Bangladesh: Women Protection & Empowerment Program Coordinator

Job Description

Background: The IRC began working in Bangladesh in October 2017 in response to the influx of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar working initially through partnerships with national and international agencies to deliver lifesaving assistance. In March 2018 IRC secured registration in Bangladesh and has since significantly expanded its programming, focusing on humanitarian protection with a specific focus on women and girls and health. The IRC is strategically looking to expand programming further to meet the needs of both refugee and host communities to allow them to survive, recover, and gain control of their future.

Job Overview/Summary: The Women’s Protection & Empowerment (WPE) Coordinator will provide leadership, oversight, technical support across all WPE programming components, and will conduct regular technical visits to WPE teams working in all program areas to ensure that interventions are technically sound, in-line with international standard methodologies, and are appropriately meeting the needs and priorities of women and girls, and female survivors in target communities. This position is responsible for programmatic resource development and advocacy related to IRC’s WPE emergency response, and overall strategic direction of the WPE program.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Oversight and Support

• Lead on, and provide technical oversight, advice and guidance on all aspects of the WPE programming, ensuring high quality in-line with standard methodology and international standards;

• Coordinate with the Program Quality Coordinator to institutionalize ethical and sound data collection and that information management systems are in place for appropriate GBV analysis, planning, evaluation, and advocacy;

• Ensure regular collaboration and communication with the Health and Child Protection technical leads to ensure all joint programming components between WPE and Heath are highly functional and grounded in standard methodology across both sectors.

Staff Supervision & Development

• Provide technical ongoing support, capacity development and mentoring to the WPE Manager(s), to enable them to successfully perform in their position, and supporting them to do the same with the staff they supervise, including (but not limited to):

• Internationals standards of practice around violence against women and girls (VAWG), guiding principles, women-, girl- and survivor-centred support and services, and specifically on –

• specialised areas of programming including – feminist, social worker and trauma-informed case management and psychosocial support for women and girls as per IASC guidelines; adolescent girls protection and empowerment

• Develop and ensure opportunities for the WPE staff to regularly meet, self-organise and build strong, encouraging peer networks and solidarity with each other, creating a community of feminist-grounded VAWG practice between them;

• Maintain open and professional relations with all team members, promoting a strong, respectful team spirit, ensuring effective communication, and opportunities for debriefing

• Ensure staff well-being and care is prioritised and is an integral part of work;

• When required, lead on the recruitment of new WPE program staff, consultants or other external support, in coordination with HR.

Finance, Budget and Grant Management

• Monitor budget spending in line with the spending plans, budget vs actual analyses, and develop remedial plans where necessary to ensure budgets are optimally utilized;

• In coordination with the Senior Program Coordinator, ensure adherence to grant work plans, spending plans and monitoring and evaluation plans;

• Work closely with IRC Operations, Finance and Grant departments to ensure compliance with grant requirements;

• Support the development and maintenance of effective and efficient quality control and reporting systems;

• Ensure high-quality and timeliness of IRC and donor reports on activities, indicators and achievements.

Coordination, Representation and Advocacy

• Dedicatedly participate in, and contribute to, coordination meetings and working groups, specifically the GBV sub-sector coordination group and other related tasks;

• Enthusiastically build strong working alliances with other international and national actors/organisations working on VAWG-related advocacy;

• Dedicatedly develop and maintain effective working relationships with other key partners, including donors, government actors, UN agencies, international and local NGOs, and other relevant actors; maintaining IRC as a key contributor to addressing VAWG and WPE issues in the crisis;

• Actively seek to establish and develop partnerships and collaborate with the Bangladeshi women’s movement, women and feminist-centred organisations and initiatives to strengthen the response for women and girls and enhance their voices.

Program Development

• Lead the development of the strategy for the WPE program, ensuring processes that incorporate input from WPE field teams, other IRC sectors, senior IRC management, and key external partners;

• Contribute to the development and implementation of the overall country program strategic direction;

• Lead proposal development activities (narrative and budget) through planning and program design with relevant field-based staff, to ensure technical standards are taken into considering before submission;

• Coordinate with other IRC sectors (i.e. child protection, health, education) to provide relevant input and support enhancing the protection and empowerment of women and girls.

Other

• Consistently and actively monitor/assess the safety and security of field teams, promptly reporting concerns or incidents to IRC management and liaising with other external parties as required to maintain/enhance the security environment;

• Other duties as assigned by the supervisor to enable and develop IRC programs.

Relationship to other roles:

Reports to: Deputy Director of Programs,

Matrix management of: WPE Senior Managers with the Senior Program Coordinator

Works closely with: Technical Coordinators, Grants Coordinator, Program Quality Coordinator, and all support functions

Job requirements

• Advanced degree in women’ studies, Gender, social work, social sciences, human rights, public health, or other relevant field or the equivalent in professional work;

• Four or more years’ experience in VAWG programming or GBV with a specific focus on women and girls;

• Experience in directly supporting women and girl survivors of male violence;

• Deep understanding of the impact and dynamics of men’s violence against women and girls, and confirmed grounding in radical feminist, women and girl-centred, anti-oppressive practice;

• Previous experience in emergency preparedness and response;

• Demonstrated coordination, networking and relationship building skills with key partners including government, donors, INGOs, national and local organisations, UN agencies;

• Demonstrated experience in successfully leading, building and strengthening a program team of 20 + staff in a dynamic, challenging and changing context;

• Shown experience in supervising, mentoring and building capacity of national staff;

• Strong experience, knowledge and skills in participatory methods and community development;

• Confirmed experience in facilitating practical workshops and learning on this issues outlined in the areas of responsibility for this position (listed above);

• Strong ability to respect differences of culture, opinion and lived experiences while upholding rights-based principles and women’s protection and empowerment;

• Excellent social skills, positive and professional attitude, ability to lead and work well in a team setting and with multiple partners;

• Strengths in listening, empathy, flexibility, and creativity;

• Fluency in English Language - essential.

Major challenges:

• Building the capacity of a team from the bottom up.

• Demonstrating strong technical leadership in coordination forums and in partnerships where other agencies may need significant technical guidance and support to meet standards.

• Sourcing appropriate sites for WPE response.

Deliverables/KPI

• Build the capacity of the WPE Team, ensuring strong technical knowledge as well as capacity as trainers and facilitators.

• Work openly and reciprocally with colleagues in Child Protection, Health and Education, looking to demonstrate IRC’s strengths through combined approaches that serve the needs of girls, boys and their caretakers.

• Serve as a consistent and technically sound voice in coordination forums, demonstrating IRC’s thought leadership and collaborating well with other agencies.

Professional standards: The IRC and IRC workers are required to 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 implements policies on Beneficiary Protection from Exploitation and Abuse, Child Safeguarding, Anti Workplace Harassment, Fiscal Integrity, and Anti-Retaliation.

Applications to be submitted on: https://rescue.csod.com/ats/careersite/jobdetails.aspx?site=1&c=rescue&id=3590