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.
To achieve our vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) provides technical assistance through global initiatives and networks and to IRC’s country program staff and share learnings to influence policy and practice. TE is comprised of five technical units: Economic Recovery and Development; Education; Governance; Health; and Violence Prevention and Response (VPRU). Within VPRU, IRC has three global practice areas: Child Protection, Protection and Rule of Law and Women’s Protection and Empowerment.
The Child Protection Global practice area coordinates with other actors and provides technical contributions to the sector by working with the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (the Alliance).
The Alliance
Established in 2016, the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (herein referred to as the Alliance) is a network of over 260 organizations from the humanitarian child protection sector and beyond, committed to this fundamental vision: a world in which children are protected from abuse, neglect, exploitation, and violence in all humanitarian settings. The Alliance carries out its mission to support the efforts of humanitarian actors to achieve high-quality and effective child protection interventions in humanitarian settings, through the collaborative effort of its many members participating in its Working Groups, Task Forces, Initiatives, and through the Governance bodies (Secretariat, Steering Committee and Executive Committee). The Child Protection Alliance serves as the leading global inter-agency network for the development of quality and evidence-informed standards, technical guidance, resources, and tools within the child protection for humanitarian action sector. The Alliance is the primary sectoral convener for child protection actors, and a leading advocate for children and child protection in humanitarian action. The Alliance is co-led by a National NGO, and INGO (Deputy Director) and a UN Agency (Director). The IRC is the INGO co-lead from 2025.
POSITION OVERVIEW
The Deputy Director is hosted by the IRC and provides leadership to The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (the Alliance) to achieve high quality, high impact results for children that are informed by evidence, data, and best practice. Specifically, the Deputy Director, in collaboration with the Director, supports the achievement of the collective work of the Alliance to ensure that the efforts of national and international actors are of high quality and effective in protecting children in humanitarian settings.
The Deputy Director is responsible for establishing productive and effective relationships within the IRC and with members of the Alliance to improve upon collaboration, diversity and quality of the work of the Alliance.
Key Accountabilities, Duties and Tasks
1. Strategic leadership
• Provide support to the Alliance Director in the formulation and periodic revision and updating of work plans for the Alliance to ensure they are consistent with the stated goal and outcomes and that work planned is relevant, results-oriented, cost effective and incorporates a clear measurement framework.
• In agreement with the Alliance Director, lead on relevant Alliance initiatives related to the Alliance Strategy.
• Identify synergies between Alliance priorities and IRC priorities, and support the IRC as relevant in the delivery of IRC’s strategic priorities
2. Governance
• Join the Alliance ExCom and Steering Committee meeting as an ex-officio member
• Contribute to transparent governance arrangements through support to the Director, and the Co-Leads.
3. Management and convening
• Ensure appropriate mechanisms are in place for coordinating and tracking progress of Alliance WG, TF and Initiatives, the sharing of lessons and experiences, and reporting against goals and objectives of the Alliance.
• Coordinate across WG, TF, and initiatives towards coherence and complementarity in their work.
• Receive and review requests to establish or disband Alliance Task Forces and, in collaboration with the Director, submit recommendations to the Steering Committee.
• Facilitate regular contact and information flow between member agencies and individuals as required to maintain excellent relationships and harmonised approaches and activities across the relevant areas of the Alliance work plan, to facilitate satisfactory completion of all interagency projects and commitments.
• Plan and coordinate, with support from the Alliance Director, the Annual Meeting for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action ensuring that it is relevant to current sector needs and priorities and an accessible and engaging space for members, practitioners and advocates.
• In collaboration with the Alliance Director, plan and coordinate the annual internal meeting ensuring that it provides a forum for effective governance, planning, review and fundraising for the Alliance.
• Support the Alliance Director in day-to-day management of the secretariat.
• Report to the Alliance ExCom on strategic updates of the technical groups
4. Technical guidance and support
• In consultation with the Director, sign off the Alliance working group and Task Force products for Alliance endorsement
• In coordination with the Director, provide technical oversight and support to the work of a select number of working groups, task forces and initiatives within the Alliance.
