Senior Program Quality and Learning Officer, Power Partnership

About the role

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is hiring a Senior Program Quality and Learning Officer for its POWER partnership in Nairobi. The role holds the technical quality of POWER delivery to IRC's WPE standards, keeps the partnership and the WPE Global Practice in two-way exchange, and tracks delivery across six countries against scope, timeline and budget so that deviations are flagged early for adaptive management.

Key responsibilities

• Provide quality oversight across six country programs so that survivor-centred response, case management, women 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 link between the POWER partnership and the WPE Global Practice, translating core standards into partnership contexts and bringing partnership practice back to the core.
• Support the sequencing of prevention and social norms activities to context, and maintain coherence across countries while allowing local adaptation.
• Track and report delivery against scope, timeline and budget, and ensure MEAL and program data feed directly into program adaptation.
• Lead the program's learning function, coordinate cross-country learning cycles and documentation, and position women-led safety audits as community-generated risk analysis.
• Build an honest evidence base on what enables and constrains change in protracted crisis settings, and steward the partnership's advocacy pillar so partners can use community-generated analysis in local, national and global advocacy.
• Strengthen partners' institutional core (governance, financial systems, safeguarding, MEAL) and their emergency surge capacity, advancing decision-making authority toward partners such as SSWC in Somalia and FODDAJ in Kenya.
• Keep women and girls in active conflict and protracted displacement at the centre, including conflict-related sexual violence-sensitive practice, and keep adolescent girls visible as a distinct group.
• Support coherence of delivery and reporting, contribute technical content to the strategic relationship with Irish Aid, and help design the next Strategic Partnership phase (post-2027).

Required profile

• 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.
• At least 8 years of professional experience in GBV, WPE or protection programming in humanitarian and conflict-affected settings at a technical lead level.
• Demonstrated experience in partnership and locally-led social action, in program quality or learning, and in program or grant management including budget oversight.

Required skills

• Strong technical grounding in WPE practice and the IASC GBV Minimum Standards.
• Practical experience in feminist partnership and localization, working with women-led organizations as partners rather than subgrantees.
• Learning and MEAL capability, with the judgment to treat implementation learning as evidence and to surface difficult findings.
• Program and grant management across multiple countries, including tracking delivery against scope, timeline and budget and flagging deviation early.
• Ability to translate program evidence into policy-relevant framing for donors, multilaterals and normative processes.
• Multinational coordination across diverse and often insecure contexts, with contextual and political sensitivity.