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 40 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 delivers 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.
We aim to make our programs a model for the highest global standards and to cultivate power and lasting change not just for our clients but for all people affected by humanitarian crises. To achieve that vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) group, located within the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department, provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and shares what we learn to influence policy and practice.
IRC’s Technical Excellence team is comprised of five teams or sector “Units” which have deep expertise in their respective fields: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, and Violence Prevention and Response, as well as three enabling teams which provide measurement, program quality improvement, and finance/grant management support. Technical teams are also matrixed with a team that focuses on the quality and content of cross-sectoral programming in emergency responses.
IRC’s Technical Excellence teams offer five core services to IRC country programs and the wider organization:
1. Program Design: We support country and regional teams to design state of the art programming, incorporating the best available evidence, cost data, and expertise of what has worked elsewhere, with the knowledge that country teams, partner organizations and our clients bring to the table.
2. Quality Assurance:We partner with our measurement teams to design and drive the use of indicators to measure progress towards outcomes; we partner with regional and country teams to review program delivery progress and help address implementation challenges and adapt interventions to changed circumstances.
3. Business Development: We partner within and outside the IRC to design winning bids and identify winning consortia; we deploy technical expertise in public events and private meetings to position IRC as a partner of choice.
4. Research & Learning: We partner with our research lab to design cutting edge research to fill evidence gaps, and with country teams to learn from implementation such that we continuously improve our future design and delivery.
5. External Influence:We showcase the IRC’s programs, technical insights and learning in order to influence and improve the humanitarian sector’s policy and practice.
The Governance Technical Unit amplifies the voices of people impacted by conflict and crisis, including the climate crisis. We empower people to control their future by championing their right to influence issues and shape systems that affect their cities, towns, and communities.
To achieve this, we:
1. Empower people to influence and participate in decisions that affect their lives,
2. Influence national/local service delivery systems to provide effective and responsive services, and
3. Promote collaboration between individuals, groups, and leaders to promote alignment and resolve differences peacefully.
Job Overview
The Governance and Systems Strengthening MEAL Advisor will be responsible for the implementation of IRC’s global measurement strategy across our governance and systems strengthening programming, as well as the Governance TU-specific research and learning agenda. The MEAL Advisor will oversee the technical quality of monitoring and evaluation approaches for TU-led and strategic country-led projects that focus on governance and systems strengthening, support the development and implementation of measurement toolkits, and other efforts to improve the quality, accessibility, security and use of data to support governance and systems strengthening programs across the organization. The advisor will strengthen core indicator usage, reinforce consistent measurement processes, and identify and address capacity-building needs among Governance TU and country program governance staff. The advisor will collaborate closely with global and regional technical teams, the IRC Measurement Unit, country program teams where needed, and M&E focal points in each sector, among others.
Major Responsibilities
Functional Leadership and Coordination:
• Lead the development and delivery of a MEAL strategy for the Governance Technical Unit that is aligned with IRC’s global Measurement priorities as well as the Power and Systems outcome strategy.
• In close collaboration with Technical Advisors, provide ongoing direct technical measurement support to the design, implementation, and evaluation of power and systems outcome strategy and associated strategic proposals that are in line with the Unit’s outcome strategy.
Monitoring and Accountability
• Own Governance TU standard indicators and other sector-specific MEAL guidance, including a review of the core indicator list for governance and systems strengthening interventions and leading efforts to ensure a common understanding of them by overseeing the development of guidance and training materials in collaboration with the Measurement Unit, TAs, country-level technical coordinators and managers, governance M&E staff, Regional Measurement Advisors (RMAs), peer agencies, etc.
• Act as product owner for data toolkits, co-developed by the Measurement Unit and the Governance TU, gathering requirements and user feedback, including maintaining access and continual improvements.
• Coordinate with Governance TU and the Measurement Unit to build dashboards and other data platforms for supporting Governance TAs and country programs to perform regular data reviews.
• Supervise global annual statistics data collection and reporting including developing data collection instruments and processes, interpretation, and report writing. Ensure presentation of data to governance program staff and country programs on an annual basis.
Learning and Evaluation
• In close collaboration with the Governance Researcher, support broader learning strategies, guidance, and resources for governance strategies.
• Collaborate with Governance TAs and other relevant stakeholders to connect in-country technical advocacy and program data to better reflect IRC’s systems strengthening and systems change work.
• Collaborate with colleagues across TUs to assess available data and emerging data needs in order to identify trends, learning, and findings from systems strengthening and systems change initiatives.
• Foster a culture of learning by working with Governance TU leadership, facilitating cross-project learning and reflection on existing processes and practices to identify patterns and inform strategic adaptations (as appropriate).
• Define evaluation approaches for governance and systems strengthening projects, and support both process and outcome evaluations, surveys, or formative assessments to improve program design and implementation, (in partnership with TAs and research and evaluation team, as appropriate)
• Support country staff where required to incorporate participatory methods of community-level M&E systems and tools, including effective incorporation of beneficiary feedback.
• Create and share processes and resources for using data to improve programming.
Key Internal Relationships:
• Governance Technical Unit Senior Management Team
• Governance Technical Unit Deputy Director
• Scaling and Systems Senior Specialist
• Governance Technical Advisers across IRC’s 6 regions
• Measurement Unit MEAL sector focal points
• Airbel Governance Researcher
• IRC’s Airbel’s Best Use of Resources (BUR) team
• CRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership Teams
• Global leaders in the areas of Governance and System Change
• Global IRC HQ and Awards Management Unit
• Key External Relationships: INGO counterparts; relevant academic and research institutes
Desired Experience and Skills
• – A minimum of 6-8 years of experience in humanitarian, international development or similar fields working or researching governance and systems sectors, or relevant technical areas.
• – At least 3-5 years of experience leading governance and systems strengthening specific MEAL activities, preferably in humanitarian contexts. May substitute governance and systems strengthening programming experience for some governance and systems strengthening specific MEAL experience.
• Understanding of the key trends and priorities for MEAL relevant to Governance and Systems Strengthening sector, including systems thinking
• Demonstrated ability to effective work with multiple stakeholders to develop evidence and analytics for the
purpose of impact and improvement.
• Experience with qualitative methods like outcome mapping, outcome harvesting, Most Significant Change, SenseMaker, social network analysis, and systemic action research.
• Experience with participatory methodologies
• Significant experience in data structuring and data analysis principles.
• Strong track record of training colleagues to use data products effectively.
• Adeptness at going beyond the numbers, translating large amounts of complex data and
trends into strategic learnings that have the power to shape and influence strategic
decision-making.
• Proficient in traditional as well as innovative monitoring, evaluation, and learning methods for improving program quality.
• Expertise in a variety of technology areas, such as data management, software development, or coordinating the work of software developers.
• Experience in database development, usage and management, data analysis, and reporting on data sets.
• Fluency in English is required; Arabic, French and/or Spanish is desirable but not a requirement
• Ability to travel globally up to 25% of the time, occasionally on short notice.
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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 Equalit.
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.