EU Partnership Advisor

Position description

DRC ’s EU Representation office in Brussels aims to optimise DRC’s visibility towards, partnership with, and influence of the EU in order to help fulfil DRC’s strategic ambitions. Together with other DRC representation offices (in Geneva, Berlin, and soon in Washington DC), DRC Brussels is part of the Department for Partnership, Advocacy and External Relations (PAER) based out of DRC Head Quarters. The EU Partnership Advisor reports to the DRC Senior Partnership Advisor – EU donors, and is part of a small, dynamic team located centrally in Brussels.

The EU Partnership Advisor also participates as part of the wider Institutional Donor Unit (IDU) team. The Institutional Donor unit is responsible for DRC’s global engagement with institutional donors. Most DRC resources generated in support of our work with conflict and displacement affected persons come from institutional donors such as the European Commission, UN agencies, and bilateral humanitarian and development funding envelopes from major donor countries. While most funds are raised at country and regional level, the Institutional Donors team is accountable for ensuring that DRC has a centralised and harmonised approach of high quality to addressing donors and keeping an overview of funding opportunities. Together with the Representations and the rest of the PAER department, the Institutional Donors team is working to increase DRC’s capacity and ambition to expand, deepen, and strengthen partnerships and fundraising activities with institutional donors.

About the job

As EU Partnership Advisor you will be a core part of the DRC EU Representation team, as well as participating in the Institutional Donors (ID) team. Your overall responsibility will be to support DRC’s EU donor engagement, and capacity strengthening to maintain and improve donor relationships and fundraising efforts.

The EU Partnership Advisor coordinates and helps drive the engagement and fundraising efforts for EU development funding (DG INTPA, DG NEAR, and FPI). In this role, you are responsible for supporting the strategic planning and donor-specific engagement plans in collaboration with the Senior Partnership Advisor–EU donors (SPA-EU) and colleagues from DRC Regional and Country Offices. An important part of your role is to coordinate partnership engagement with EU development donors in close collaboration with key internal stakeholders, namely Regional Business Development Coordinators and Regional Head of Programmes, HQ Finance, HQ Operations, Code of Conduct, MEAL, Advocacy, and Programme Units. You are tasked with undertaking analyses, elaborating donor intelligence to inform and advise senior management and colleagues about the EU partnership development and fundraising opportunities. You will be accountable for sharing relevant information and developing tools on strategic compliance.

Your main duties and responsibilities will be

Strategy:

• Support design and advancement of the global donor engagement strategy based on EU development donor trends and priorities;
• Support the development of donor-specific engagement action plans for EU development donors and steer their implementation, in collaboration with the SPA-EU;
• Contribute to income growth by supporting COs/ROs in meeting and exceeding institutional donor funding targets;
• Support the DRC steering committee where needed on EU development donors.

Partnership Engagement:

• Support on a strong and strategic partnership between DRC and the European Commission for EU development funding;
• Support and lead where relevant on preparation, documentation and overview of high-level engagement between DRC and EU development donors;
• Engage and/or support proactive engagement with DG INTPA, DG NEAR and FPI to address challenges and opportunities related to DRC’s partnership at global level, and inform/advise ROs/COs accordingly;
• Work with SPA-EU on developing clear protocols for sharing information, communicating, and engaging with the EU in strategic policy issues across the organization;
• Prepare, document and overview high-level engagement between DRC and DG INTPA/NEAR, in particular senior management meetings or major donor-specific events;
• Provide support and expertise to DRC country and regional operations on the partnership;
• Represent DRC in dialogues with core donors on regulatory frameworks;
• Actively participate in coordination mechanisms with peer organisations or other networks and platforms – e.g. CONCORD.

Donor intelligence and knowledge management:

• Monitor and analyse relevant trends and donor intelligence, and provide strategic advice on possible impact and ways to adapt across all levels of the organization;
• Feed into information and advice on donor priorities and interests to inform leadership and colleagues on strategic and programmatic opportunities for resource mobilization;
• Develop qualitative and quantitative surveys and analyses to feed into donor trends and global donor analyses, lessons learned and other dissemination documents;
• Coordinate and compile information requested by donors from DRC’s global operations;
• Maintain portfolio overview of EU development funding in DRC.

Strategic Compliance:

• Proactively monitor and notify the SPA, EU Director and Head of unit on global-level concerns and risks related to donor compliance and support decision-making process;
• Disseminate internally key strategic compliance topics as necessary;
• For EU development funding, develop tools, platforms, and internal workflows for efficient strategic donor compliance (this includes maintaining DRC Insite donor pages, updating and publishing internal guidance tools such as Donorpedias, fact sheets etc.);
• Act as admin for key donor digital portals (e.g. PADOR, OPSYS and PROSPECT), including updating, enabling access, and answering technical queries;
• Provide strategic donor compliance trainings – live trainings and e-learning through donor compliance webinars;
• Strengthen capacities of Grants Management Unit staff on donor policies and guidelines;
• Coordinate donor HQ capacity assessment and due diligence processes as relevant;
• Coordinate internal selection processes for global calls;
• Hosting COs/ROs visit – coordinating with visitors/Advocacy/EU Director, scheduling meetings with DG INTPA/NEAR/FPI, briefing notes, prep meetings with the teams, and participate in meetings when relevant.

About you

The EU Partnership Advisor is essential to DRC’s efforts in managing the partnerships with EU development donors, as well as ensuring that DRC stays ahead of strategic compliance topics.

To excel in this role, you will have natural communication and social skills, including networking and the ability to influence. You are comfortable navigating internal stakeholders horizontally and vertically, and representing DRC externally with donors, peer organisations and in other forums.

The role will further require deep knowledge of the European Commission (INTPA/NEAR/FPI) structure and funding priorities, including regulatory frameworks and contracting. This role calls for someone who is both a “thinker” and a “doer”: an ability to work on strategic-level analyses while being detailed, as well as result and service-oriented.

Moreover, we also expect the following:

Required:

• Documented experience (at least 3-5 years) with the European Commission as a donor- especially with DGs INTPA and NEAR, and/or FPI;
• Understanding of the links between compliance and building the image of a go-to organisation for donors;
• Good relationship building skills and proactive approach to partnership building and nurturing;
• Strong coordination skills;
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with an ability to identify, address and communicate the core of an issue even if very complex;
• Experience in working in an international, multicultural work environment, experience at country or regional level will be considered an asset;
• Master’s degree in relevant field of study or equivalent in experience;
• Professional proficiency in languages other than English is an asset.

Conditions

• Terms and conditions in accordance with the DRC Brussels salary scale;
• Availability: as soon as possible;
• Working hours: 38 hours per week;
• Place of work: DRC Brussels, @Mundo-Madou, Avenue des Arts 7-8, 1210 Brussels.

Application instructions

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