The Purpose of the Role

The Program Development Advisor (PDA), will support Great Lakes country programs in securing funding for their programmes, through supporting and leading pursuit of new funding opportunities, in line with IRC’s Business Development Strategy. Support will include all phases of the business development process, from opportunity identification to contract signature; including pre-positioning, partnerships building, proposal development, and due diligence phases. The successful candidate will have a strong track record of working on new funding opportunities in humanitarian and international development with a range of multilateral and bilateral donors (USAID, US Department of State, FCDO, EU and ECHO, GFFO, BMZ, Sida, SDC, World Bank, etc.), as well as experience collaborating with local partner organizations.

The PDA will support business development in the IRC’s Great Lakes region, which comprises country programs in Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Tanzania. Candidates who are from these countries and/or have significant experience in the region are strongly encouraged to apply.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Help drive business development in the region by providing effective proposal support, ranging from proposal management to comprehensive support and quality assurance.
• Support in building IRC’s visibility with donors, peers, and partners.
• Coordinate proposal development, including sharing initial assessment of new opportunities, preparing timelines, ensuring the proposal team adheres to deadlines, supporting recruitment, assisting in budget development, ensuring document completion, organizing meetings and compiling notes, and drafting and proofreading proposal sections.
• Support country programs in increasing local ownership of projects in alignment with IRC’s partnership strategy, through growing IRC’s collaboration with and support to local organisations in Great Lakes countries.
• Collaborate with technical units, country offices, and other colleagues to support conceptualization of winning programme and bid designs for new project activities and/or amendments to current projects.
• Coordinate and communicate with consortium partners with consortium partners. Compile inputs from proposal team members, including consultants and partners. Identify partners, consultants, and other proposal development support as needed.
• Provide quality assurance and quality compliance support on proposals. Ensure responsiveness to and compliance with solicitation documents and with IRC’s requirements.
• Collaborate with country programs to successfully position for new funding opportunities. Lead and assist in the identification, tracking and updating of new business opportunities across a variety of technical sectors and donors.
• Lead or support pre-positioning for specific opportunities, including facilitating technical brainstorming, partner and competitor landscape analysis and win theme sessions with technical and country staff.
• Facilitate the identification of consultants and/or additional support for opportunities in collaboration with the country team.
• Facilitate internal post-submission debrief sessions with country teams, technical units, regional team and other relevant stakeholders to collect lessons learned.
• Work with regional program support team colleagues to incorporate lessons learned from implementation at the proposal stage.
• Maintain complete and accurate electronic files, including final submission packages.

Skills, Knowledge and Qualifications:**

• Experience in developing and supporting humanitarian and development proposals for NGOs
• Experience with strategies and proposal processes of key government/statutory donors – US, UK, EU, German, Scandinavian, etc.
• Experience in collaborating with and supporting national and community-based partners
• Experience in proposal budgeting a plus
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, including the ability to effectively collaborate across a variety of relationships in a multicultural environment
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate equally effectively with colleagues in remote and diverse teams, including as team leader for proposals
• Clear, compelling writing skills
• Ability to multi-task and prioritize effectively
• Ability to travel within central Africa (approximately 20% of time)
• Fluency in English and French

IRC strives to be an equal opportunities employer. IRC is committed to equality of opportunity and to non-discrimination for all job applicants and employees, and we seek to ensure we achieve diversity in our workforce regardless of gender, race, religious beliefs, nationality, ethnic/national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability.