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.

BACKGROUND

Over the past 80 years, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has developed unparalleled expertise in responding to emergencies and helping uprooted communities to rebuild. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC offers lifesaving care and life-changing assistance to refugees forced to flee from war or disaster.

The International Rescue Committee is a global network with its headquarters in New York. The IRC is on the ground in more than 40 countries, providing emergency relief, relocating refugees and rebuilding lives in the wake of disaster.

The IRC is committed to a culture of bold leadership, innovation in all aspects of our work, creative partnerships and, most crucially, accountability to those we serve. The IRC is a tireless advocate for the most vulnerable.

IRC UKIRC UK is part of the IRC global network, which has its global headquarters in New York. Our team in the UK works to raise profile, deliver policy and practice change, and increase funding to help restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Since 2021, IRC UK has also provided integration services directly to refugees in England, a programme that is rapidly growing.  

In Europe, the IRC also has offices in Berlin, Bonn, Brussels, Geneva and Stockholm.  

Awards Management Unit (AMU)

Established in January 2016, the Awards Management Unit (AMU) is a global department with the responsibility for identifying, securing, and managing all funding from statutory/government donors. The department includes the following teams: Program and Award Support, Strategic Partnerships, Compliance and Policy, Business Development, and Training.

The AMU is a bridge between donors and country programs: providing expert technical advice to the country teams, while maintaining portfolio-level visibility to ensure consistency and compliance, and manage risk. This unit ensures that donor compliance policies and procedures are implemented consistently and supports all staff working across the award management cycle for all restricted funding from global government sources.

Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department

The Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department has a growing portfolio of humanitarian relief, post-crisis recovery, and development programs under their remit. This work focuses support in five key areas: ensuring safety from harm, improving health, increasing access to education, improving economic well-being and ensuring people have the power to influence decisions that affect their lives. In all these programs, there is a drive to address the unique needs of women and girls (who represent the majority of those displaced) – and the universal barriers they face.

The CRRD works across 6 regions globally, including West Africa, East Africa, Great Lakes, Middle East and North Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The regional teams are the links between country offices and key HQ departments and aim to support and provide advice to country programs with a range of issues from strategic planning, business development to compliance, awards management and partnerships management.

Purpose of the Role

The Program Development and Award Advisor (PDAA) will provide delivery support in both pre- and post- award across the Regional Program & Award Support (RPAS) teams, and contribute to cross-regional learning and service improvements. The role will deploy to work as part of RPAS teams for a fixed period, during which it will report into the RPAS management. This support could include providing business development, award management and compliance support to country programs in the respective region and in line with donor regulations and IRC’s systems, processes and relevant strategies (e.g. IRC’s Business Development Strategy). The role will also contribute to cross-regional learning, and systems and process improvements.

Scope and Authority

This role has no line management responsibilities.

Key Working Relationships

Reports to the Strategic Delivery & Resourcing Manager within the Global PAS team. Works closely with regional Directors, Awards Management; Heads of Business Development (HBDs); Senior Program & Award Advisors (SPAAs); and other members of RPAS teams.

While deployed, the role works closely with country program grants and partnership teams,and across all teams within the AMU, CRRD, Global Supply Chain, Finance, Office of General Counsel, Technical Excellence, and other key departments within IRC.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

The Program Development and Award Advisor will be ‘deployed’ primarily on a remote basis to support specific RPAS teams, and may be responsible for some or all of the following on deployment, as assigned by the RPAS team:

Business Development

• Support country offices with Donor engagement and intel sharing for positioning; prepare for and participate in Donor calls as needed.

• Lead or support pre-positioning for specific opportunities
• In collaboration with the regional Program Development team, support the full proposal lifecycle.
• Facilitate the identification of consultants, partners and other proposal development support as needed in collaboration with the country team.
• Collaborate with technical units, country offices, and other colleagues to support conceptualization of winning proposal and bid designs.
• Provide quality assurance and quality compliance support on proposals. Ensure responsiveness to and compliance with solicitation documents and with IRC’s requirements, including the PEER system.
• Support coordination, communication, and inputs from consortium partners in accordance with donor and IRC processes.
• Coordinate and support regional reviews and approvals of proposal packages depending on country and regional needs. This includes partners packages if applicable.
• Review agreements to ensure accurateness and highlight key compliance requirements, in coordination with post-award, compliance and country grants teams and support in award negotiation and hand-over to regional team as required.
• Maintain complete and accurate electronic files, including final submission packages and internal trackers.
• Deploy to country offices to lead on proposal development as needed

Awards Management and Compliance

• Manage a portfolio of awards for the region, as agreed on the roving basis. Review, provide substantive feedback and ensure timely submission of reports, collaborating with and ensuring input from relevant country/regional technical and financial staff.
• Guide country offices in partnership with other relevant departments in the design, production, and submission of and revise and quality assure award amendments and modifications.
• Serve as first point of contact for country program-based awards staff to guide and advise country teams on all post-award issues.
• Review and lead negotiation of award agreements with donors, other IRC entities and partners according to IRC policies and internal processes.
• Review and help processing sub-grants/partnership agreements in alignment with internal processes
• Provide support to and monitoring of projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines and IRC internal requirements.
• Provide technical advice to country offices on ad-hoc queries on donor compliance issues in coordination with the Compliance and Policy team.
• Ensure lessons learned from finalised projects are fed into the Business Development team.
• Advise country programs appropriately to enable them to successfully follow internal IRC policies and procedures (e.g. OTIS, PEERS).
• Travel to provide additional support to or cover short-term gaps for awards and partnerships teams in the countries as required and agreed.
• Coordinate with other members of the RPAS and other AMU members for information sharing and to establish a coherent awards support.
• Manage donor relationships by maintaining communication on contractual issues, updates on program implementation and following up on compliance queries and securing changes and approvals as needed.

Capacity Building and Training

• Develop training materials and carry out training of relevant staff.

• In coordination with PAS leaders, develop and maintain work-processes and checklists for award implementation and report review, as well as record lessons learned.
• Onboard new country office Grants and Partnerships staff and new RPAS team to assigned donors, policies and/or IRC processes, as requested.
• Ensure sufficient record keeping for efficient handover when deployment ends.

Other Responsibilities

• After each deployment, contribute to cross-regional learning initiatives and feed into after-action reviews, as needed.
• Support development of systems, processes, and/or resource improvements.
• Actively participate as a member of the PAS Team, engaging in strategy development and other initiatives as needed.
• Manage requests and assignments by maintaining a calendar of assignment requests and coordinating support needs across teams.
• Other duties as assigned by supervisor.

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:

• Fluency in English, with additional language skills in French, Spanish and/or German highly desirable.
• Significant experience with and a strong understanding of UK FCDO and European donor requirements required.
• Experience working with / supporting complex awards, including contracts highly desirable.
• Good understanding of humanitarian aid and development programming.
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a diverse team and handle a multifaceted workload
• Good financial management and budgeting skills.
• Ability to analyze and synthesize information.
• Proven organizational skills, detail-oriented, ability to prioritize tasks, and to learn quickly.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills: the ability to successfully and effectively liaise with people within and across departments in a multi-cultural environment.
• Ability to work independently in a very fast paced environment.
• A flexible work attitude and a calm manner.
• International work experience in the Global South is a plus.
• Excellent IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel).
• Ability to travel internationally, sometimes on short notice and to insecure areas.

Experience:

• Experience in working at a distance and supporting country-based staff
• Experience writing, reviewing and editing narrative and financial reports and excellent attention to detail

The deadline for applications is Wed 16th Oct 2024

#LI-DNI

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.