Myanmar: Senior Governance and Rights Coordinator

BACKGROUND:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a private, non-political, non-profit, non-religious organization with its global humanitarian relief tasks for more than 80 years since 1933. Today, the IRC continues to bring swift emergency relief and development to the vulnerable and the displaced people in more than 40 countries.

The IRC has been working in Myanmar since May 2008, initially supporting emergency response and early recovery interventions for communities affected by Cyclone Nargis. Since then, IRC has responded to natural emergencies as well as conflict, such as ethnic violence, hand is engaged with communities through their recovery and rehabilitation. Over the years, IRC has broadened its portfolio to include health, integrated environmental health, livelihoods, and social development programs and aims to employ an holistic approach. The IRC is committed to a long-term presence in-country with the aim of improving the well-being of vulnerable populations living the hard-to-reach areas. Currently IRC works with the Ministries of Health, and of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement. IRC works in several states, primarily focused in the most marginalized areas of the country, including Rakhine, Chin, Kayin, Mon, Kachin, and Kayah States.

SCOPE OF WORK:

The SeniorGovernance and Rights Coordinator will be responsible for providing overall leadership, guidance, coordination and technical support on conflict sensitive programming, peacebuilding, community driven development (CDD), governance, and protection to all sectors of the country program, in addition to advising senior management on strategy and direction concerning these themes. In particular, the position will supervise at minimum 3 field based managers. Through collaboration with other departments, the Senior Governance and Rights Coordinator will provide technical guidance to projects in the health and livelihoods programs. S/he will have ultimate responsibility over projects in Governance and Rights department, and will work with the Grants unit and field teams to ensure that program activities are implemented according to approved work plans, the country program Strategic Action Plan for 2015 – 2020, and in accordance with the IRC’s Global strategies. The post holder will also work with the HQ’s Governance and Violence Prevention and Response Technical Units to enhance program quality, develop research and learning opportunities and secure funding for ongoing and new programming.

Currently there is Governance and Rights programming in Rakhine, Kayin and Kayah. The context in these states is very diverse and transitions between protracted emergency, early recovery to development. IRC are the consortium lead on the early recovery USAID grant and co-chair for the development cluster, also co-chair on the protection cluster in Rakhine. In Yangon the co-ordinator is representative on the protection cluster.

The ideal candidate will be able to manage a very complex fluid context, in one of the world’s most acute humanitarian and protracted fragile situations with very complex working relationships with village, township and state authorities, UN, INGOs, partners and local communities.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Program Strategies and Business Development:

· Work with the SMT, sector coordinators and the technical advisers and field staff to design, implement and review governance strategies for the IRC Myanmar programs

· Lead and identify business development opportunities for new areas of work and develop fundraising approaches to meet those opportunities, in collaboration with the Deputy Director of Programs, Grants Coordinator and the technical units.

· Support program development within other sectors by integrating governance and protection approaches in proposals and projects where relevant.

Management and Coordination:

· Supervise project managers, ensuring delivery of quality programming through development and use of project management tools, coordination and documentation.

· Provide technical support to senior program staff, including through regular field visits, and develop their capacity through adequate coaching and mentoring, performance management (setting of objectives, appraisals and development plans) and training as required.

· Promote coordination and cooperation, joint action and sharing of good practices and lessons learned between partner organizations and institutions

· Represent IRC Myanmar in external Governance related forums; actively develop and maintain effective working relationships with key stakeholders in Myanmar including government actors, donors, UN agencies, international and local NGOs; identify governance and protection related advocacy issues in consultation with the country management.

Technical Leadership and Support:

· Support the various IRC Myanmar programs in conducting context and conflict analysis to identify promising entry points and better inform program design and implementation.

· Provide technical leadership and oversee the design and implementation of peacebuilding, rule of law and community driven development projects.

· Contribute to development of knowledge and capacity in the country office around community engagement, client voice and empowerment, organizational development and other related governance themes and support the integration of those themes into other sectoral programs.

· Provide technical leadership to assess protection needs in existing programs/sectors or new geographical locations as well as advice on relevant adaptations aimed at improving access, safety, and dignity of beneficiaries.

· Liaise regularly with technical advisors from the Technical Units on proposal development, programming and implementation approaches, including identifying research and learning opportunities.

Coordination & Representation:

· Develop and foster strong working relationships with key stakeholders in Yangon and field sites

· Liaise and coordinate with other UN and NGO partners, ministry departments, local authorities, community leaders, and beneficiaries related to all programs with national counterpart

· Represent IRC and participate in coordination/cluster meetings

· Facilitate donor visits, IRC visits and ad hoc visits to the program sites providing key contextual information and advocacy points as ‘take aways’

· Liaise regularly and work closely with program, operations and finance staff in Yangon to coordinate program planning

Program monitoring and evaluation:

· Oversee the development and use of quality monitoring information systems, and impact evaluation tools. Ensure that the data produced is analysed and used to inform decision-making and improve program quality

· Support his/her program managers to monitor program implementation against work plans and overall project objectives, documenting progress, achievements and lessons learnt

· Ensure effective and high quality reporting, monitoring and evaluation systems for both internal and external use capturing best practice to support program decision-making

· Conduct donor reporting, as required, in coordination with other Sector and Program Managers and the DDP

REQUIREMENTS:

· University Degree in Development, Economics, Public Administration, Business Administration, Law or Social Science. Master’s Degree preferred.

· Minimum 5 years of experience in developing, managing and coordinating peace building, community driven development and governance programs in developing countries and / or post-conflict settings. Desirable experience in displacement affected (refugee/IDP) environments.

· Especially desirable experience in strengthening the capacity of decentralized government structures around the provision of basic services and protection of rights along with knowledge of gender and inclusion strategies;

· Knowledge and capacity to conduct Political Economy and Conflict Analysis.

· Must be comfortable working as part of a large team in a complex, fluid and demanding management environment.

· Ability to travel frequently to project sites for monitoring visits, including very remote and sometimes insecure (weather and conflict) areas.

· Strong program management skills, including assessment, planning, budgeting and monitoring skills.

· Good organizational, interpersonal, and people management skills.

· Strong communication, presentation and training skills.

· Demonstrated experience in proposal development, preparation of logical frameworks, budgets and grant management and report writing

· Fluency in written and spoken English.

WORK ENVIRONMENT:

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability. n>

http://chm.tbe.taleo.net/chm03/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=IRC&cws=1&rid=14946