The International Rescue Committee, one of the world’s largest humanitarian international NGOs, provides relief, rehabilitation, and development support to vulnerable people and communities in over 30 countries. We began work in Ethiopia in 2000 in response to severe drought in Ethiopia’s Somali region and are currently providing assistance to Ethiopians and refugees in six regions in Ethiopia, implementing emergency and development programs in health, water and sanitation, economic recovery and development (ERD), women’s protection and empowerment, education, child protection, and multi-sectoral emergency response.

Job Overview:

The Safe Programming Manager is responsible for delivering on the goal of the Safe Programming team, to establish safe, effective, and responsive programs that are age, gender, disability and diversity informed and are in-line with over-arching protection mainstreaming principles. To contribute to this goal, the Safe Programming Manager will be responsible for IRC efforts to ensure that clients meaningfully access services and that clients’ safety, dignity, protection are ensured through the “do no harm” principles. IRC Ethiopia is committed to the mitigation of protection risks faced by affected populations through its interventions. The Safe Programming Manager provides technical leadership in support of this commitment. This position reports to the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning Coordinator and will manage Safe Programming Officer/s.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Safe Programming  

• Contribute to the development of the Strategic Annual Plan (SAP) process, ensuring that gender equality and diversity ambitions, are clearly articulated and measurable.
• Develop/revise the Safe Programming strategy and its implementation to ensure Gender, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI).
• Ensure IRC Ethiopia delivers programs that are safe, effective, and responsive and informed by gender, age, disability, and diversity.
• Support sectors/departments in Protection Mainstreaming and Gender Analyses during project assessments and design. Ensure design is cognizant of, and mitigates against, any unintended negative consequences that could increase the client’s vulnerability to risks, physical or psychosocial and any barriers faced by individuals and groups due to physical, institutional social or economic factors.
• Based on agreed department work plans, develop annual budgets and ensure approved costs are budgeted for into relevant projects.
• Document and share Safe Programming assessment/progress reports and best practices in order to develop internal knowledge database and disseminate lessons learned.
• Ensure robust supervision, monitoring and evaluation of Safe Programming activities and the impact of Safe Programming interventions in IRC and Implementing partners.
• Advocate for safe programing, gender and protection mainstreaming and coordinate with other stakeholders while sharing concerns, within and outside the organization.
• Find opportunities for gender transformative programming in new and existing programs, and help to develop tools and materials to implement and test these ideas
• Lead programmatic Audits – including gender audits – to check for compliance with gender equality, diversity and protection issues
• Build capacity of staff, partners and as requested the broader humanitarian community on topics related to: Safe Programming (or Protection Mainstreaming), IASC Guidelines on Gender (or Gender Mainstreaming), Safeguarding, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) & Anti-harassment.
• Represent IRC in gender and protection cluster coordination and other related meetings.

Safeguarding

• Ensure the Safe Programming team has an active role in the development and implementation of country specific safeguarding guidelines/procedures and its periodic review/revision.
• Work with the HR team to ensure that all aspects of HR policy and procedure are supportive of good safeguarding practices including integration of safeguarding standards throughout recruitment processes.
• Develop and disseminate culturally friendly IEC/BCC material for promotion of safeguarding key messages for clients, and train IRC staff on safeguarding.
• Work closely with Client Responsiveness (CR) team in the country office and field office, support development of tools for tracking of safeguarding issues and develop case referral pathway for feedbacks coming through CR mechanisms.

Staff Management and Development

• Coach, train, and mentor staff with the aim of strengthening technical capacity, sharing knowledge within the team and providing professional development guidance.
• Supervise and mentor direct-report staff, including communicating clear expectations, setting performance objectives, providing regular and timely performance feedback, and providing documented semi-annual performance reviews.
• Promote and monitor staff care and well-being; approve and manage all leave requests to ensure adequate coverage.

Internal initiatives

• Actively support the Gender Equality Champions (GEC), including selection/reselection of GECs, providing relevant training and supports, development of annual GEC activity plan, securing SMT endorsement of the GEC activity plan and associated budget.
• Provide active support to Women at Work (W@W) groups, facilitating meeting of the national level W@W group and meetings/communication with the SMT.
• Attending and actively contribute to regional W@W and GEC meetings and events convened by the East Africa Gender Equality Advisor.

Requirements

Qualifications

• MSc/MA or BSC/BA/LLB in Law, Human Rights, International Relations, Social Work, Social Sciences, related field
• Four years of work experience in Protection and Rule of Law with specific experience implementing safe programming across various service delivery sectors (e.g. WASH, Health, Economic well-being etc.) is desirable
• Familiarity with global Safe Programming guidelines and tools and protection risk analysis
• Management experience in a similar role with project management and staff supervision responsibilities
• Previous experience in developing and conducting training on related topics
• Experience in participatory techniques and community mobilization
• Previous experience with participatory data collection methods and project monitoring.
• Excellent ability to analyze, interpret and operationalize qualitative data in a fast-paced environment.
• Positive and professional attitude, with an open and consultative approach, able to organize, maintain composure and prioritize work under pressure, able to coordinate multiple tasks and maintain attention to detail. Ability to engage and communicate with diverse members of the community.
• Good interpersonal skills and ability to build and sustain healthy relationships with multiple stakeholders within IRC, in partner organizations and in target communities.

Language Skills:

• Fluency in English (written and spoken) in addition to local Language (Amharic).