WPE Policy Officer

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 40 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 delivers 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 Violence Prevention and Response Unit (VPRU) works to reduce people’s risk of violence, support their recovery, and promote transformative work for a future free from violence. The unit houses expertise in Child Protection, Protection and Rule of Law, and Women’s Protection and Empowerment to support women, children and other at-risk groups through violence prevention programs that help stop violence before it happens, and violence response programs that ensures lifesaving services for people affected by violence. VPRU has programs across over 40 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

The Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE) programming and policy team strives towards a vision whereby women and girls with their communities, work to create a world where they are valued and live free from violence, and can exercise their rights to promote their safety, equality and voice. WPE programming and policy promotes adherence to minimum standards and good practice in prevention and response to gender-based violence (GBV) to meet the safety, health, psycho-social, and justice needs of women and girls’ survivors of violence.

As a key part of this work, WPE has enjoyed a Strategic Partnership with IrishAid for nearly a decade. Irish Aid and the IRC’s Strategic Partnership is a comprehensive standard-setting GBV prevention and response approach that supports our shared commitment to protect women and girls in humanitarian crises. Through this partnership, IrishAid and IRC together advance on our commitments to the Grand Bargain, Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies, and our shared objective to help women and girls survive, recover, and gain control over their futures. Under this Strategic Partnership, IrishAid has supported IRC to deliver life-saving services for women and girls in five of the world’s most protracted and underfunded humanitarian settings. At the same time, the Partnership has allowed IRC to focus on strengthening GBV prevention and response within the humanitarian system through evidence generation on funding gaps and other barriers to tackling GBV in emergencies, as well as conducing the policy analysis and advocacy needed to ensure key decision-makers address these gaps and barriers through systemic and sustainable change.

Position Overview: This role will work as part of the Violence Prevention and Response Technical Unit (VPRU). The role will be supervised by the global lead for Protection Policy and Advocacy and hold a significant relationship with the Global Practice Area Lead for Women’s Protection and Empowerment (WPE). The role will focus on the Policy and Advocacy Pillar of the IrishAid-IRC Strategic Partnership, developing policy solutions to address GBV in humanitarian emergencies and protracted crisis. The role will support advocacy and dissemination efforts of policy change messages, collaborating frequently with colleagues in VPRU, the Policy and Solutions Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI-P&S) team, Advocacy and Influence and Communications teams, WPE country program and regional colleagues, and external partners. This position is funded through the end of the current IrishAid-IRC Strategic Partnership (2024), with extension available pending funding.

Major Responsibilities

In close collaboration with the global lead for Protection Policy and Advocacy, this role will:

• Be responsible to deliver activities of the Policy and Advocacy Pillar of the Irish Aid-funded GBV Strategic Partnership, which will include:

o Development of an annual WPE policy report on prioritized areas of policy influencing, including project management responsibilities such as hiring of consultants/translators, crafting and supervising a schedule for project delivery, supervising spending, and drafting the report.

o Ensuring accurate and timely annual reporting and supervise budget implementation of policy and advocacy activities under the Irish Aid Strategic Partnership.

• Support data analysis and the design of policy messages and solutions for WPE.

• Support analysis and monitoring of key humanitarian processes, debates, and policy developments relevant to WPE country colleagues.

• Support the delivery of key events and/or advocacy and communications campaigns and products, as required.

• Provide additional support to the team as required, including through participation in global and interagency processes, such as the Call to Action on Protection from GBV in Emergencies and the GBV Area of Responsibility, and civil society coalitions, and potential limited support across other VPRU areas of expertise.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Work Experience:

• Three to six years relevant work experience influencing policy related to GBV in humanitarian action or development settings, and advocating for attention and prioritization of women and girls rights.

• Experience working with national and regional women’s and girls’ rights movements.

• Experience influencing humanitarian stakeholders and donor governments.

Demonstrated Skills and Proficiencies:

• Knowledge and understanding of the global policy environment related to GBV against women and girls in humanitarian crisis.

• Experience in research, data analysis and drafting of documents for policy audiences.

• Experience working on humanitarian emergency, refugee, conflict, or development issues in academic or professional setting, with strong preference for a background in gender-based violence prevention and response and gender equality.

• Experience managing projects, budgets, work plans and preparing donor reports.

• Strong organizational and time-management skills; proven track record to prioritize and deliver on time.

Education: Bachelor’s degree with significant focus on GBV or related subject (Gender and Conflict, Social Work, Public Health, International Relations, Humanitarian, Conflict or Development Studies) or the equivalent of 6 years relevant work experience.

Language Skills: Excellent writing and interpersonal skills in English. French, Spanish or Arabic strongly preferred.

**Key Working Relationships:**This position reports to the global lead for Protection Policy and Advocacy, based in Washington, DC. This position may potentially supervise occasional consultants and/or interns. This position will require regular communication with other VPRU colleagues, particularly the Global Practice Area Lead for WPE, as well as Economic Recovery and Development, Education, Governance and Health Technical Unit staff, regional and country program teams, awards management and grants management staff, and other internal stakeholders, including Policy and Solutions, Advocacy and Influence, and Communications teams.

Working Environment: Standard office working environment. This role may have some international travel up to 15% of the time. This role is based in one of our international hubs in London, Nairobi, or Amman. Other IRC locations may be possible.

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.