Senior Partnership Officer - Erbil / Baghdad / Mosul / Kirkuk

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. 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. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, IRC restores safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

A lead responder in Iraq since 2003, the IRC is providing robust programming across five governorates through women’s protection and empowerment, child protection and protection and rule of law programming; economic recovery and development programming; governance; and integrated early childhood development programming. The IRC is focused on strengthening social cohesion, with the aim of strengthening connectedness and cohesion among actors at different levels, from community groups to CSOs, to national authorities.

Contextual Background:

As a part of Strategic Action Plan, the IRC Iraq has recognized that working with local partners and governments will continue to grow its relevance in the context that IRC operates in. Under the IRC Strategy100 we commit to ask ‘why not partner’ whenever we plan programming – working with communities and partners to define our role in each context and project, based on how we can best support and reinforce local actors and systems. This commitment recognizes that people impacted by crisis and the actors closest to them are best placed, have the right, and should have the power and resources to respond and drive lasting change. By asking ‘why not partner’ whenever we plan programming, we will significantly expand the impact and scale of the response, to reach the best outcomes for people affected by crises. IRC Iraq is therefore inspired by the value that comes when working in partnerships with local actors in our programs and projects in the different communities.

This role will therefore contribute to IRC Iraq achieving its partnership ambition in the major projects and specifically the recent FCDO funded CDO-funded Building Peace and Stability in Iraq (BPSI) programme.  The BPSI aims to enhance social relations within selected communities in 5 governorates. The NGO consortium will focus on peacebuilding and conflict resolution activities, legal aid, civil documentation, and transitional justice support to address barriers to return and reintegration of displaced Iraqis, including reducing the ostracization of returnees and ensuring their right to work, services and legal protection.

Job Overview/Summary:

Based in Erbil with occasional travel to the Field Offices, the Senior Partnership Officer (SPO) will work closely with the Partnership Coordinator in the partnership unit that feeds into the Country Program strategic objectives of working with partners. The purpose of the Partnership Unit is to support in setting up of the partnerships building blocks, developing, and maintaining partnerships, oversee the management, coordination, and key risk control elements of IRC's sub-awards portfolio, to ensure a high level of risk management and compliance in strong, high-quality partnerships that deliver timely and effective assistance. The Partnership Unit oversees all steps of partners engagement in the project cycle management as recommended in the IRC Partnerships Excellence for Equality and Results System-PEERS.

The SPO will play a key role in supporting specifically the BSPI project whose proposed interventions will be implemented in a consortium arrangement with five Iraqi NGOs who each brings valuable technical expertise and deep contextual knowledge and networks. Part of the role will also involve ensuring clear and efficient communication between the different partners working within the consortium, including IRC staff in their different capacities and departments. Through this project, a capacity sharing approach will be adopted in ensuring mutual learning amongst the different partners including local and central government.

The role will be reporting to the Partnerships Coordinator

Summary of Responsibilities:

Partnership Agreement Management:

·Facilitate and coordinate different aspects of project and sub-award life cycle management respectively. This may include vetting, project, and agreement/amendments, monitoring through to close-out coordinating with different IRC departments and partners.

·Coordinate the due diligence process with respect to the five partners when required, including through appropriate vetting, support review of partnership capacity analysis, to analyze risks associated with the award or amendments, and support implementation of appropriate measures to manage those risks, while working with other departments as appropriate.

·Maintain and coordinate partner program, finance and compliance monitoring schedules and coordinate support for partners to address any concerns or issues that may arise.

·Ensure that monitoring plans, visits and tools are in place for donor compliance and progress against objectives, and that key monitoring information and reflection session and learning are documented.

·Liaise with finance to achieve timely funds transfers and proper financial follow-up and support for partners.

Strategy and Program Approach

·Support the partnerships coordinator and manager in finalizing the partnerships’ strategies of all programs with concrete operational plans.

Partner Support and Capacity Sharing

·Work closely with the Partnership coordinator to facilitate the collaborative development and delivery of the partner project support plan, ensuring that it appropriately addresses issues identified in the due diligence process, and coordinate with relevant departments for the timely, quality implementation of the plans.

·Ensure IRC understands partner capacity strengthening priorities and identifies opportunities and plans for IRC to support partner capacity strengthening efforts.

·Support the resourcing of organizational development support where appropriate for partners; coordinate organizational development support to partners.

·Collaborate with technical coordinators to integrate technical capacity sharing approaches, including how IRC can learn from local partners.

·Promote and identify ways for continuous learning between IRC staff and partners.

Promote Effective Partnerships

·Implement best practices and clear roles and responsibilities for:

osystematic partner feedback on IRC's management of the partnership relationship, as well as appropriate action in response to the feedback provided.

oPromote and apply the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results system (PEERS). Contribute to building a strong understanding of PEERS in the office, and to ensuring that IRC’s partnership principles, skills and approaches are applied by staff across the consortium.

Documentation and Reporting:

• Ensure that comprehensive electronic and physical files for BSPI partnerships are maintained and updated.
• Oversee and work with other partnership staff to review monthly internal reports and support the drafting and compilation of partner reports into overall donor reports.

Representation and special tasks:

• At the request of the Partnership Coordinator, represent IRC Iraq at relevant coordination meetings and feedback important information from those meetings relevant to IRC staff.
• At the request of Partnership Coordinator and as part of learning, take responsibility for miscellaneous projects not falling under responsibilities underlined in this job description.