• Support the inter-agency identification of needs, gaps and areas of improvement for technical guidance and support.
• Upon request from the Child Protection AoR and/or UNHCR, organize the provision of technical support from across the Alliance for in-country actors.
5. Networking and partnership building
• Support the Alliance Director to build and strengthen strategic partnerships through networking and advocacy with, UN system agency partners, donors, relevant institutions, NGOs; peer partnership/alliances/coalitions, funders, research institutes and private sector to reinforce cooperation and/or pursue opportunities to promote goals and achieve sustainable and broad results on child protection
• Support the Alliance Director in strategic discussions to influence policy and agenda setting for promoting child protection in humanitarian response.
• Support the Alliance Secretariat in the development of communication strategies, implementation plans and activities for maximum communication impact and outreach to promote awareness for sustainable results for protection of children affected by humanitarian action.
• Support the Alliance Director in strategic engagement with donors to promote the centrality of children and their protection in humanitarian action
6. Innovation and knowledge management
• Contribute to IRC’s organizational research and learning agenda
• Keep abreast of latest research and evidence and facilitate the generation and dissemination of best practices and knowledge learned.
• Collaborate with IRC technical advisors in Child Protection, Protection Rule of Law and Women’s Protection and Empowerment to promote uptake of inter-agency resources within the IRC and share learning from IRC work with Alliance members
• Contribute to the IRC’s and the Alliance’s knowledge management work to ensure effective dissemination, roll out and use of Alliance products by relevant actors and within the IRC.
• Support the director in introducing and promoting best and cutting-edge practices on child protection programming.
• Share cross-contextual learnings generated from the Alliance with IRC’s VPRU and relevant sector staff across the technical unit in internal (IRC) networking spaces
7. Fundraising and financial management
• Identify opportunities for joint fundraising between IRC and the Alliance
• Support the Alliance director in implementing the fundraising strategy formulated by the Alliance ExCom and approved by the Alliance Steering Committee, to facilitate the implementation of the workplan, as well as the functioning of the secretariat.
• Support the co-host entity.
PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
Success in this position requires an individual with expertise in coordination and management of Child Protection agencies and cross-cultural teams, and with a deep understanding of the cultural, societal, and political contexts in at least three of the regions where IRC operates.
Work Experience:
• A minimum of 6-8 years of relevant experience in coordinating, managing or implementing Child Protection networks or programs, with on the ground programmatic experience in a service delivery organization, NGO or comparable international agency required.
• Demonstrated track record in the development of global public goods and resource mobilization.
• Experience and familiarity with related donors, peer agencies and national contexts, preferably in humanitarian, post-crisis, or climate impacted contexts.
• Experience in leading alliances, multiagency collaborations and interagency platforms is a strong asset.
Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with internal and external stakeholders at all levels.
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Strong organizational and time-management skills; proven ability to prioritize and deliver projects on time and independently.
• Demonstrated attention to detail in review of documents and ability to carefully synthesize and maintain accuracy in verbal and written communication
• Demonstrated ability to navigate a dynamic, cross-functional, global team structure in a large multi-national network.
• Strong analytic problem-solving skills.
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office suite.
• Ability to manage and work through change in a proactive and positive manner.
Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Social sciences, Child Rights, Development Studies, Social Work or a relevant field required, Master’s Degree preferred.
Language Skills: Excellent spoken and written English and additional IRC language (Arabic, French, Spanish,) is required.
Key Working Relationships: This position reports to the Child Protection Global Practice Lead based in Geneva. Regular communication with other specialists and Global Practice Leads within the Violence Prevention and Response unit, regional teams, awards management and grants management staff, and other internal stakeholders.
Working Environment: Standard office working environment. This role may have some international travel up to 20% of the time. This role is based in one of our international hubs in Amman, London, Nairobi, New York]. Other IRC locations may be possible.
For staff based in IRC’s New York or London offices: This role may require working remotely full or part-time and part-time remote employees may be required to share workspaces.
Compensation:
Posted pay ranges apply to UK-based candidates. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity, and budget. Exact offers are calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.
**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.
