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Background : Founded in 1933, the International Rescue Committee is one of the most prominent international organizations working in relief, rehabilitation, protection, post-conflict development, resettlement services and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression.

IRC has worked in Liberia since 1996 and is one of the largest humanitarian actors in the country. The IRC implements innovative health and women and children protection programs in Nimba, Lofa, Bong, Montserrado, Maryland, River Gee, Grand Bassa, and Margibi counties in Liberia.

The IRC is recruiting an experienced Senior Women and Children Protection Coordinator to oversee a comprehensive portfolio of women and children protection projects that includes targeted, short-term emergency response actions, as well as longer-term interventions in line with IRC’s WPE and CYPD strategies.

The Senior Women’s and Children’s Protection Coordinator will be tasked with managing a dynamic portfolio which currently includes:

• The Girl Empower program: which intends to reduce the vulnerability of adolescent girls to sexual exploitation and abuse; working with communities, mentors and directly with girls, it is intended to increase the social, human, and physical assets of adolescent girls in order to improve their future life chances. This program has a significant impact evaluation attached, and will be one of the most rigorous pieces of research into programming for adolescent girls.
• The Parents Make the Difference program: which is being scaled up to reach 1,020 parents of 3 to 5-year-old children in five urban communities in Monrovia. The objective of the program is to reduce violence in the home and improve Early Childhood Development (cognitive, social, emotional, health) outcomes for vulnerable children aged 3-5 years. The program has a very rigorous research component.
• The Child Protection Case Management project: which works in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) and local communities to close critical gaps in the Ebola response and early recovery effort while laying the groundwork for post-crisis programming to strengthen county level social welfare services and improve child protection outcomes.

SCOPE OF WORK:

With direct management support from the Deputy Director of Programs and technical support from Child Protection and Women’s Protection and Empowerment Technical Advisors, the Women and Children Protection Coordinator would lead IRC Liberia’s women and children project development, ensure the delivery of quality programming in Liberia and represent IRC in relevant coordination working groups.

Responsibilities:

Program Support and Planning

• Provide strategic direction, leadership and overall technical and management of IRC Liberia’s Women’s and Children’s Protection portfolio
• Supervise and support the timely recruitment and effective management of staff’s performance
• Ensure that project resources, including financial, are used effectively and transparently in order to further the objectives of the project
• Play a key role with the Deputy Director of Programs in the development of proposals and fundraising strategies
• Assist a rapid scale-up of emergency focused response programming for women and children as needed
• Guide women and child protection, and child protection and gender equality mainstreaming actions within IRC’s to identify key opportunities and synergies
• Lead the innovative adaptation of program approaches to meet the needs of women, girls and boys, affected by Ebola

Capacity Building

• Provide ongoing mentoring and technical support to women and child protection staff to ensure their professional development
• Strengthen the capacity of staff to manage projects in line with IRC program framework for promoting and protecting women and child rights, participation, capacity building, partnership, and planning
• Support the adaptation of best practice training materials and facilitate training of trainings for staff and local partners as needed

Project Monitoring and Evaluation

• Ensure all internal and external reporting requirements are met and that reports are of a high quality and submitted on time
• Ensure safe and confidential mechanisms are implemented to collect participants’ feedback and complaints, especially with regard to IRC Child Safeguarding Policy, Reporting and Complain Mechanisms. In close collaboration with the Deputy Director of Program, ensure that all staff – including non CP and support staff – volunteers and partners in Liberia is trained on IRC Child Safeguarding Policy
• Ensure effective monitoring and evaluation systems are implemented to a high quality, especially in line with the Child Protection Minimum Standards in Humanitarian Action
• Support research projects associated with Women and Child Protection Programming

Representation and Advocacy

• Represent the IRC within the Protection Partners Forum, Child Protection Working Group/Sub Working Group, and National GBV Task Force
• Play a lead role in advocacy related to women and child protection
• Actively develop and maintain effective working relationships with key stakeholders in Liberia including donors, government actors, UN agencies, international and local NGOs, and other relevant actors.
• Uphold and champion the IRC Way Standards for Professional Conduct.

Required Qualifications

• 3 – 5 years direct experience in Women and Girls Protection and Empowerment, Child Protection, Gender Equality, and/or Protection related programming.

• Masters of Social Work, Child Protection, Social Sciences, Public Health, Community Health, Gender or related field.
• Expert in GBV prevention and response and Child Protection humanitarian best practice with demonstrated experience in adolescent girls’ protection and empowerment programming and parenting programs highly desirable.
• Demonstrable understanding and experience of managing teams, budgets, monitoring and evaluation systems and project reporting.
• Familiarity with programmatic research in low resource, complex settings.
• Experience in strategic planning, project development, and donor relations.
• Experience working in a multi-cultural setting, preferably in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Excellent relationship-building, interpersonal skills and the ability to liaise diplomatically.
• Solid ability to provide leadership, management, team-building, coaching, and development for staff.
• Fluency in English is required; must have excellent English-language writing skills.
• Ability to live and work under pressure and remain flexible and patient in high-stress situations.

Other details:

The position is based in Monrovia, Liberia, with occasional travel to the field. This position is unaccompanied. International staff are provided with staff housing, close to the office, and access to transportation.

Standards for Professional Conduct:

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.