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 50 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 deliver 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.
The IRC’s Emergencies and Humanitarian Action Unit
The IRCs Emergency and Humanitarian Action Unit (EHAU) leads or oversees IRCs global emergency preparedness and response activities. The mission of the EHAU is to help meet the immediate survival needs and reduce suffering in conflict or disaster affected populations during the acute phase of an emergency. The EHAU also works in protracted emergencies, where the risk to life may be reduced but the population is still subjected to rights abuses and a lack of basic services.
The EHAU is also charged with enhancing the IRCs global and country level emergency preparedness and readiness capacity. We do this by supporting the development and training of country teams, assisting in the development of emergency focused partnerships with local civil society organizations, maintaining regional and global capacity to rapidly identify and deploy qualified emergency response personnel and supporting country-level contingency planning.
The Health Unit promotes the health of IRC’s beneficiaries from relief through post-conflict. The Health Unit contributes to the effectiveness of health programs through technical support, staff development, and institutional learning. Health Programs conform to standards of humanitarian assistance and promote self-reliance, participation, sustainability, equity, and human dignity. The Health Unit is committed to advancing the practice of humanitarian assistance through documentation of lessons learned, collaborative research, and advocacy.
Scope of work
The IRC ERT staff is expected to be deployed in the field, either in an emergency or roving capacity, for up to 65% of the time and must be able to deploy to the site of an emergency within 72 hours of notification.
Members of the Emergency Response Team are deployed to either support existing country programs in their emergency response, or to initiate a new program in the crisis zone. The overall responsibility of the team is to rapidly and effectively design, develop and manage the IRC’s on-site humanitarian response to meet the immediate needs of the affected population. The ERT is also responsible for supporting the transfer of responsibilities and knowledge to the long-term staff to ensure the continuity of IRC programming and operations.
The IRC ERT Health Coordinator is expected to provide leadership and direction in strengthening an effective, high quality and timely emergency health response as well as coordinating different components of the emergency health response including primary health, reproductive health, nutrition and infection prevention and control in outbreak responses.
They are a member of the Health Unit and the Emergency and Humanitarian Action Unit (EHAU). The ERT Health Coordinator will report to the Senior Technical Advisor of Emergency Health on an ongoing basis and during periods of non-deployment. During emergency deployments ERT staff will work under the direction of IRC’s Emergency Field Director or designated country / regional emergency lead, and will be technically backstopped by the Emergency Health Senior Technical Advisor in EHAU
Responsibilities
Emergency Response (70%)
• Provide an effective, coordinated, integrated high quality and timely emergency primary health, reproductive health, nutrition and outbreak responses including infection prevention and control in health facilities
• In coordination with EHAU, and Health Unit support the country team and HR, to identify health-staffing needs (both national and international) for emergency programs, and ensure rapid recruitment, induction and training of new staff.
• Be prepared to be deployed within 72 hours; emergency deployments take precedence over other duties;
• Ensure high quality and timely integrated emergency primary health care and nutrition assessments, of the humanitarian needs and provide prioritized recommendations for program interventions to the ERT Field Director/emergency lead
• Design program responses and strategy, including co-design with partners, and determine geographic areas of intervention, in coordination with internal and external actors, including Health and Nutrition Clusters
• Oversee the implementation of nutrition programming in emergencies (nutrition emergencies, MAM, SAM, family MUAC, combined protocol, etc), working closely with IRC’s nutrition sector coordinators and technical advisors to leverage in-house expertise.
• Draft technical proposals and budgets for international donors, work in close collaboration with IRC grants and finance staff to finalize proposals and respond to any requests for additional information
• Collaborate closely with other departments such as HR, Grant, MEAL, Finance & Supply chain for effective and efficient implementation including staff recruitment and training, workplan development, procurement and inventory planning, and budget management;
• Collaborate across sectors, including VPRiE (Protection,) ECD, MEAL, ERD, water and sanitation, food security, nutrition and other relevant teams to provide a high quality, multisectoral, integrated response.
• Prepare high quality and timely donor and management compliance reports on grants and sector activities.
• Select and implement appropriate monitoring and evaluation systems; ensure consistent reporting and analysis of results to enhance program effectiveness and quality;
• Ensure compliance with IRC policy and procedures throughout the program team and activities;
• Represent IRC and coordinate with other agencies, local government, donors and other stakeholders to promote deliver of best practice humanitarian assistance;
• Support media and communications activities as requested by the ERT Field Director/CD/in-county emergency lead.
• Assess and provide input on post emergency strategies and transition plans for IRC programming.
• Provide a comprehensive handover to successor or substantive technical coordinator, including ensuring transfer of all related documentation, program monitoring data and staff performance information
Emergency Preparedness/Readiness (20%)
• Working with EHAU and HQ program technical staff, lead the development of emergency preparedness, readiness and response strategies and tools via Quality in Emergencies initiatives.
• Develop a capacity building strategy in emergency preparedness in selected IRC Watchlist countries / regions. Work together with selected IRC countries/regions in developing emergency preparedness plans.
• Contribute to the continual development of appropriate and cost-effective contingency stocks, revising the stock list in accordance with lessons learned in the field and monitoring replenishment.
• Contribute to revision of Health Technical Framework and updating STEP Toolkits.
Non-Emergency
• Provide technical support to existing country programs remotely and through in-country visits or short-term deployments
• Contribute to joint business development activities between the Emergency Health Team and Health Unit.
• Actively participate in preparedness and capacity building initiatives for IRC staff, partners and country program staff;
• Actively contribute to the development and roll out of the EHAU roadmap, Strategic Action Plan, Implementation Plan and IRC Strategy 100.
• Any other tasks assigned through Quality in Emergencies initiatives.
Key working relationships
Position Reports to: Senior Technical Advisor, Emergency Health
Position directly supervises: n/a
Works closely with: Other EHAU staff and Quality in Emergencies section, country health and support teams and Health Unit technical advisors, Regional Emergency Directors.
Indirect Reporting: Emergency Team Leader or Deputy Director of Programs (while deployed)
Requirements
• Bachelor’s degree in clinical or public health; Master of Public Health, or equivalent,
• 3-5 years’ experience developing and managing technical health projects including 3 years in emergency/conflict areas
• Experience with nutrition programming with comprehensive primary health care, including management and prevention of childhood malnutrition.
• Demonstrated ability in resource mobilization for health emergencies.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with international institutions and agencies, local governments and community leaders and develop multi-stakeholder support for humanitarian priorities and advocacy initiatives
• Superior internal and external communication and coordination capabilities and excellent team management skills
• Demonstrated ability to communicate technical standards and best practice approaches to ensure rapid, consistent, high quality emergency response strategies and programs
• Experience managing donor funded programs and grants; including resource mobilization, staff management, budget oversight, monitoring and evaluation systems, and technical input to proposal-budget development and donor reports.
• Fluency in English required, and at least one additional language with priority placed on French, Spanish and/or Arabic.
The Emergencies & Humanitarian Action Unit strives to build a diverse and inclusive team 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.
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 Equality.
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.
How to apply
https://careers.rescue.org/us/en/job/req52214/Emergency-Response-Team-ERT-Health-Coordinator