Democratic Republic of the Congo: Deputy Chief of Party

Job Title: Deputy Chief of Party

Sector: Program Administration

Employment Category: Fixed Term

Location: Democratic Republic of the Congo

Job Description 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 and populations affected by war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, we restore safety, dignity and hope to millions who are uprooted and struggling to endure. The IRC leads the way from harm to home.

With National Office in Kinshasa and field offices in the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut Katanga and Tanganyika, the IRC is one of the largest humanitarian actors in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The IRC aims to save lives, to strengthen Congolese institutions and to reinforce social cohesion through carefully designed and professionally-implemented programs. The IRC has been working in the DRC since 1996 and currently operates in five core programming areas - primary health care, community-driven reconstruction and local governance, women's empowerment and the prevention and mitigation of gender-based violence, education, and emergency preparedness and response. These programs reflect IRC's guiding principles of capacity-building; participation; partnership; protection and promotion of human rights; and holistic programming.

Position Summary: The IRC in DRC currently seeks a Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) for a multi-year, multimillion dollar USAID-funded project in eastern DRC aimed at increasing youth resilience to conflict and violence, offering practical solutions and promising interventions that contribute to establishing a foundation for durable peace. The DCOP will support the Chief of Party (COP) in leading project implementation and meeting donor requirements, and specifically provide clear and coherent technical leadership on the educational components of the project, ensuring that youth gain and apply relevant skills for improved educational and social outcomes. The DCOP will act as the most senior technical advisor for the project, and have direct responsibility for the quality and effectiveness of the project's formal and informal basic and secondary education interventions.

The DCOP will report to the COP with functional supervision by the IRC's DRC Deputy Director of Programs, and support from the IRC's Goma-based Child and Youth Protection and Development (CYPD) Coordinator and headquarter-based Education Technical Advisor.

This position is contingent on the IRC being awarded funding and is anticipated to begin in March 2018.

Responsibilities:

• Identify needs and provide technical assistance and training to project staff and partners in the preparation, roll-out and implementation of project activities, and provide on-going technical advice to program staff and partners when requested;
• Oversee the technical quality of the program activities, specifically education-focused interventions, ensuring the application of evidence-based and context appropriate best practices;
• Ensure technical coordination and collaboration among implementing partners, co-leading annual work planning sessions with the COP and conducting regular site visits to assess and support field-level implementation;
• Support the integration of all project interventions around a Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach, with conflict sensitive and gender equality lenses, and overall inclusiveness;
• Liaise with relevant key stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education (MoE) and Ministry of Social Affairs and all implementing partners, to share lessons learned and best practices from project interventions to increase awareness and generate support, replication, sustainability and expansion of project successes;
• Work closely with the project Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) team to ensure coherence between M&E approaches to successfully monitor progress, provide on-going analysis and corrective action where necessary and create a culture of learning within the project;
• Advise and assist the COP on matters related to partner compliance in technical programming, and assist in the preparation of annual work plans and the production of reports and other deliverables to the donor.
• As required, represent the project as a senior member of the project team in forums with national and local authorities and other relevant stakeholders;
• Contribute and review narrative reports for submission to the COP;
• Collaborate with the HQ-based Technical Advisors to ensure coherence of technical quality and strategy of approaches.

Requirements:

• Master's degree in relevant fields such international development, education, economics, or business, with at least seven years of experience in the design, implementation, and/or evaluation of international development projects; or a bachelor's degree and a minimum of 12 years of experience;
• Demonstrated technical experience and proficiency in integrated youth development and education for vulnerable or at-risk youth populations;
• Demonstrated technical expertise in the areas of accelerated learning and/or access to basic education for out-of-school youth;
• Demonstrated experience with international donor organization's monitoring and evaluation systems;
• Previous employment or extensive collaboration with Ministries of Education, educators networks, employers' organizations and trade union representatives or comparable entities desired;
• Excellent collaboration skills with local, national, and civil society stakeholders;
• Strong personnel leadership skills, particularly mentoring skills;
• Experience in working with a diverse team;
• Strong writing and demonstrated critical thinking skills;
• Monitoring and evaluation skills experience;
• Proven sound judgment and decision-making skills;
• Proficient oral and written skills in English and French.

Security and Housing: The DCOP will be based in a major city in Eastern DRC (specific location to be determined), where it is moderately secure with many INGOs and international actors, but remains unpredictable and security can change quickly. The position is unaccompanied, but the DCOP will receive individual housing with appropriate security and utilities ensured by IRC.

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.

Please follow this link to apply: http://www.aplitrak.com/?adid=a2F0cmluYS5taWxsZXIuMDc5MTQuMzgzMEBpcmNjZC5hcGxpdHJhay5jb20