Project Lead, Ahlan Simsim At International Rescue Committee

Background/IRC Summary:

Years of war in Syria have pushed millions from their homes and into poverty, and millions more have become refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and further afield. Equally complex is the emergency in Iraq, where waves of fighting and displacement have overwhelmed infrastructure and services and pushed communities to the brink. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened these crises, bringing new health, economic, and social challenges throughout the Middle East, as well as interrupting access to all types of services and support. The effects of these crises have changed the entire region. In the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen) IRC responds to displaced people’s acute and longer-term needs with integrated programs that improve health and safety, prioritize children’s education, foster economic wellbeing, and empower communities to regain control over their lives.

The Ahlan Simsim Initiative

The Ahlan Simsim early childhood development (ECD) initiative was launched in 2018 as a partnership between the IRC and Sesame Workshop with inaugural funding from the MacArthur Foundation and later the LEGO Foundation. It reached more than 4 million children and caregivers with ECD services and programs, and generated a library of high quality ECD content, and resource bank of impactful program models. Partnerships with Ministries of Education, Health and Social Development have resulted in co-designed ECD programs that are now embedded within government services.

Ahlan Simsim seeks to reach children and families where they are with effective, scalable, and sustainable interventions to support child development, including NGO and government-delivered early education for children and support and training for caregivers using engaging multimedia content. Ahlan Simsim has developed and will continue to co-design and support partner-led interventions with key public and private stakeholders working across the many sectors that serve children and families, including health, protection, and livelihoods. For more information, please visit: https://www.rescue.org/ahlansimsim.

In its next phase, the Ahlan Simsim initiative will expand and deepen its interventions to bring vital early learning and nurturing care to more children and families affected by crisis and conflict in the MENA region, with substantial new funding expected in July investing in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, complemented by other smaller grants. The Ahlan Simsim initiative is supported by multiple funders and comprised of multiple grants and projects, with an overarching aim of supporting the youngest children and their caregivers with high quality impactful programs and resources. The IRC’s Ahlan Simsim manages and implements core regional ECD grants, and provides ECD technical support and guidance to country programs on additional country-specifics grants.

The Project Lead Role

Reporting to the IRC’s Deputy Regional Director for MENA, the Project Lead for Ahlan Simsim is responsible for oversight of the next phase of the Ahlan Simsim ECD initiative for IRC. This includes successful execution of a new foundational multi-country three-year project grant from a major funder and in partnership with Sesame Workshop, alongside complementary smaller regional ECD grants. The role holds oversight of the wider portfolio of Ahlan Simsim-powered ECD components integrated into other country program grants, to ensure all pieces of this work ladder up to a cohesive Ahlan Simsim ECD vision for MENA. The Project Lead oversees a team of approximately 10 staff (6 direct reports), ensuring team cohesion and positive culture. The Project Lead is expected to start at the launch of new multi-country funding, and thus will be responsible for start-up of a new grant, building on past years of infrastructure, learning and success, to launch the next phase.

Specifically, the Regional Project Lead is Responsible for the following key objectives:

• Launch of New Foundational Grant: Ensure a successful launch of new multi-country, three-year funding of new project under Ahlan Simsim. This includes hiring new team members, setting and cultivating positive team culture, ensuring structures and systems for smooth project management are in place at the regional team level and launching the project with country teams in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.
• Oversight of Ahlan Simsim portfolio: Ensure a common vision for ECD in MENA (with close collaboration with ECD technical specialist) such that activities under foundational and complementary regional grants work in tandem with ECD activities integrated as components of country program grants are seamlessly coordinated for a cohesive ECD portfolio in MENA.
• Leadership and Management: Provide strategic oversight, management, and leadership to the Ahlan Simsim regional team, overseeing the research, monitoring, evaluation and learning; ECD technical; project management; finance; partnerships; and policy/advocacy and comms staff functions. It includes serving as ambassador of the program internally with IRC leadership, and ensuring positive and productive relationships across country teams and IRC functions that sit outside of the MENA region.
• Country Liaising and Support: Provide support, guidance and oversight for ECD program design and field implementation in the region, ensuring that programs are responsive and of high quality, inclusive, evidence-based, cost-effective and scalable.
• Coordination and relationship cultivation with donors and partners including Sesame Workshop: Ensure smooth coordination with donors and partners. This includes ensuring a productive and healthy relationship with Sesame Workshop as IRC’s core Ahlan Simsim partner, who in some cases is prime and in other cases sub on grants in partnership.

Responsibilities include:

Strategic Oversight, Management, and Leadership

• Drive the strategic vision of the Ahlan Simsim program goals for children and caregivers in MENA
• Provide strategic leadership and direction, drive performance and efficiencies, enable effective program innovation, design, and delivery.
• Support project staff by creating and maintaining a work environment that promotes teamwork, trust, mutual respect and empowers staff to take responsibility.
• Serve as program ambassador for learning, promoting a learning culture across the team and ensure project learnings are shared with internal and external actors in the most appropriate format; Work closely with Ahlan Simsim Partnership, Policy, Advocacy and Communications Lead to ensure Ahlan Simsim is maintaining strong external relationships and leveraging communications opportunities to distribute information about program achievements and lessons learned.

