Senior Program Quality and Learning Officer,Power Partnership

Role Overview

This role sits at the centre of POWER's six-country portfolio, holding the technical bar for how women's protection and empowerment work is designed and delivered while keeping learning moving in both directions — from the WPE Global Practice into country contexts, and from partnership practice back into the core. Day to day it means reviewing programme quality against IRC's WPE standards and the IASC GBV Minimum Standards, watching delivery against scope, timeline and budget closely enough to catch drift early, and turning implementation evidence into something partners can use for their own advocacy and institutional positioning. It matters because the partnership's credibility rests on whether those standards genuinely hold across six crisis-affected contexts — and on whether women-led and local organisations gain real decision-making authority rather than visibility alone.

The post works through country WPE and programme teams, POWER's women-led and local partners, and the WPE Global Practice, and coordinates closely with the Award Management Unit, which leads the Irish Aid relationship, alongside VPRU Advocacy, the VPRU MEAL/METAL unit, and country-level awards and finance colleagues.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide quality oversight across the six country programmes so that survivor-centred response, case management, women's and girls' safe spaces, clinical and MHPSS referral pathways, and social norms work meet IRC WPE technical standards and the IASC GBV Minimum Standards.
• Act as the connective link between the POWER partnership and the WPE Global Practice — translating core standards into partnership contexts and carrying partnership-generated practice back into the core, rather than letting standards flow in only one direction.
• Track and report delivery against scope, timeline and budget across all six countries, flagging deviation early enough to support adaptive management instead of end-of-cycle correction.
• Lead the partnership learning pillar, designing and coordinating cross-country learning cycles, documentation and structured reflection between IRC and partners, and treating implementation learning as a legitimate evidence pathway.
• Position women-led safety audits as community-generated risk analysis, strengthening the route from that analysis into local decision-making, and ensure MEAL and programme data directly shape programme adaptation rather than only reporting.
• Support sequencing of prevention and social norms activities to context, so they are introduced only where women-led community analysis confirms the preconditions for safe implementation are in place, and keep adolescent girls visible as a distinct group rather than folded into a general women-and-girls category.
• Steward the advocacy pillar, supporting partners to carry community-generated analysis into local, national and global advocacy where they hold standing in their own right, and work with advocacy and policy colleagues so partnership evidence informs IRC positioning toward donors, multilaterals and normative bodies.
• Support partner institutional strengthening across governance, financial systems, safeguarding and MEAL in ways partners define and lead, consistent with the PEERS principles and the direct funding commitment, and strengthen partner surge and emergency response readiness so local organisations hold a credible role when crises escalate.
• Contribute technical content on programme direction, learning and strategic opportunities into AMU's engagement with Irish Aid and the Department of Foreign Affairs, and provide technical input to the design and negotiation of the next Strategic Partnership phase post-2027, including scope, theory of change and the monitoring, evaluation and learning framework.

Requirements & Qualifications

• Advanced degree in a relevant field such as social work, gender studies, international development, human rights, public health or law, or an equivalent combination of qualification and experience.
• A minimum of eight years' professional experience in GBV, WPE or protection programming in humanitarian and conflict-affected settings, at technical lead level.
• Demonstrated experience in partnership and locally-led social action, in programme quality or learning, and in programme or grant management including budget oversight.
• Strong technical grounding in WPE practice and the IASC GBV Minimum Standards.
• Practical experience of feminist partnership and localisation, including working with women-led organisations as partners rather than subgrantees.
• Learning and MEAL capability, with the judgment to treat implementation learning as evidence and to surface difficult findings honestly — including referral systems that exist on paper but not in practice.
• Programme and grant management across multiple countries, including tracking and reporting delivery against scope, timeline and budget, and the systems needed to flag deviation early.
• Ability to translate programme evidence into policy-relevant framing for donors, multilaterals and normative processes.
• Multi-country coordination across diverse and often insecure contexts, with contextual and political sensitivity.
• Sound Do No Harm and safeguarding judgment, particularly in conflict-related sexual violence contexts, including safe and consent-based documentation and clinical pathways.
• Ability to work across technical, advocacy, awards and finance functions, and to co-design tools and thresholds with partners rather than imposing them.

Key working relationships include country WPE and programme leads across the six POWER countries; POWER women-led and local partners, including SSWC in Somalia and FODDAJ in Kenya; the IRC Awards Management Unit; VPRU Advocacy and the VPRU MEAL/METAL unit; VPRU Business Development; and Irish Aid and Department of Foreign Affairs counterparts.

What We Offer / Why Join

• A six-country portfolio that puts you at the centre of a strategic partnership's technical quality, learning and coordination functions.
• Genuine two-way exchange with the WPE Global Practice, where partnership-generated practice shapes core standards as much as it receives them.
• Direct technical contribution to the design and negotiation of the next Strategic Partnership phase beyond 2027.
• Close collaboration with women-led and local organisations whose institutional positioning is a stated objective of the work, not a byproduct.
• A mandate to make evidence change what the programme does, including in conflict-affected settings where women and girls face the sharpest risks.