Senior Scaling, Partnerships and Advocacy Manager - Beirut

Requisition ID: req51735

Job Title: Senior Scaling, Partnerships and Advocacy Manager - Beirut

Sector: Advocacy & Government Affairs

Employment Category: Regular

Employment Type: Full-Time

Open to Expatriates: No

Location: Beirut, Lebanon

Work Arrangement:

Job Description

After winning the inaugural MacArthur Foundation 100&Change competition for a $100 million grant to make measurable progress toward solving a significant problem from 2018-2023, the IRC and Sesame Workshop are continuing into the next phase of the Ahlan Simsim project. In the next phase of the project Ahlan Simsim will expand and deepen its interventions to bring vital early learning and nurturing care to more than nine million children and families affected by crisis and conflict in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq, while also starting work in new parts of the Middle East. The program seeks to reach children and families where they are with effective, scalable, and sustainable interventions to support child development, including NGO and government-delivered early education for children and support and training for caregivers using engaging multimedia content. Ahlan Simsim has developed and will continue to co-design and support partner-led interventions with key public and private stakeholders working across the many sectors that serve children and families, including health, protection, and livelihoods. For more information, please visit: https://www.rescue.org/ahlansimsim.

Job Overview:

The Senior Scaling, Partnerships and Advocacy Manager will be the ECD program focal point for partnerships and advocacy initiatives ensuring proper facilitation and management of scaling, partnerships, and advocacy efforts. The Senior Scaling, Partnerships and Advocacy Manager will oversee the ECD program’s strategic partnerships to ensure proper partnership management, engagement, follow up and coordination on partners’ activities.

He/she will be reporting to the Integrated Early Childhood Development Coordinator.

Main responsibilities

Manage and oversee the ECD Scaling and Partnerships portfolio:

- Lead an evidence-based ECD scaling and partnership portfolio on a country level from design to planning through implementation to closing, including advocacy and capacity development.

- Ensure close coordination with technical colleagues on a country and regional level to facilitate the design and development of adaptable, iterative, and scalable models/packages.

- Facilitate collaborative design meetings to ensure that scaling goals are addressing the partner’s ECD-related needs and are in line with the partner’s strategic plan and objectives

- Identify in collaboration with partners key objectives and metrics for monitoring of activities.

- Lead regular operational plan meetings to ensure alignment and progress on partner activities.

- Coordinate with the partnerships IRC staff to ensure collaboration with our partners adhere to IRC’s partnerships management system.

- Coordinate with the RMEAL team to develop a tailored capacity building plan for the scaling partners to ensure the continuous monitoring of their activities moving forward.

Context understanding and Document Development

- Conduct background research on previous and ongoing efforts related to ECD service delivery in Lebanon, including desk review of project documentation, national strategies, conducting key stakeholder engagement, and attending related meetings and events, to ensure complementarity and alignment with national efforts on ECD.

- Cultivate an understanding of the needs of the relevant systems in Lebanon as they relate to Children and Caregivers; be a go-to in the team to discuss needs and how they relate to the overarching ECD portfolio and work.

- Stay abreast on contextual developments and coordinate with the governance unit on updating political economy analysis (PEA) for country context and other background research.

- Contribute to proposals’ development, presentations, and briefs on an ad hoc basis

- Conduct a quality review of all documents related to scaling partner activities including the outputs shared by the team and scaling partners.

Ensure proper relationship building, management, and capacity sharing with key stakeholders and partners:

- Establish and nurture partnerships and relationships with relevant key stakeholders, including, governmental bodies/ministries, national ECD experts and initiating other strategic ones

- Facilitate Social Network Analysis workshops on a country and regional level.

- Ensure partners’ feedback is taken forward in all aspects of the project whether in technical, scaling, partnerships, advocacy, RMEAL etc.

Generate evidence-based learnings for scaling:

- Document and share learnings with country and regional teams to facilitate cross-national and cross-country data-driven learnings.

- Support and co-lead with Partnerships team on Review and reflection, coordination and Closing Meetings related to ECD partners collaborations.

- Facilitate and document scaling and advocacy events and meetings

- Participate in regional scaling, partnership, and advocacy check-ins to facilitate cross-learnings.

- Work in close coordination with the ECD coordinator and PAC Coordinator to ensure learnings from scaling, partnerships and advocacy are embedded within the country strategy.

- Coordinate with the RMEAL team on a country level and regional level to ensure alignment with the regional learning agenda.

Lead and coordinate policy and advocacy efforts as they relate to ECD Scaling and Strategic Partnerships:

- Coordinate the development of the advocacy goals and plans with the support of the regional advocacy advisor and Lebanon PAC coordinator; ensure advocacy activities are conducted in close coordination with the partners, and ensure they are of quality, strategically aligned and designed, implemented, and monitored in accordance with program requirements and monitoring system

- Identify Decision makers and influencers for each policy goal in close coordination with Advocacy advisors in country and regional levels.

- Work closely with the project team and regional team and lead on planning, implementing, and managing the advocacy and policy engagement activities.

- Maintain proper data collection for advocacy indicators and writing progress reports and updates

- Work closely with the regional advocacy advisor and Lebanon PAC coordinator to support advocacy efforts and coordination of coalitions.

- Support regional advocacy efforts by participating in different coordination groups, workshops, and conferences.

- Lead on the organization of partner events, sessions, and roundtables in line with advocacy plan and activities.

- Work closely with regional and Lebanon advocacy advisor, ECD Coordinator, and ECD team to develop learning products such as evidence briefs, policy briefs, fact sheets, and others.

Key Working Relationships:

• Position Reports to: IECD Coordinator

• Position indirectly reports to: Policy, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator - Lebanon

• Position supervises: Consultants where needed and relevant

Other Internal and/or external contacts:

• Internal: Regional Scaling and Partnership Advisor, Regional Advocacy Advisor, HQ ECD staff, IRC Technical Unit staff, Partnerships Staff

• External: Government officials; partners organizations; Community representatives

Qualifications

• At least 5 years of experience working in partnership with Government, civil society organizations (CSOs), or other local organizations at an international nongovernmental organization (INGO) or similar organization;
• Based in Beirut, deep knowledge of the Lebanon country context;
• Demonstrated ability to cultivate/manage relationships and collaborate with a variety of stakeholders
• Experience facilitating or co-facilitating workshops and meetings; comfortable managing group dynamics, leading workshops and activities, and keeping agenda on track and directed at end goals
• Experience in managing or co-managing multi-stakeholder initiatives, capacity to understand and adapt to different institutional cultures, and relational ease with both high level government representatives and technical staff
• Knowledge and practical application of scaling literature and systems change processes is preferred
• Experience in working on advocacy with focus on policy change or implementation
• Strong interpersonal communication and problem-solving skills
• Strong planning, organizing, and team-building skills
• Strong analytical and writing skills
• Strong strategic thinking and innovation
• Ability to diplomatically handle sensitive situations with key stakeholders and cultivate productive relationships
• Professional fluency in spoken and written English; Very strong English & Arabic writing and editing skills
• Ability to work independently, meet deadlines, and manage work plan and timeline with minimal oversight
• Ability to periodically travel domestically and internationally
• Knowledge of early childhood development or education in Lebanon is a plus

Working Environment:

• Standard office work environment
• Travel required 30%
• Position is based in the IRC office in Beirut, Lebanon