Project Director – Rapid Response Mechanism

Job Overview:

The IRC is seeking a Project Director (PD) to lead the Ethiopia Rapid Response Mechanism (ET-RRM), a multi-million Euro project. The PD will be responsible for overall project management, including donor liaison, coordination with partners, team supervision, and overseeing financial operations, reporting, and monitoring and evaluation. The role involves strategic oversight of project implementation, ensuring quality delivery of services, and addressing operational challenges. The PD will represent the project in coordination forums, work with government stakeholders, and ensure the alignment of project activities with broader humanitarian goals.

Key Responsibilities:

Project Leadership:

• Provide strategic leadership for the ET-RRM project, ensuring effective, integrated, and timely delivery of multi-sectoral rapid response programs across Ethiopia.
• Align project activities with the overall goals and objectives of the consortium, ensuring that they are technically sound, evidence-based, and meet donor and community priorities.
• Lead consortium management, ensuring collaborative, coordinated efforts among partners to deliver an integrated response to affected populations.
• Oversee project implementation, ensuring activities, outputs, and outcomes are delivered to the required standard of quality, within timeline and budget.
• Supervise and provide guidance to consortium partners, ensuring clear roles and responsibilities, effective communication, and high-performance standards.
• Organize regular consortium meetings to discuss project progress, identify challenges, and strengthen coordination across sectors.
• Ensure compliance with project contractual obligations, donor regulations, and internal organizational policies.
• Monitor project financials, assess spending rates, track budget forecasts, and ensure timely and accurate reporting of financial activities.

Representation and Stakeholder Coordination:

• Serve as the primary point of contact for the project, representing the IRC in humanitarian coordination forums, including with donors, government authorities, UN agencies (e.g., WHO, UNICEF), and other stakeholders.
• Facilitate communication and coordination with local, regional, and international partners, ensuring smooth operational collaboration and technical support.
• Advocate for the project, promoting its objectives and outcomes in relevant technical forums and external engagements.

Technical Leadership:

• Provide technical oversight and coordination for the implementation of program sectors such as Health, WASH, Multi-purpose Cash Transfers, Protection, Education in Emergencies (EiE), and Economic Support Non-Food Items (ESNFI).
• Ensure projects are aligned with government priorities, humanitarian response plans, and cluster strategies.

• Lead the preparation and submission of high-quality reports to donors and government, ensuring timely and accurate delivery.
• Build the technical capacity of project staff and consortium partners through training, mentoring, and capacity-building initiatives.
• Ensure that gender and protection issues are mainstreamed throughout project planning, implementation, and reporting.

Partnership Management:

• Lead the review of partner proposals and provide strategic guidance and support for partnerships.
• Work collaboratively with partner organizations to strengthen project delivery and explore opportunities for expanded collaboration.
• Provide governance support to partners as needed, including capacity-building and technical guidance.

Safeguarding and Inclusion:

• Promote an inclusive, team-oriented work culture that fosters engagement and collaboration among project staff and partners.
• Champion IRC’s safeguarding policies and ensure that team members understand and adhere to these standards.
• Support efforts to build a culture of safeguarding and accountability, both within the team and with project beneficiaries.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Advanced Degree in International Development, Humanitarian Assistance, Project Management, or a related field.
• Minimum of 7-10 years of experience in project management, preferably in humanitarian or emergency response settings, with at least 5 years in a senior leadership role.
• Proven experience managing multi-sectoral, multi-partner programs in complex and fast-moving environments.
• Previous experience implementing and/or coordinating RRM is a plus.
• Strong understanding of humanitarian response systems, donor regulations, and government coordination mechanisms.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and motivate teams, manage budgets, and ensure high-quality program delivery.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to represent the organization externally.
• Experience working with a range of stakeholders, including UN agencies, NGOs, donors, and government authorities.
• Strong analytic problem-solving skills
• Strong commitment to gender equality, diversity, and safeguarding standards.

Language Skills:Proficiency in English is required, and Ethiopian National working languages is a plus

IRC is an equal employment opportunity employer.IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability.

IRC strives to build a diverse and inclusive team at all levels who as individuals, and as a group, embody our culture statement creating a working environment characterized by critical reflection, power sharing, debate, and objectivity for us to achieve our aspirations as a team and deliver the best possible services to our clients.