• Country: Kyiv, Ukraine
• No of vacancies: N/A
  
• Salary: N/A 
• Organization: IRC
• Gender: Both
• Deadline: N/A

JOB OVERVIEW:
The Regional Senior Partnerships Coordinator leads the IRC Ukraine partnerships team and is responsible for all aspects of partnership management and driving the team to meet its partnership ambitions; this includes setting the strategic direction of IRC’s partnerships work in Ukraine and representing the organization in relevant inter-agency coordination bodies. This role also oversees a partnership team responsible for the contractual and process elements of partnerships, such as coordinating partner selection, due diligence, risk management, monitoring and reporting processes, and capacity sharing with partners, in line with PEERS.
This role will spend 30% of their time as the regional partnerships strategy lead for the Ukraine Crisis response, currently comprised of country programs in Ukraine and Poland. In this function, the Senior Coordinator will advise on the strategic direction of localization efforts and advise regional and country leadership on partnership ambitions, program planning, and change management.
The Regional Senior Partnerships Coordinator will be managed in partnership with the Ukraine Deputy Director of Programs (70%) and Senior Programs and Business Development Advisor (30%).

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Ukraine Specific (70%): 

Strategy and Program Approach
Lead the development of a country-wide and outcome-specific partnership strategy aligned to the delivery of the Ukraine Strategy Action Plan (SAP) partnership ambition.
Design and lead in the rollout of models for meaningful partner participation in key decision-making processes, including strategy development and program design and management.
Promote resource allocation to partners and internally that is consistent with Ukraine’s partnership ambition, through collaborative project budget development.
Promote Project Cycle Management that maximizes meaningful participation of partners.
Identify and address any project, operational or finance business processes that are presenting barriers to Ukraine’s partnership ambitions, and work with relevant departments to identify solutions.
Co-facilitate and support robust stakeholder analysis processes that enable the SAP and each project design to be based on how we can best support, reinforce and complement local civil society, government and private sector actors.
Collaborate with technical coordinators to foster a network of local civil society, government and private sector partners, empowering those entities to lead key decision making and service delivery, and positioning IRC as the partner of choice.

Promote Effective Partnerships
Facilitate the ongoing development of IRC’s internal capacity to partner, ensuring that IRC’s partnership principles, skills and approaches are applied by staff across programs and projects with partners.
Consistently promote and effectively use IRC’s PEERS and ensure that partnership decision-making and action is driven by IRC’s partnership principles.
Lead efforts to build a strong understanding and application of PEERS and partnership principles, skills and approaches among all departments.
Manage the Partnership Working Group (PWG), promoting cross-departmental collaboration and the effective and efficient management of partnerships, including referral of issues to SMT as appropriate.
Support the PWG members to ensure timely and effective partner program, finance, and compliance review and reflection (monitoring).
Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC’s management of the partnership relationship and partner perspectives, including the documentation of, and response to partner feedback.

Program Facilitation
Co-facilitate and guide competitive and non-competitive partner selection processes to identify new partners, as well as new applications from existing partners.
Manage and facilitate funding opportunities for local organizations, making efforts to target women-led and women/girls serving organizations.
Co-lead and coordinate due diligence processes, and facilitate collaborative partnership risk management, including through effective mitigation, monitoring and reflection and reporting processes.
Lead facilitation and coordination of partnership management processes to ensure well planned, timely, coordinated and coherent partnership management.
Co-lead the review of the performance of the partner, of the IRC (including on the basis of partner feedback), and of the partnership, including successes, challenges and lessons learned, fostering ongoing partnerships beyond the sub-award project cycle.

Partner Support and Capacity Sharing

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 plan.
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 continual learning between IRC staff and partners.

Coordination and Representation
Ensure IRC is well represented in key localization discussions at the national and international levels, including with donors and government representatives.
Actively participate in localization working groups and coordination fora, and seek opportunities to enhance IRC visibility in the sphere of supporting local organizations.
In collaboration with the Country Director and the Communication Officer, increase visibility of IRC’s work with and through local partners in communication and media materials. 

Staffing
Ensure IRC’s structuring, recruitment, staff development, and performance management processes for partnership management roles are guided by PEERS and IRC’s principles, skills and approaches.

Regional Advisory Support & Technical Backstopping (30%)
Actively engage with country office and regional management to foster the collaborative and open culture necessary to partner as equals, including through the direction and tone of the SMT and modeling of partnership principles.
Ensure continuous coaching and guidance for partnership leads, program leads, and country program SMTs. Promote alignment and compliance with PEERS to facilitate the swift review, approval, and processing of donation and sub-award packages.
Identify project, operational, or finance business processes that are presenting barriers to partnership ambitions, and work with relevant regional support functions to identify solutions.
Lead cross-country learning and sharing of best practices around partnerships between the Ukraine and Poland country offices.
Foster and promote effective capacity sharing approaches across Ukraine and Poland, including effective project support across all organizational functions, and ensuring that we are understanding and leveraging opportunities to learn from partners.
Collaborate with relevant technical advisors, regional and country colleagues as needed to ensure guidance and capacity building support is available to partners for technical implementation and program quality.
Guide technical and partnership leads to identify and establish strategic partnership relationships with civil society organizations, government entities and private sector actors, as well as with networks, based on the stakeholder analysis.

Key Working Relationships:
Position Reports to: Deputy Director of Programs and Senior Programs and Business Development Advisor
Position directly supervises: Partnerships Coordinator, Finance Partnerships Manager
Other Internal and/or external contacts: the position regularly corresponds and attends meetings with external and internal audiences, thus a strong ability to communicate and maintain positive working relationships is highly desirable for this position.
Internal: senior management team, technical coordinators, and field-based technical teams; M&E Coordinator; Programs and Awards Management Unit team members; Finance Unit; Supply Chain Unit; HR Unit; IRC Regional Awards Management Unit.
External: Donors; local and international partners

REQUIREMENTS
Minimum of five years’ experience in partnership, capacity sharing, organizational learning and/or related work required, and progressive managerial and/or advisory experience strongly preferred. Strong familiarity, working experience and lived experience in Ukraine or Poland strongly preferred.
Degrees in non-profit management, business management, organizational development, international development or another related field, an asset.
Thorough knowledge of best practices in partnership and capacity sharing, with demonstrated experience in integrating this theme into programming.
Familiarity with key institutions and donor agencies in capacity sharing.
Experienced in setting up and using monitoring and evaluation systems for partnerships.
Collaborative, team management style; ability to work well in diverse, multi-cultural team settings.
Exceptional interpersonal and communications skills.
Skilled at persuading and leading through influence, negotiation and coaching.
Significant capacity for strategic thinking and systems development.
Willingness to travel to various regional and field-level offices
Fluency in English (written and speaking) is essential, Ukrainian is desirable. 

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