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 forced to flee from war or disaster. At work today in over 40 countries and 22 U.S. cities, the organization’s mission is the enduring purpose: to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster, including the climate crisis, to survive, recover, and gain control of their future.

The IRC has been working in Somalia since 2006, providing essential services to conflict and disaster-affected communities. The IRC has been operational in Banadir (Mogadishu), Puntland, Galmudug, and Southwest State, implementing interventions in the areas of livelihoods, WASH, governance, and peacebuilding, women’s protection and empowerment, nutrition, education, and health, reaching hundreds of thousands of conflict and drought affected people.

Job Overview:

Based in Baidoa, the Partnership Manager will be a key member of IRC Somalia’s Partnerships Unit and will report to the Senior Partnerships Manager. This position does not currently have supervisory responsibility. Occasional travel to field sites will be required. The Partnership Manager will support the Somalia Country Program in its strategic management and oversight of its robust partnerships across the country. The Partnership Manager will facilitate the Somalia team’s delivery of high-quality partnerships that are strategic for IRC, compliant with IRC and donor requirements in order to provide quality services and outcomes for the communities we serve, consistent with the IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results (PEER) System. Working in close collaboration with the programs, finance, grants, and operations departments, the Partnership Manager will co-lead all steps in the partnership management lifecycle, ensuring that partnerships are appropriately integrated into the overall project cycle management.

The Partnerships Manager will be responsible for building and maintaining strong local partnerships across geographic areas where IRC Somalia works, especially ongoing partnerships for the GAVI-funded project in Southwest State, and for ensuring effective management of partnerships. They will coordinate and manage the sub-award lifecycle in accordance with the IRC’s Partnership for Excellence and Equality System (PEERS), including conducting due diligence, ensuring partners understand applicable donor regulations, and managing receipt and review of partners’ deliverables. They will also contribute to overall partnership management efforts and work to ensure adherence to donor regulations and compliance across grants and sites.

Specific responsibilities:

Partnership Building & Management

• Lead facilitation and coordination of partnership management processes to ensure well-planned, timely, coordinated and coherent partnership management.
• Manage and facilitate funding opportunities for local and national civil society organizations, making efforts to target women-led and women/focused organizations.
• Coordinate and co-lead Partner’s Project Capacity Analysis (PCA) processes, including contributing to and facilitating the collaborative risk analysis and management.
• Determine appropriate partnership agreement type and draft agreement, taking into account the due diligence outcomes and specific project and donor requirements, liaising with HQ for review and approval (and obtaining donor approvals as necessary).
• Co-lead the joint project cycle meeting, together with the project teams and technical Coordinator, and ensure partner participation in all project cycle meetings.
• Coordinate and participate in timely and effective partner program, finance, and compliance review and reflection (monitoring), and work with the Technical Coordinator to address any project performance issues.
• Liaise with the Partnership finance manager and Partnerships team in the development of the partnership tracker.
• Coordinate partners’ narrative and finance reporting processes, including review and feedback.
• Liaise with finance to achieve timely funds transfers and proper financial follow-up and support for partners; work with finance to address any challenges in payments and raise proposed disallowed costs to SMT.
• Work collaboratively with partners and IRC staff to constructively resolve any issues that may arise.
• Where partner performance issues are identified, facilitate timely action by the IRC to address any areas of non-performance as they arise.
• Maintain complete and organized partnership files for each partner.
• Co-lead the review of the performance of the partner, of the IRC (including on the basis of partner feedback), and of the partnership, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned, fostering ongoing partnerships beyond the sub-award project cycle.

Promote Effective Partnerships

• Promote and apply the IRC’s PEER System. Contribute to building a strong understanding of PEERS throughout the Somalia country program and ensure that IRC’s partnership principles, skills, and approaches are applied by staff across programs and projects with partners.
• Facilitate systematic partner feedback on IRC’s management of the partnership relationship, including the documentation of, and response to partner feedback.
• Co-facilitate and guide partner mapping and selection processes to identify new partners, including identifying women-led and women/focused serving organizations.

Partner Support and Capacity Sharing

• Facilitate the collaborative development and delivery of the partner project support plan, ensuring that it appropriately addresses issues identified in the due diligence process and coordinates with relevant departments for the timely, quality implementation of the plan.
• Ensure IRC understands partner capacity strengthening priorities and identifies opportunities and plans for IRC to support partner capacity strengthening efforts.
• Promote efforts to strengthen the understanding and application of PEERS and partnership Principles, skills and approaches in all departments.
• Ensure the implementation of partner strengthening and monitoring plans by all relevant departments (supply chain, technical sectors, finance, monitoring and evaluation) so that partners build effective internal systems.
• Support the resourcing of organizational development support where appropriate for partners in liaison with finance and program departments.
• Collaborate with technical coordinators to integrate technical capacity-sharing approaches, including how IRC can learn from local partners.
• Promote and identify ways for continual learning between IRC staff and partners.

General Partnership Management/Administration

• Records Management: Support comprehensive information management and filing system to ensure all grant agreements, reports, key correspondences, D codes, etc., are appropriately filed in up-to-date and consistent soft (Box) and OTIS files managed by the Grants and Partnership Unit.
• Capacity Building: Ensure training is made available for program and operations staff at country office and field office levels on grants management-related issues, including grant report writing and donor compliance issues, as needed.
• Partnership Tracker: Update regularly on the partnership tracker. The tracker includes detailed and summary Partner information on open and closed sub-awards, reporting schedules and submission dates, upcoming monitoring & reflection meetings, and closeouts.
• Spending Plans: Ensure that each active partner has a current Spending Plan as soon as the grant is initiated, the finance codes (D1) are issued, and the partner budget is uploaded to Integra system by the Finance team. Coordinate and provide support to program and field operations teams to ensure Spending Plans are updated quarterly and shared on time.
• Communication and information management: Provide support, as required, in drafting donor correspondences and taking minutes during partnerships-led meetings, as well as Senior Management meetings, and following up action points, as required.
• Support other program initiatives / work streams/tasks as assigned.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• University degree in international relations, Social Sciences, or another relevant field.

Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years’ experience working with sub-grantees and/or local partner organizations and demonstrated ability to form effective and productive relationships with stakeholder counterparts.
• Experience in partnerships management, proposal development (program narratives and budgets), and donor reporting.
• Knowledge of GAVI, UN (UNHCR/UNICEF/UNFPA/WHO), US (USAID/BHA/CDC), EU (ECHO/EC) and UK (FCDO) donor regulations, procedures, and requirements.
• Ability to work with tight deadlines for report writing/ information requests.
• Excellent organizational skills, ability to determine and juggle multiple priorities, and attention to detail are critical.
• Ability to work in a multi-cultural context as a flexible and respectful team player. Patience, cultural sensitivity, and application of contextual understanding in day-to-day work are required.
• Willingness to travel to IRC Somalia’s field sites or to new locations as needed.
• Excellent written and spoken Somali and English is required.
• High level of knowledge and practice with Word, Excel, Teams, Outlook, etc. required.