing across the region and to inform
global strategic direction of (relevant) Global Practice Areas
•
Facilitate 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 TAs
•
Collaborate with Regional Measurement Advisors to ensure that Regional
Technical Advisors support good MEAL practice for ERD programming in
Central Africa, including the use of high-quality indicators, the use of
IRC standard data tools, and the inclusion of MEAL activities in
project plans

External Influence and Representation
•
Engage 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 shifts
• Support regions in addressing policy & practice shifts needed to enable program impact and scale
•
In close collaboration and partnership with the DRD, regional Awards
Management and Advocacy focal points, ensure effective networking and
representation in relation to Cash & Markets; Resilient Food
Systems; and Economic Inclusion through mobilizing input from global
practice leads.

Key Working Relationships
• Position Reports to: Dual reporting line to Deputy Director, ERD TU and DRD, Central Africa
• Direct Reports:
o 1 Cash & Markets Technical Advisor
o 2 Livelihoods Technical Advisors

Key Internal Relationships:
• ERD Deputy Director
• Global Practice Leads for Cash & Markets; Resilient Food Systems; and Economic Inclusion
• ERD Regional Leads and Regional Focal Points across 5 other regions
• Regional Measurement Advisor
• Regional Leadership Team, Country Directors, DDPs, CRRD colleagues across multiple roles
• Regional Advocacy and Comms leads
• Regional Safety & Security lead
• Central Africa Awards Management Unit team
• CRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership Teams
• Global HQ and AMU focal points

Key External Relationships:
•
Regional Cash, Food Security, and Economic Inclusion coordination
clusters, INGOs, donors and policy makers, counterparts in relevant UN
agencies.

Desired Experience and Skills
• Highly
seasoned professional with at least 8+ years of progressive technical
and management experience leading and managing technical teams
•
Established technical expertise in at least one of the ERD Global
Practice Areas relevant to Central Africa. Professional and/or lived
experience in Central Africa context and sound understanding of the
region is a huge advantage.
• Excellent management and leadership skills including coaching, mentoring, and performance management
• Strong track record of leading multi-location technical programs
• Strong track record of driving uptake of evidence-based practice
• Experience managing multiple projects with multi-disciplinary collaborators
• Demonstrated ability to influence across a wide range of diverse stakeholders internally and externally
• Strong track record of identifying and converting business development opportunities (when leading and managing the leader)
• Knowledge and understanding of the respective regional context
•
Ability to work, manage, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced
environment; outstanding business acumen, critical thinking, problem
solving and decision-making skills required
• Superb inter-personal,
written and verbal communication skills with ability to collaborate
across countries, cultures, and departments
• Fluency in English and French is required. Additional regionally spoken language is a huge advantage.
• Ability to travel regionally and globally up to 35% of the time, occasionally on short notice

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.