Location: Liberia
Closing date: 11 Jul 2008
Job Description

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global leader in emergency relief, rehabilitation, protection of human rights, post-conflict development, resettlement services and advocacy for those uprooted or affected by violent conflict and oppression. The IRC has worked in Liberia since 1996. IRC Liberia currently implements post-conflict development programming in Lofa, Nimba and Montserrado counties to implement Health, Child and Youth Protection and Development (CYPD), Community Driven Reconstruction and Gender Based Violence prevention programming.

Though Liberia is transitioning from a humanitarian emergency into a post-conflict development context, the needs in many sectors, including education, are still enormous. Years of conflict, displacement, poor governance and an exodus of educated professionals have nearly destroyed most formal and informal protective mechanisms for children and youth in Liberia; and have resulted in a continuing shortage of functioning basic education facilities, inequitable and poor quality of basic children and youth related services. In the transition from emergency relief to post-conflict development, many NGOs including the IRC are reviewing their programming interventions as funding priorities and donors change.

The Child and Youth Protection and Development (CYPD) team is comprised of three subsectors - Education, Child Protection, and Youth and Livelihoods development. Working in partnership with local communities, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Labor, the IRC CYPD Liberia program aims to increase access to education and to create and establish the necessary protective environment for children and youth through a structural, systemic, and operative level approach.

The CYPD sector is today comprised of three main programs. The 'Countering Youth and Child Labor through Education' (CYCLE) aims to move 15,000 children and youth away from exploitative child labor in nine communities in Montserrado, Lofa and Nimba Counties. The LEGACY initiative is a multi-country program, to promote innovative education interventions that provide 16,800 children and youth, particularly girls, access to relevant and protective learning opportunities in Nimba and Lofa counties over 5 years. The Liberia Teacher Training Program (LTTP) responds to the need for trained teachers, curriculum revision and revitalization of a support system for basic education in Liberia, aiming to provide equitable access to quality education. The program will train 800 teachers based on revised curriculum, and support current teachers through in-service training.

The CYPD Director in Liberia reports to the Deputy Director for Programs and is responsible for strategic direction and overall management of the CYPD sector, including administrative supervision, budget management, grants compliance and staff development.

Responsibilities:

The CYPD Director supervises the program coordinators for the LEGACY and LTTP programs as well as the CYPD M&E Manager.

Representation:

- Engages relevant Ministry officials in the creation and maintenance of strong relationships, establishing IRC as a key actor in Education and CYP.

- Develops, maintains and/or initiates strong and productive relationship with relevant donors, (inter) national partners, government as well as UN agencies

- Ensures the proper attendance of CYPD related government, UN cluster and sub-cluster meetings ensuring proper dissemination of information among relevant stakeholders

- Represents the Education and CYP sectors in relevant donor meetings and program design processes.

Program Management and Development:

- Develops, updates and ensures the implementation of a CYPD strategic plan based on the IRC Liberia 2008-2010 Strategic Plan

- Develops, maintains and ensures the implementation of a CYPD Monitoring & Evaluation plan (including the systematic collection of data and data analysis)

- Maintains an appropriate working relationship with the IRC NY CYPD Technical Unit through regular communication.

- Works closely with sector staff to develop and realize a 'mainstreaming' strategy to ensure that child and youth protection issues are sufficiently integrated into all aspects of IRC programming.

- Provides support to the CYPD Sector M&E Manager and program teams to ensure adequate M&E systems are in place on all programs.

Grants Compliance :

- Ensures all grants are implemented respecting and/or according to donor contract, regulations, and guidelines

- Ensures the submission of periodical donor reports to the Grants Department in a timely and qualitative manner

- Ensures implementation and data collection is in line with objectives, activities, and indicators as stipulated in grant proposals

HR Management:

- Assists CYPD sector coordinators in identifying and recruiting quality candidates to fill staff vacancies.

- Ensure the CYPD sector team undertake performance management evaluations of all staff in a timely manner, and conduct PMEs and provide ongoing feedback to direct supervisees.

- Provides ongoing support, mentoring and on the job training for direct supervisees.

- Actively seeks out formal and informal training opportunities for the sector as a whole to raise the overall level of understanding of CYPD and program management related issues.

- Oversees the creation of a 'nationalization' plan within the sector, assessing and highlighting the capacity building needs of national staff.

Administration:

- Develops, maintains and updates the CYPD line management structure through the development of an adequate structure, job descriptions, and performance evaluation system (objectives, interim, and final evaluation.)

- Ensures CYPD staff and partners understand as well as respect IRC Mandatory Reporting Policy- MRP on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, Sexual Harassment, and Financial Misappropriation.

- Ensures CYPD staff keeps an adequate image in front of beneficiaries, local and international partners, as well as donor representatives.

- Ensures CYPD staff understands and respect IRC Liberia Safety and Security procedures.

- Ensures capacity building of national staff on programmatic as well as management day-to-day issues both informally and formally

Budget Management:

- Supervises and reviews the monthly development and submission of (inter) national staff charges to Administration/Finance

- Supervises and reviews the monthly development and submission of CYPD budget requests to Finance

- Reviews budget vs. actual, provides feedback when necessary, and attends the monthly meeting

Qualifications:

- Advanced university degree in education or a related field;

- At least five years of international experience in education (preferably including vocational education), including a minimum of two years in post-conflict project management;

- Experience in education management in the developing world;

- Good knowledge and understanding of education policy issues, including knowledge of planning in post-conflict environments;

- Strong planning, monitoring and evaluation skills;

- Strong personnel management experience, including staff capacity development and team building experience;

- Good writing skills including previous proposal writing experience;

- Demonstrated budget management;

- Excellent coordination and collaboration skills with local communities, local government, civil society, and other NGOs;

- Excellent interpersonal skills a must;

- Ability to work effectively in a multicultural environment, experience working in an African context preferred;

- Ability to adapt to a difficult security environment.
Vacancies Contact
We request that all applications be completed on line at www.IRCjobs.org. Please indicate in your cover letter how you initially became aware of this vacancy. IRC does not set closing dates/deadline dates for applications, recruitment is ongoing until the position is filled. The IRC reviews all applications and you will be contacted directly if you are selected as a candidate.