Country: Ethiopia

Organization: International Rescue Committee

Closing date: 21 Aug 2023

The International Rescue Committee, one of the world’s largest humanitarian international NGOs, provides relief, rehabilitation, and development support to vulnerable people and communities over 30 countries. We began work in Ethiopia in 1999 in response to severe drought in Ethiopia’s Somali region and are currently providing assistance to Ethiopians and refugees in eight regions in Ethiopia, implementing emergency and development programs in health, water and sanitation, economic recovery and development (ERD), women’s protection and empowerment, education, child protection, and multi-sectoral emergency response.

Job Overview/Summary

The IRC Country Director (CD) is responsible for overall leadership and supervisory management of IRC staff, programming, and operations, including program quality and accountability, stewardship of resources, staff safety and security, performance management and external representation. The CD is directly responsible for the program's overall coordination and strategic direction; providing oversight and coaching for directly supervised senior managers; leading country program teams to identify, design and deliver responsive, high-quality programs; ensuring efficient management of public grants and private funds for results, compliance, and focused, timely reporting; and oversight of financial management and compliance systems. The CD will maintain continuity of humanitarian support in current operational areas, while, in collaboration with the regional office, exploring the possibility of expanding the geographic scope as needs warrant and conditions allow.

Major Responsibilities

Leadership and Representation

• Lead the country program by maintaining open and professional relations with colleagues, promoting a strong team spirit, oversight and resources to enable staff to perform successfully.

• Develop and carry out strategies that result in strong representation with: government ministries and line bureaus at various levels; UNOCHA; donors including USAID, BHA, BPRM, ECHO, EU, GFFO, SIDA, Lego, Gavi and other international organizations; international and local NGOs; and networks.

• Ensure that IRC remains a partner of choice for major international donors.

• Develop and maintain a high level of understanding of donor priorities and planned funding streams.

• Initiate and sustain strong, mutually beneficial and authentic partnerships with local organizations.

• Seek out and pursue opportunities to raise the profile of the work of IRC and its partners, as well as the lives and the needs of the people IRC seeks to serve.

• Play a leadership role in efforts to improve humanitarian coordination.

• Lead country program collaboration with colleagues to deliver country programming and advocacy.

• Ensure leadership and management processes enable the IRC to effectively adapt to contextual changes and fully make use of opportunities to expand humanitarian access and assistance.

Strategic Direction, Quality, and Growth

• Ensure the strategic vision and direction of the country program is aligned with IRC2020 strategy to serve people with responsive, high-quality and accountable programming, and secure the resources necessary for realization.

• Ensure the strategy action plan is of quality, implemented and guides decision-making.

• Ensure quality through consistent use throughout the country program of: rigorous assessment, design, and proposal development and review processes; comprehensive monitoring & evaluation, accountability and learning systems; staff development investments; and partner organization capacity strengthening.

• Remain current on national and regional issues impacting the country program and partners, and develop responsive strategies to changing contexts.

• Ensure the SMT delivers the leadership, management structures, staffing skills and approaches, and operational systems required to ensure a coherent ‘one IRC’ approach to achieve country objectives.

• Find opportunities for appropriate expansion and growth of programs, supported by the acquisition of and investment in human resources.

Safety and Security Management

• Take primary responsibility for overall management for the country program.

• Oversee the management of all security issues, including appropriate response to emergency situations as they arise.

• Maintain a culture of safety throughout the country program, including trainings and briefings that prepare all country program staff for security incident prevention and response.

• Keep security, evacuation and contingency plans current and accessible to country program staff.

• Maintain close coordination and communication with the Regional Safety and Security Advisor on relevant concerns and evolving issues that could adversely affect IRC staff or operations.

Staff Management, Learning and Development

• Oversee the management, coaching and development of IRC Ethiopia staff to build a team of skilled, committed and motivated staff. Coach, train, supervise and mentor direct-report staff, including communicating clear expectations, setting quarterly performance objectives, providing regular and timely positive and constructive performance feedback, and providing documented semi-annual performance reviews.

• Provide a measurable development plan including on-the-job learning with the aim of strengthening technical capacity, exchanging knowledge within the team and offering guidance on career paths.

Stewardship and Operational Management

• Drive operational excellence to achieve optimal efficiency and cost-effectiveness in all functions and operations of the country program.

• Oversee the development, deployment and utilization of financial and operational policies, procedures, and systems to deliver compliance with IRC and donor requirements.

• Ensure responsiveness and appropriate levels of in-person and remote support to all offices, especially in the areas of HR, finance and supply chain.

• Provide timely and effective oversight of the country program’s financial position.

• Maintain effective and coordinated budget monitoring processes for grant funds and discretionary funds.

• Seek opportunities to introduce efficiencies and eliminate redundancies in existing business processes.

Communications

• Model and encourage active practice of the principles of the “IRC Way – Global Standards for Professional Conduct” throughout the Ethiopia country program.

• Maintain a healthy and empowering office environment that encourages open, honest and productive communication among IRC staff and with partner organizations.

• Maintain open communications with regional management staff, regional technical advisors, and HQ departmental staff.

Job Requirements

You should have strong leadership abilities and interpersonal skills, and be able to deploy strong communications effectively, both internally and externally. You should enjoy developing networks to build partnerships and diversify program resources.

• Graduate degree in a relevant field.

• At least 12 years of dynamically responsible international work experience, including leadership at the Country Director level of multi-site, multi-sectoral operations in a complex operating environment, supervising large teams.

• Experience working in conflict/post-conflict or disaster response situation.

• Professional fluency in written and spoken English.

Demonstrated Technical Skills:

• Experience managing security in a complex and rapidly changing security context.

• Confirmed ability to negotiate and work with partner organizations. Experience with organizational capacity strengthening and partnership building is helpful.

• Strong budget and fiscal oversight capacities.

• Extensive representation and fundraising success, including prior experience with European, US, private and other international donors.

• Established capacity to handle stressful situations in a healthy, constructive manner.

• Ability to respond to multiple priorities in a timely manner, producing high-quality outcomes.

• Proficiency with the Microsoft Office Suite, especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

• Working knowledge of file sharing protocols such as Dropbox, SharePoint, etc., an advantage.

Demonstrated Managerial/Leadership Competencies:

• Experience building personal networks at a senior level, resulting in securing new opportunities for the organization.

• Demonstrated successful leadership and management experience with a multi-disciplinary teams in cross-cultural settings, including active mentoring and coaching.

• Effective in developing high-potential staff to achieve career growth and maximum contribution.

• Confirmed experience delivering suitable levels of oversight of a portfolio consisting of a variety of complex, high-value donor-funded projects.

• Opportunity-awareness. A successful innovative approach to unpredictable programming, operational, and funding contexts.

• Ability to dispassionately represent program context, constraints, and successes to media, government, and other senior audiences.

Gender Equality: IRC is committed to narrowing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including parental leave, gender-sensitive security protocols and other supportive benefits and allowances.

How to apply

Register using the following link CLICK HERE