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.

We aim to make our programs a model for the highest global standards and to cultivate power and lasting change not just for our clients but for all people affected by humanitarian crises. To achieve that vision, the IRC’s Technical Excellence (TE) group, located within the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) Department, provides technical assistance to IRC’s country program staff and shares what we learn to influence policy and practice.

IRC’s Technical Excellence team is comprised of five teams or sector “Units” which have deep expertise in their respective fields: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, and Violence Prevention and Response, as well as teams which provide measurement and finance/grant management support. Technical teams are also matrixed with a team that focuses on the quality and content of cross-sectoral programming in emergency responses.

IRC’s Technical Excellence teams offer five core services to IRC country programs and the wider organization:

1. Program Design: We support country and regional teams to design state of the art programming, incorporating the best available evidence, cost data, and expertise of what has worked elsewhere, with the knowledge that country teams, partner organizations and our clients bring to the table.

2. Quality Assurance: We partner with our measurement teams to design and drive the use of indicators to measure progress towards outcomes; we partner with regional and country teams to review program delivery progress and help address implementation challenges and adapt interventions to changed circumstances.

3. Business Development: We partner within and outside the IRC to design winning bids and identify winning consortia; we deploy technical expertise in public events and private meetings to position IRC as a partner of choice.

4. Research & Learning: We partner with our research lab to design cutting edge research to fill evidence gaps, and with country teams to learn from implementation such that we continuously improve our future design and delivery.

5. External Influence: We showcase the IRC’s programs, technical insights and learning in order to influence and improve the humanitarian sector’s policy and practice.

The Violence Prevention and Response Unit at the IRC –

The Violence Prevention and Response Unit (VPRU) is one of IRC’s five Technical Units alongside Health, Education, Economy Recovery and Development and Governance. Technical Units provide support to our country programs in the design, delivery, quality assurance and continuous learning for programs advancing the outcomes areas the IRC supports and driving thought leadership around those areas of work.

Programming addressing violence, abuse and exclusion in crisis situations represents the organisation’s second largest programmatic portfolio.

The VPRU brings together the disciplines of Child Protection, Women’s Protection and Empowerment, and Protection- Rule of Law. We seek to reduce people’s vulnerability to violence and support them to recover from the consequences of violence through programs tailored to individual needs and contexts, as well as strategies addressing systemic gaps which contribute to the perpetuation and exacerbation of violence in crisis and conflict environments. Our prevention work focuses on programs that shift power dynamics, promote human rights, and empower people affected by violence and inequality to transform their future. Our response work focuses on ensuring lifesaving and survivor-centered services for people affected by violence and inequality in all their diversity. We work with the people most at risk and seek to address the needs of populations of all ages and backgrounds through a context-relevant, client-centered, intersectional approach.

We also know from evidence and experience that in most contexts women and children are disproportionally impacted by unequal power, and therefore those at greatest risk of violence. For this reason, we are committed to specialized approaches for these populations.

To advance IRC’s delivery of Violence Prevention and Response programming across over 45 countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, we rely on team of more than 70 professionals committed to provide best-of-class expertise, evidence-based insights based on continued attention to sectoral developments and learning from cross-regional programming insights in order to realize our ambitions for safer, more inclusive lives for our clients. They are supported in this by an intentional and strategic use of research and evidence, a commitment to the highest quality standards and continued engagement in industry-wide development including coordination mechanism, policy to promote innovation and high-impact, cost-efficient interventions. We partner with IRC country program teams and local actors to create and capture innovations in protection programming which can be used by humanitarian actors to improve the protection and empowerment of women and girls, children and adolescents, people with disabilities, with diverse Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) and other people at risk.

Job Overview

The Violence Prevention Advisor will lead VPRU’s strategic work, thinking and programming, focused on prevention of violence against women, girls, boys and men, in all its forms, building on the experience and knowledge gained through years of experience, research and evidence from across IRC’s programming and beyond.

Reporting into the Global Practice Leads for Child Protection, Women’s Protection and Empowerment and working closely with the GPL for Protection Rule of Law, the Violence Prevention Advisor will focus on exploring how to scale prevention programs at the IRC, with a focus on reaching those most in need, exploring different approaches to scale and continuing to build the evidence base for taking IRC’s prevention programming approaches to scale.

The Purpose of the Role

The Prevention Advisor is responsible for the key overall thematic area of Violence Prevention, focusing on prevention of violence against, women and girls, children, and other at risk groups. Within this thematic area the advisor is responsible for the promotion of more humanitarian programming at the IRC that focuses on addressing drivers of violence, rooted in a strong analysis of context, power, gender and how intersecting aspects of identity may result in violence, discrimination, oppression and exclusion. Under the thematic area of violence prevention, the advisor holds responsibility related to Program Implementation, Strategy Development, Business Development, and external/internal representation in coordination with relevant stakeholders.

Scope and Authority:

The Prevention Advisor is the VPRU Technical Lead for the aforementioned thematic areas and is a member of the VPRU leadership team. (S)he leads all aspects of VPRU TU-led program management related to those areas, including business development and implementation. (S)he leads internal and external representation with regards to those technical areas.

Key Accountabilities:

Strategy Development & Implementation

• Lead the development of the Prevention strategy for VPRU, working closely with the VPRU Inclusion team, the Senior Director, the VPRU Global Practice leads and IRC country program staff including regional VPRU STAs and TAs and in line with IRC S100 Strategy & Safety Strategy.