Country Liaising and Support

• Provide cohesive leadership to IRC’s ECD program teams in all countries in close collaboration with Deputy Directors of Programs, and the Technical Advisor for ECD, ensuring that priorities and opportunities identified are in line with and contribute to achievement of IRC’s objectives for the Ahlan Simsim initiative, and for core projects within it.
• Provide guidance to the program teams regarding tools and strategies to ensure that programming is based on input from communities, a thorough understanding of the context, and technical best practices.
• Work in close collaboration with the ECD Technical Lead and country teams to ensure content and program models are relevant for users across MENA
• Analyze data from country implementation in collaboration with the RMEL Technical Lead to inform decisions and report, at a strategic level, different metrics of success in ECD

Project and Grants Management

• Oversee all Project Management and Admin functions for the Ahlan Simsim project ensuring that donor reporting, financial management, human resources and administrative needs are supported and sound
• Serve as the primary budget holder for all Ahlan Simsim budgets; in collaboration with team, make investment recommendations for new financing that comes in as a result of growth workstreams
• Serve as lead on management of regional grants managed fully by Ahlan Simsim team; contributes to relevant country program grants with ECD components, offering guidance, and oversight of discrete components.
• Serve as project focal point to partner Sesame Workshop, the prime on anticipated foundational grant, working closely with IRC’s institutional partnerships team.

Fundraising and Growth

• Support Ahlan Simsim growth through strategic engagement with donors, governments, and the private sector in coordination with business development and partnership functions; Along with IRC’s institutional partnerships team, coordinate with Sesame Workshop as IRC’s core Ahlan Simsim partner for joint fundraising opportunities.
• Work with colleagues in current Ahlan Simsim country programs and new geographies, region and HQ to identify ECD funding opportunities and develop competitive, responsive proposals.
• Assist in the writing and development of proposals, including liaising with country teams on program design and delivery approaches.

Staff Management and Human Resources

• Supervise and mentor direct-report staff, including communicating clear expectations, setting performance objectives, establishing a supportive environment while emphasizing accountability, providing regular and timely constructive performance feedback, and leading documented semi-annual performance reviews.
• Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions.
• Promote and monitor staff care and well-being. Model healthy work-life balance practices. Support appropriate interventions in response to identified staff care needs of both national and international staff.
• Work with regional HR staff to identify and implement recruitment and retention strategies.
• Model and encourage active practice of the principles of the “IRC Way – Global Standards for Professional Conduct”.
• Maintain open communications with regional management staff, regional technical advisors, and HQ departmental staff.

Key Working Relationships

• Position Reports to: Deputy Regional Director, MENA Region
• Matrixed Reporting to: N/A
• Position supervises: Regional Technical Lead; Digital Projects Lead; Partnerships, Policy, Advocacy and Communications (PPAC) Lead; Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Lead; Regional Finance Coordinator; and Project Manager.

Working Relationships: *(Internal)*Country Directors and Deputy Directors of Programs; Regional staff including M&E, Comms and Advocacy; Technical regional leads for ECD, Health, Education, Governance and Protection; Headquarters staff including Director of ECD, Awards Management Unit team, and Institutional Partnerships team; and Sesame Workshop staff such as project management team. (External) Host Government officials, coordination bodies, UN counterparts, humanitarian organizations, etc.

Requirements

• Post graduate degree from an accredited university in management, political science or other related field, or 10 years of leadership and senior management experience in the humanitarian or international development sector; knowledge of early childhood development and education programming is desired;
• At least 5 years of experience in managing and implementing large, multi-sectoral programs in an organized and efficient way;
• Demonstrated exemplary diplomatic, management and interpersonal skills;
• Solid understanding of the Middle Eastern context, with previous experience working in the region preferred;
• Strong negotiation skills and the ability to develop relations with local counterparts, donors and other stakeholders;
• Demonstrated innovation and success in staff capacity-building and in participatory, flexible and gender-sensitive programming and implementation;
• Strong communication and analytical skills, both oral and written;
• Fluency in English is required; ability to work in Arabic is a significant plus.

Working Environment

• Standard office work environment
• Travel expected up to 40%
• Position is based in the IRC Regional Office in Amman

The IRC and IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in IRC Way – Standards for Professional Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, and Accountability. In accordance with these values, the IRC operates and enforces policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

IRC et les employés de IRC doivent adhérer aux valeurs et principes contenus dans le IRC WAY (normes de conduite professionnelle). Ce sont l’Intégrité, le Service, et la Responsabilité. En conformité avec ces valeurs, IRC opère et fait respecter les politiques sur la protection des bénéficiaires contre l’exploitation et les abus, la protection de l’enfant, le harcèlement sur les lieux de travail, l’intégrité financière, et les représailles.