Democratic Republic of the Congo: Team Leader

BACKGROUND:

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of the world's leading humanitarian relief and development organizations. Founded in 1933 at the request of Albert Einstein, the IRC responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises and helps people survive, recover and regain control over their lives. Working in more than 40 countries, the IRC is helping to restore hope and opportunity to millions of people.

IRC governance programmes focus on fostering the voice and empowerment of people and communities along with the organizational development of civil society organizations and public service providers. Implemented in post-crisis and recovery contexts, these programmes focus on:

• Empowering people affected by conflict to that they are better placed to solve their own problems;
• Ensuring that the needs of all groups, regardless of gender, age or ethnicity, are taken into account by local decision-makers, and that people understand and trust the processes by which decisions are made;
• Working to ensure that service providers and people in positions of power at community and government levels are responsive to people's needs and recognize that all people have equal rights that must be respected and realized.

IRC is one of the largest providers of relief and development assistance in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Across a number of DRC's provinces, IRC implements programs directly or through partners in the sectors of health, governance & community development, women's protection & empowerment, education, and emergency response through a network of nine field offices and a range of institutional and community partnerships.

PROGRAMME SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES

The IRC is recruiting a Team Leader in preparation for the upcoming DFID Collective Action & Systems Strengthening (CASS) programme. CASS is a seven-year governance programme aiming to support the decentralization process and specifically the Congolese State to become increasingly capable, accountable and responsive to the expressed demands of Congolese citizens. The programme will be articulated in three integrated components: 1) Collective Action (CA) or 'the demand side'; 2) Systems Strengthening (SS) or 'the supply side'; and 3) Evaluation. The expected Outputs are:

• Poor men and women are increasingly empowered to hold a legitimate Congolese state to account (Component 1);
• The policy development, planning and execution capability of the Congolese public administration is strengthened (Component 2);
• DFID DRC's development portfolio is fully integrated, nationally, provincially and locally.

The IRC will be leading a consortium for the CA component of this opportunity. The programme will be implemented across multiple provinces and will involve governance as well as voice and empowerment related activities around health, education, water, livelihoods, security, justice and media, among others.

THE TEAM LEADER POSITION

The Team Leader will be responsible for the overall technical, financial and operational management of the Collective Action programme and will be reporting to the Deputy Director for Programmes within the IRC DRC office. We envisage that a Deputy Team Leader, as well as a Finance Lead and an Operations Lead will second him in order to carry out these responsibilities, in addition to a team of sectoral technical advisers. The Team Leader should have a strong operational and technical management experience in the context of large-scale local governance and decentralization programmes. This should be also complemented by significant experience with DFID commercial contracts, or similar funding mechanisms with major bilateral donors. Candidates will be expected to have strong knowledge of DRC or of fragile and conflict affected contexts in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the project will be implemented across multiple provinces, the position will require regular travel to field sites.

Main Responsibilities:

• Overall technical, financial and operational management of the programme;
• Supervision of the Senior Programme Management Team, likely to include the Deputy Team Leader, the Finance Lead, the Operations Lead, and a team of sectoral Technical Advisors;
• Overall management of a team of diverse staff, fostering and maintaining a work environment that promotes teamwork, trust, mutual respect, and empowers staff to take responsibility;
• Representation with the donor and partners including government officials, CSOs, INGOs and Contractors;
• Relationship management among the Collective Action consortium partners as well as with partners implementing the System Strengthening component;
• Provision of regular updates to partners and stakeholders and promotion of joint planning and implementation;
• Programme implementation in compliance with DFID regulations for commercial contracts, agreements signed with partners and IRC internal policies and procedures.

Job Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

• A proven and successful track record with at least 5 years of previous senior management / Chief of Party experience managing a multi-million dollar programme in local governance and decentralization in fragile and conflict affected contexts;
• At least 15 years of development experience, with minimum 5 years in fragile and conflict affected states in Sub-Saharan Africa (longer experience in DRC or the region a strong advantage);
• Prior experience with local governance, social accountability, community driven development and civil society development programming, with experience of DFID interventions in this field especially desirable;
• Experience working with DFID, or similar bilateral donors, on commercial contract management;
• A thorough understanding of the institutional and political context in DRC, with knowledge of local governance and decentralization issues in post-conflict contexts, and of gender and inclusion strategies;
• Demonstrated ability for rapid analysis of complex issues, strong decision-making, and translation of programmatic priorities into operational strategies;
• Excellent human resource management skills, interpersonal skills, cross-cultural communication and ease in managing a multi-cultural team;
• Ability to oversee the measurement and communication of robust results and impact, and hold their team and implementing partners accountable for good and timely performance;
• Strong understanding of operational management, fiduciary risk, attention to Value for Money and the importance of learning and continual improvement;
• Fluency in English and French (spoken and written);
• Excellent IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel, PowerPoint);
• Ability to manage a large and varied workload, work under pressure and meet deadlines;
• Postgraduate degree in international political affairs, international development or similar governance related discipline;
• DRC nationals or long-term residents are particularly encouraged to apply.

Please follow this link to apply: http://www.aplitrak.com/?adid=a2F0cmluYW1pbGxlci43NDg1OS4zODMwQGlyYy5hcGxpdHJhay5jb20