• Define the direction, role, and structure of VPRU’s Prevention team, the areas of focus and ensure cohesion and coordination.

• Provide guidance and strategic direction to ensuring violence prevention support to IRC country programs by understanding and addressing the capacity strengthening gaps of technical advisors across the regions where IRC works.

• Support the development and implementation of VPRU’s prevention research agenda, in close coordination with the VPRU and Child Protection researchers.

• Coordinate and work closely with Airbel Impact Lab, the VPRU Global Practice Leads of Child Protection, WPE and PROL, to develop a scaling strategy for Safe at Home programming approach, exploring funding opportunities and coordinating closely with country teams to promote uptake of the approach.

• Lead, in collaboration with VPRU MEAL team, on analysis of outcomes and learning from VPRU’s prevention work implemented through different approaches and intervention models.

Business Development

• Support/Lead the development of business opportunities on violence prevention to support IRC’s Prevention strategy

• Maintain an up-to-date portfolio of project ideas (i.e. concept notes)

• Maintain communication with the VPRU Country Support team on potential partnership for project ideas and direct communication with country teams as appropriate

• Maintains communication with donors and potential external partners on violence prevention

Program Implementation & Technical Assistance

• Lead the implementation of the EMAP and EMAP PLUS coaching and capacity strengthening activities with UNHCR staff (UNHCR funded project)

• Coordinate closely with the Adolescent Girl Advisor on activities under the UNHCR funded project

• Lead internal discussions on the scaling strategy for the Safe and Home, in close coordination with Airbel and Global Practice leads in VPRU.

• Support, as needed, in the implementation of Safe at Home, including delivering trainings on the curriculum and methodology to VPRU TAs across the regions.

• Oversee, in coordination with grants and operations team, and the Adolescent Girl Advisor, the appropriate grant and financial management of the UNHCR funded project.

Provide leadership on internal initiatives

• Ensure a direct line of communication with other sectors and internal actors, towards the goal of implementing the IRC prevention strategy.

• Lead on the development of internal communication materials (e.g. Briefing Notes, RescueNet)

• Represent VPRU/Tech Ex and the Violence prevention priority in internal processes related to the implementation of the prevention strategy, with a strong focus on the Safe at Home approach.

External Representation (10%)

• Represents VPRU in external meetings and coordination fora, with a focus on violence prevention, as appropriate.

• Coordinate and where appropriate represent IRC in the SVRI annual event, including defining our participation and presentation of IRC’s work.

Key Working Relationships

• Position Reports to: this position will report jointly into the Global Practice Leads for Child Protection and WPE, as an MiP.

• Direct Reports: N/A

Key Internal Relationships:

• VPRU Senior Director and VPRU Deputy Director

• VPR Regional Leads across 6 regions, and regional Technical Advisors

• Global Practice Leads for Child Protection, WPE and PROL

• VPRU MEAL Lead

• Inclusion Lead

• VPRU Policy and Advocacy Lead and WPE Policy Officer

• VPRU Business Development and Partnership Lead

• Airbel Impact Lab and Senior Director for Research

• Policy Solutions, Advocacy Influence, and Systems Change Global Teams

• CRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership Teams

• Global HQ and AMU focal points

Key External Relationships: CP Alliance, CP AoR, GBV AoR, GPC, UNICEF, UNHCR

Desired Experience and Skills

• Established or growing recognition as an expert in the Violence prevention programming, at regional or global level, with a minimum of 6-8 years of progressive experience of designing, leading and implementing violence prevention programs.

• Experience and knowledge of programming to address co-occurrence of violence in the home

• Experience implementing male engagement programming for prevention of violence against women and girls, such as EMAP or EMAP PLUS

• Strong track record of scaled innovations preferred, ideally including experience working on both digital and analog solutions

• Strong track record of driving uptake of evidence-based practice

• Demonstrated experience in sectoral strategy design and planning

• Experience with sectoral policy and advocacy efforts and campaigns for change (as relevant)

• Excellent communication, influencing, and storytelling skills

• Excellent management and leadership skills including coaching, mentoring, and performance management

• Demonstrated ability to identify and convert business development opportunities for self and staff

• Demonstrated ability to influence across a wide range of diverse stakeholders internally and externally

• Demonstrated ability to shape the vision and agenda within the domain area they are working

• Ability to work, manage, and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment; outstanding business acumen, critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making skills required

• Superb inter-personal, written and verbal communication skills with ability to collaborate across countries, cultures, and departments

• Fluency in English and French required; Arabic and/or Spanish also strongly preferred

• Ability to travel globally up to 25% of the time, occasionally on short notice

Compensation:

Posted pay ranges apply to US and 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.

US Benefits:

The IRC offers a comprehensive and highly competitive set of benefits. All US employees are eligible for sick time, a 403b retirement savings plans: up to 4.5% immediately vested matching contribution, plus an 3-7% additional IRC contribution, and an Employee Assistance Program which is available to our staff and their families to support in times of crisis and mental health struggles.

In addition, full-time employees are eligible for 10 US paid holidays, 20-25 paid time off days, disability & life insurance, medical, dental, and vision insurance (employee contribution starting at $135, $7, and $5 per month respectively) and FSA for healthcare, childcare, and commuter costs. Part-time employees are eligible for a proportionate amount of paid time off. These additional benefits apply to employees who work at least 6 months within a 12 month time period.

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.