Senior Officer, Climate and Environmental Standards

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 50 countries and more than 25 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.

Please note: This is a limited-term position and is expected to last 7 months.

IRC’s Technical Excellence team is comprised of five teams or sector “Units” which have deep expertise in their respective fields: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, and Violence Prevention and Response, as well as teams which provide measurement and finance/grant management support. Technical teams are also matrixed with a team that focuses on the quality and content of cross-sectoral programming in emergency responses.

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 Climate Global Practice Area (GPA) is a new team introduced by this change process.

As climate change increasingly affects crisis-affected populations, it will exacerbate resource stress, intensify social and gender inequalities, drive conflict over resources, and directly force displacement. This is why in 2020, we updated our mission statement to explicitly acknowledge the growing climate crisis: Our mission is to help people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster, including the climate crisis, to survive, recover and gain control of their future. In addition to incorporating the required program adaptations that climate change requires for all of our programming areas, we are also implementing specific climate-related and environmental programming that address the needs of our clients.

Job Overview

With increasingly higher risks from environmental degradation and climate change, donors and host countries have sought to mitigate these risks. The IRC is transitioning towards a systematic integration of Climate and Environmental screenings (also referred to as Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA) during the project design phase to identify potential impacts and risks on the environment and its communities.

The Senior Officer, Climate and Environmental Standards role will be responsible for three areas: (1) supporting the implementation of climate and environmental screenings across the organization with tools, guidance, and resources, (2) supporting country programs with the screenings and development of risk mitigation measures during the project design phase and (3) capacity building. The Officer will work with the Climate Global Practice Lead and other Climate GPA team members to drive projects within the GPA and shape key fora for collaboration. Those fora include a TechEx Working Group across Technical Units and a Climate Community of Practice across all sectors and geographies with the Crisis Response, Recovery, and Development Department. And beyond the IRC, we seek to collaborate with, learn from and influence peer agencies, research entities, government partners and diverse organizations.

The role reports into the Climate Global Practice Lead on the Climate Global Practice Area team.

Major Responsibilities

Climate and Environmental Standards Systems and Policies

• Compile and track host country regulations and donor institutional environmental policies and frameworks to track key intervention areas and opportunities for program design.

• Work with compliance colleagues in the Awards Management Unit (AMU) and External Relations to stay up to date on changes in donor requirements and guidance.

• Coordinate and compare climate and environmental standards guidance with that of peer humanitarian agencies and resource centers

• Track relevant compliance and progress towards on audit responses (e.g. Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS) and Sphere minimum standards on environment) and other external commitments (e.g. Climate Charter).

• Build and maintain expert roster for country environmental impact assessment experts in high risk sectors.

Technical Support and Capacity Building

• Develop and disseminate tools and resources, including donor-specific tools as needed.

• Design and deliver training programs, knowledge-exchange workshops, and guidance material to technical units and country programs. This includes updating information on best practices, evolving trends and challenges from peer agencies to create new knowledge and learning products.

• Work to disseminate tools and resources to frontline humanitarians in peer agencies through existing external dissemination channels.

• Manage central repository for countries’ environmental screenings, environmental plans and host country environmental policies.

• Support the technical units and country programs in the implementation of the environmental risk management and the relevant tools including:

o Screening projects for climate, environmental and social impacts and risks

o Supporting technical units and country programs in the identification and proposition of appropriate risk mitigation measures for identified risks and impacts.

o Supporting Awards Management on donor compliance questions, delivery of training programs and guidance materials.

o Track most common challenges and most common requirements to inform prioritization of supporting guidance, policies, and procedures.

• Review relevant project proposals to ensure quality of the EIAs and associated risk mitigation plans.

• Document lessons learned and adapt resources as needed.

• Participate in relevant external subject area networks and stay updated on environmental standards pertinent to environmental sustainability and climate change adaptation.

• Track sector-wide practices that support donor compliance (e.g. through attending NGO consortium meetings, conducting online searches, reviewing reports. Compile or synthesize relevant reference materials for distribution via libraries and communication channels.

Key Working Relationships

**• Position Reports to:**Climate Global Practice Lead

**• Other key collaborators:**Senior Sustainability Advisor, GSC

Desired Experience and Skills

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in environmental science, climate studies, sustainability, public policy, development studies, or a related field. Master’s degree preferred.

Experience:

• 3-6 years of work experience in international development or humanitarian aid preferred. Work experience in project design, monitoring, and compliance preferred.

Skills:

• Experience in project design, monitoring and evaluation, and/or assessments. Knowledge and experience in climate and environmental screening and risk assessments preferred.

• Experience developing tools, guidance, and templates.

• Strong research and analytical skills, ability to think strategically, analyze and synthesize diverse related data and information. Attention to detail a must.

• Ability to communicate ideas clearly and confidently, articulate issues and recommend solutions.

• High level of proficiency with the Microsoft Office suite products.

• Unparalleled team collaboration skills; comfort working cross-culturally with multi-disciplinary teams

• Strong organizational skills, including the ability to be flexible, work well under pressure, and handle competing priorities in a fast-paced environment

Qualities:

• Passion and commitment to addressing climate change and promoting sustainability

• Global mindset and cultural awareness, with the ability to work effectively in diverse international settings. Lived and/or professional experience in one of the IRC’s regional or country contexts in East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East & North Africa, is a huge advantage

Additional Assets:

• Fluency in English is required; Arabic, French, and/or Spanish preferred.

• Ability to travel globally up to 25% of the time, occasionally on short notice

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.

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.