RAI Emergency Director
Job Description
This role can be based in the United States or any IRC registered country in Europe.
The Resettlement, Asylum and Integration (RAI) Emergency Director (R-ED) will provide strategic and operational leadership to building emergency response capacity and implementing high quality responses in the United States and Europe. In close collaboration with Programs and Services, and Operational counterparts, the R-ED will advise and guide decision making for Regional and Senior leadership around where, when, and how IRC will both build capacity and respond to emergencies. The R-ED will additionally coordinate and lead support to emergency responders as required. The R-ED will be responsible for ensuring that IRC’s work on emergency capacity strengthening, preparedness and response meet IRC’s, US-specific and international standards.
The RAI Emergency Director is a senior position that will report jointly to Senior Director, RAI and CRRD’s Senior Director for Delivery, EHAU. The R-ED will maintain collaborative relationships with CRRD’s Regional Emergency Directors, to share and benefit from best practice exchange. At the same time the R-ED will be responsible for assuring quality of IRC’s emergency efforts across RAI’s programs, and as such will be expect to facilitate collaboration and coordination across RAI offices, regional teams, and Program and Services counterparts.
Responsibilities
Response Management:
• Ensure the timely planning and implementation of contextualized emergency responses, which are aligned with IRC standards, policies, and global best practice.
• Promote and support high-quality emergency needs assessments and contextual analysis to inform response decisions and strategies.
• Advise go, no-go response decisions, provide guidance and sign-off on response strategies.
• Advise and support on securing funding opportunities, donor compliance, and donor engagement to execute response strategies.
• Coordinate technical, operational, financial, and human resources to support response activities.
• Lead on response evaluation, information sharing and knowledge management around emergency responses to promote learning within and across the RAI organization, and across to CRRDs counterparts;
• Deploy as needed to lead emergency responses e.g. for start-up, for large or particularly complex responses, or as a gap fill in ongoing responses.
• Support deployed key response staff e.g. through sharing of contextual knowledge, coordination, information sharing with regional colleagues, facilitation of donor conversations, strategic guidance etc.& security inputs and support to emergency responses.
• Collaboratively work with Executive and Regional Directors and Program and Service Technical Directors to ensure smooth management and operational integration of response efforts into long term RAI programs.
Emergency Preparedness and Capacity Strengthening:
• Support and inform the development of an overarching IRC global emergency capacity building and preparedness framework in close collaboration with the CRRD’s Regional Emergency Directors.
• Using IRC’s global framework, lead the development and implementation of a RAI-specific plan for emergency capacity building, building context appropriate competencies to empower the effective scale up and management of emergency programming.
• Coordinate the provision of mentorship from various functional areas to RAI programs, including direct deployment to build emergency capacity/readiness as required.
• Lead in measuring and tracking progress against preparedness and capacity goals, information sharing and knowledge management to promote learning within and across the organization.
• Oversee the process to identify and monitor the USA/European humanitarian environment against key indicators and provide regular updates to RAI Leadership and CRRD’s Response Management Tream.
Strategic Leadership:
• Assure effective community of practice and learning across the RAI team to share information and learning, build on strengths, and support continuous improvement.
• Ensure that the IRC remains responsive to emerging humanitarian issues and maintains its position as a leading humanitarian agency.
• Represent the IRC in relevant humanitarian fora, ensuring collaboration with other humanitarian agencies, and governmental agencies and coordinate information sharing on current and emerging humanitarian methodologies, approaches, techniques and policies.
• Act as focal point for emergency-related crisis analysis
Key Working Relationships and Accountability
Position Reports to: Senior Director, RAI and the Senior Director, Delivery in Emergencies (EHAU) via Management in Partnership
Position supervises: Emergency Focal points in RAI Programs (Management in Partnership) where relevant.
Works closely with: RAI Executive Leadership Team and the Emergencies and Humanitarian Action Unit Response Management Team.
Job requirements
• A leader with experience in delivering complex humanitarian emergency preparedness and response programs.
• A professional with substantial experience in senior management roles and dynamic levels of responsibility.
• Proven operational analysis and management skills, including project management.
• A thorough and critical problem solver, who can think analytically, plan strategically and implement long term goals while remaining adaptive and flexible to changing circumstances.
• A strong communicator who is committed to open and transparent communication.
• high integrity and ethical standards with excellent interpersonal skills, collegial behavior, high energy, positive and creative leader.
• A consistent record serving as a role model, empowering others to translate vision into results; effective at delegating the appropriate responsibility, accountability, and decision-making authority.
• A receptive and collaborative team leader who adaptively manages and supports development of direct and indirect reports.
• High dedication to cultivate and maintain positive, safe and protective working environment of gender equality, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Demonstrated ability to successfully work in fast-paced, often insecure, and stressful environments.
• Ability to travel up to 35% of the year.
The IRC strives to build diverse and inclusive teams at all levels who as individuals, and as a group, embody our culture statement creating a working environment characterized by critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity for us to achieve our aspirations as a unit and deliver the best possible services to our clients.
The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way - Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Equality and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation
We are committed to closing the gender gap in leadership positions. We offer benefits that provide an enabling environment for women to participate in our workforce including flexible hours (when possible), maternity leave, transportation support, and gender-sensitive security protocols.
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Qualifications