Global Practice Lead, Agriculture and Food Systems

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 29 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.

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 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.

Technical Excellence is currently going through a change process called "Regional and Technical Alignment." We are doing this to ensure that the impact of our programs and the influence of our ideas create meaningful change for people affected by crisis. This next phase of IRC's commitment to program quality will more deliberately resource and link global thought leadership with practice on the ground. Updated Technical Unit structures will have new roles with clearer mandates. The Global Practice Lead is a new leadership role introduced by this change process.

Economic Recovery and Development Technical Unit (ERD TU)

The ERD TU is a dynamic team of more than 30 professionals responsible for supporting the development, implementation, and monitoring of client-centered economic wellbeing (EWB) programs. These include, but not limited to, cash and voucher assistance (CVA), agricultural & climate-resilient livelihoods, financial inclusion, and employment (including self-employment) promotion across emergency, recovery and resilience programming contexts. The TU’s technical assistance to this wide variety of programs ensures quality and use of evidence-based practices; promotes innovation, diversity, equity, and inclusion; and drives data-based management and decision making, with a focus on promoting local partnerships, to achieve positive change in people’s lives.

Job Overview

The Global Practice Lead (GPL) in Agriculture and Food Systems (AFS) is the organizational leader for climate resilient agriculture and food systems programming for the Crisis Response, Recovery and Development (CRRD) department and is a core member of the ERD TU’s leadership team. They are responsible for devising and leading strategies to raise the quality, impact, and scale of IRC’s AFS programming.

The GPL will ensure the scope, quality and relevance of global technical standards, including the generation and promotion of evidence in their technical area. The GPL will closely collaborate with Regional Leads, Technical Advisors, and Technical Coordinators in promoting technical best practice in CRRD programming. They will facilitate TU-led and high-impact strategic business development by providing excellent technical insights and developing and maintaining strategic relationships and networks. In line with the Economic Wellbeing (EWB) strategy, the GPL will lead strategic planning for the AFS practice area. The GPL reports into the Senior Director, ERD TU, and will manage highly specialized agricultural and food systems experts/specialists to lead the generation and use of evidence and best practices in TU-led strategic projects.

Major Responsibilities

• Strategy, Program Design and Business Development
  • Act as the organizational leader for CRRD in AFS programming internally and externally
  • Lead strategic direction and Delivery Planning for AFS programming in line with the EWB strategy
  • Responsible for identifying global areas of programmatic risk in AFS programming and elevating issues to Regional Leads and TU leadership
  • Collaborate with other GPLs (specifically the Nutrition GPL) to promote integrated program designs within ERD and across all IRC sectors that increase scale and deepen impact
  • Lead Technical Unit led global business development for AFS programming and support strategic project level proposals
  • Lead coordination with AMU to drive fundraising from Public and Institutional donors and with ER to drive fundraising from Private donors to meet strategic priorities related to AFS programming at IRC.
  • Oversee TU-led strategic AFS awards, working closely with regional Technical Advisors as applicable and the Grant Operations and Analytics Team
  • Line manage global agriculture and food systems specialists, TU-led Project Directors as applicable, and co-manage shared staff (e.g in Social Protection, and Anticipatory Action) with other GPLs.
• Global Practice Implementation Support
  • Responsible for drawing on evidence-based best practice to provide technical oversight of IRC’s global AFS technical standards, methodologies, and tools
  • Accountable for the development of a limited number of high-value tools and methodologies to better integrate cross-cutting issues into AFS programs (e.g., gender equality, diversity and inclusion, climate adaptation, etc.).
  • Accountable for establishing information and knowledge management systems that support Regional Leads and Technical Advisors stay up to date on global technical standards, methodologies, and tools
  • Establish competency framework for AFS and work closely with Regional Leads to identify competency gaps and drive capacity strengthening
  • Accountable for ensuring Technical Advisors and Technical Coordinators have the tools and resources that are needed to measure AFS programming
  • Support Technical Advisors and Technical Coordinators with thorny technical problems, career planning support, and mentorship, as appropriate
• Research, Data, Knowledge Management, and Organizational Learning
  • Accountable for establishing and maintaining a Community of Practice and other channels for the AFS practice area to ensure pro-active and inclusive management with sustained learning, development, innovation, and best practice sharing
  • Coordinate with Regional Leads and Technical Advisors to lift up program learning for cross-sharing and incorporation into global best practice
  • Guide research and evidence use efforts for AFS, working closely with colleagues and leaders in Airbel, ERD TU, other technical units, and regional colleagues
  • Provide technical inputs to AFS-specific MEAL tools and methodologies, and support data interpretation in learning routines
• External Influence, Relationships and Representation
  • Act as a key strategic advisor to Policy & Advocacy, Research & Innovation, and External Relations teams on advocacy campaigns and priority policy and practice shifts related to AFS programming
  • Responsible for identification, development, and maintenance of strategic relationships and global partnerships with relevant stakeholders (e.g. donors, UN agencies, NGOs, research and educational institutions, private sector actors) in the AFS space.
  • Responsible for representing IRC in global agriculture, climate and food coordination mechanisms.

Key Working Relationships

• Position Reports to: Senior Director, ERD TU, CRRD Technical Excellence
• Member of ERD TU’s Leadership Team
• Direct Reports: 1-2 Technical Specialists, 1-2 MIPs with other Global Practice Leads

Key Internal Relationships:

• ERD TU Senior Management Team
• ERD TU’s Deputy Director, Enabling Areas Leads (Research, MEAL, Policy & Advocacy) and other Global Practice Leads
• ERD Regional leadership team across 6 regions, and regional Technical Advisors
• Policy Solutions, Advocacy Influence, and Systems Change Global Teams
• CRRD Senior Management Team and Leadership Group; Regional Leadership Teams
• Global leaders in Heath, Education, Violence Prevention & Response, and Governance Units
• Global HQ and AMU, EHAU, Airbel, IPP
• Key External Relationships: INGO counterparts; UN Agencies, Public and Private Donors

Desired Experience and Skills

• Established or growing recognition as an expert, at regional or global level, with a minimum of 10+ years of progressive experience of designing, leading and implementing programs, with 7+ years in climate resilient agriculture and food systems programming
• Demonstrated experience leading programs in fragile/humanitarian settings and across the humanitarian development nexus.
• 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
• Track record of scaled innovations preferred
• Fluency in English required; Arabic, French and/or Spanish also strongly preferred
• Ability to travel globally up to 25% of the time, occasionally on short notice

Education: Master’s degree in agriculture or livestock sciences, development studies and/or related fields or an equivalent professional experience background is required. Sound training on the use of data and research evidence for programmatic decisions and rigorous analytic skills are an advantage.

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.

The deadline for application is 20th November.

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.