Job Opportunity: Non Communicable Disease (NCD) Technical Advisor

The International Rescue Committee responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises and helps people whose lives and livelihoods are shattered by conflict and disaster to survive, recover and gain control of their future. In more than 40 countries and over 20 U.S. cities, our dedicated teams provide clean water, shelter, health care, education and empowerment support to refugees and displaced people. We seek a Non Communicable Disease (NCD) Technical Advisor to provide leadership and technical support to programs that support people living with NCDs.

Job Description

The TE Unit is comprised of five technical Units, all of which have deep expertise in their respective sectors: Education, Economic Wellbeing, Governance, Health, Violence Prevention and Response, while cross-cutting work happens with the Gender Equality Unit and the Research & Innovation Unit 

The Health Technical Unit (HTU) is organized in three sectors; Health (integrating general primary healthcare including sexual and reproductive health, child health, non-communicable diseases, mental health & Psycho-Social Support), Environmental Health and Nutrition. The structure emphasizes a clear division of roles between technical assistance core and important functions versus other specialized support functions in order to best meet the needs of country programs and regions. In 2020 the HTU supported programming in 6 regions and 34 countries.

Specific Responsibilities:

The NCD Technical Advisor will provide global leadership and country level technical support to ensure that all IRC country programs have technically sound programs to support people living with NCDs.  The NCD Advisor will split their time between global initiatives, special projects and technical support to country programs.  This is position will be both externally facing and field facing, engaging with the global community working on NCDs within humanitarian settings, as well as supporting the technical quality of NCDs programs across IRC health programs. The Technical Advisors’ specific responsibilities are as follows:

Engaging in business development and program design:

• Support strategic business development opportunities – at the global, regional and country level – to ensure that they are:
• Engage with donors and do outreach in support of global, regional and country level proposal that advance NCD program priorities
•  Support use of indicators for country programs aligned with existing IRC NCD Health indicators
• Input into go / no go decisions on proposals
• When necessary, write technical narratives of proposals in addition to regular review of technical narratives, work-plans, and any program reports
• Provide input on budgets required for project delivery
• Help define approach to teaming/partnering with other organizations

Building technical capacity of country program staff to ensure ongoing program quality and innovation:

• Conduct technical NCD training and ongoing technical coaching for country program staff, including on IRC outcomes, theories of change, evidence and indicators
• With Health Technical Advisors and country program colleagues, support the establishment and/ or strengthening of country program NCD capacity building plans, use of NCD outcome indicators, and quality assurance strategies
• Coordinate a NCD community of practice across IRC country programs to share cross-context learning with country program staff across regions
• Review and share program-specific tools/resources/curricula and work with country program and Health Unit staff to contextualize and adapt global and country-specific materials
• Support documentation of lessons learned and cross-country sharing of best practices from IRC’s NCD programming to foster integrated approach across sectors.
• Support IRC’s contribution to technical working groups in various countries and translation of lesson learnt into policy and practice at national and local level

Special projects support:

• Provide targeted support country program led NCD focused projects.  This may include development of training modules and job aids, behavior change communication materials, tools to measure key performance indicators, and quality assurance tools.
• Provide leadership and project management support for Health Unit led NCD focused global projects. This may include coordinating external partners working on shared project goals and organizing data for dissemination to partners.

External representation and Internal Coordination

• Represent the IRC on the Informal Interagency Working Group for NCDs and other global NCD forums and working groups
• Coordinate and plan with country coordinators, Health Technical Advisors, and other unit TAs to plan and delivery the technical assistance country programs receive.
• Manage and mentor NCD consultants and interns where applicable.

Key Working Relationships:

Position Reports to:  Senior Technical Advisor, Health Programs (Specialized) who is located in New York

Position directly supervises:  This position will occasionally supervise interns, fellows and/ or consultants

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

Internal:   Regular communication with education, violence prevention and response, health, economic recovery & development, governance, research, evaluation and learning, and gender equality technical unit teams. Close relationships with regional and country program teams. Interacts with IRC internal departments, including business development, external relations and advocacy departments, to keep them informed of program activities.

Job Qualifications:

Education: Clinician (doctor, nurse, clinical officer) with a master in public health

Work Experience: A minimum of 5 years of international field experience, of which at least 3 in managerial/coordination positions with Non-Governmental Organizations in humanitarian or post-conflict settings.   Expertise and knowledge of NCDs within humanitarian settings is necessary. Experience in technical tools and materials development and monitoring and evaluation is highly desired. Experience in strategy development and working across sectors or disciplines is highly desired.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies: Demonstrated expertise in working with donors, project design, proposal development, and monitoring and evaluation, with the ability to turn concepts and strategy into measurable action. Able to work with remote, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary teams. Strong interpersonal verbal and written communication skills and ability to facilitate collaboration. Outstanding capacity to understand the country context, portfolio, and overall programmatic needs, and pull and coordinate the relevant technical assistance from within and outside the health unit. Ability to transfer technical knowledge and skills. Demonstrated commitment to renewing and maintaining currency with best practices.

Language Skills: Fluency in English, fluency in French, Arabic, or Spanish is a benefit.   

Working Environment: Up to 30% travel may be required.

For application: https://rescue.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/1/home/requisition/21172?c=rescue