The International Rescue Committee (IRC) 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 one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 50 countries and more than 25 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.
Airbel—IRC’s Impact Lab—designs, tests, and scales life-changing, cost-effective solutions for people affected by conflict and disaster. Applying deep technical expertise and field experience, Airbel takes a multi-disciplinary approach to problem solving in humanitarian contexts. With a desire to think afresh and the experience and reputation of a large-scale implementing organization, Airbel creates impactful and cost-effective interventions.
The IRC’s Best Use of Resources (BUR) team conducts analysis on the cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of key IRC programs. Humanitarian needs are growing while financial resources to meet those needs are limited. Project teams are faced with the complex decision of using limited budgets to bring the most impact to the greatest number of people in need. Providing technical assistance on cost-efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and strategic resource allocation to country teams, technical units, and partner organizations, the BUR team ensures programs have the greatest possible reach and impact per dollar.
This position will provide research and technical assistance to priority interventions, including analyses as part of research evaluations, and cost modeling for country teams. In addition, this position will support synthesis of cost evidence for development of recommendations, project design, programmatic guidance, and other technical and advocacy documents.
Major Responsibilities
•Conduct cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness analyses for priority interventions.
•Contribute to scenario modeling analyses of the cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of different programs across contexts and scales. Understand the decision-making needs of counterparts and develop modelling plans that best address these questions given data constraints.
•Work under supervision to execute research plans, including collation necessary monitoring and cost data.
•Work collaboratively with country-based staff and technical teams, proactively identifying and solving risks to analysis quality as they arise.
•Support the development of program-specific databases of cost data. Relate cost results with evidence on the effectiveness of programs generated by the Airbel research team and external literature.
•Provide input to evidence syntheses within a given focus area, support the development of evidence recommendations and shared organizational learning around the cost of programs.
•Provide research design and pre-award support to the development of proposals, working with finance and program teams to integrate cost data and review proposal budgets for alignment with workplans and targets.
•Contribute to project reporting, including writing reports, delivering presentations, supporting communications staff, and contributing to broader BUR/IRC reports.
•Support overall research design, operations, and strategy across a given focus area, completing other duties as assigned.
Job Requirements:
Work Experience
•Bachelor’s degree in economics, public policy, a related field, or equivalent professional experience;
•2-3 years of similar work experience; 1 year in LMICs strongly preferred.
Demonstrated Skills and Competencies
•Knowledge of evaluation methods, applications, and cost-evidence literature in LMICs;
•Demonstrated proficiency in spreadsheet-based data cleaning and analysis;
•Excellent ability to self-organize and work independently and as part of a team;
•Ability to work as part of a remote team across time zones, cultures, and contexts;
•Excellent communication skills, cultural sensitivity, flexibility, ability to improvise, team player;
•Commitment to IRC’s core values.
Strongly Preferred
•Demonstrated proficiency in statistical analysis software;
•Experience in writing peer-reviewed publications;
•Fluency in spoken and written English required; fluency in French or Arabic highly desirable.
Working Environment: This role may require working remotely full or part-time and part-time remote employees may be required to share workspace. Applicants must have a home or alternate workspace they can effectively complete their work from during regularly scheduled work hours. Some international travel, as needed, up to 30%.
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Standard of Professional Conduct:The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.
Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. We aim to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities we serve, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.