The International Rescue Committee (IRC) responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian non-governmental organizations (INGO), at work in more than 40 countries and 29 U.S. cities helping people to survive, reclaim control of their future and strengthen their communities. A force for humanity, IRC employees deliver lasting impact by restoring safety, dignity and hope to millions. If you’re a solutions-driven, passionate change-maker, come join us in positively impacting the lives of millions of people world-wide for a better future.
The Regional Partnerships, Policy, Advocacy, and Communications (PPAC) lead for Early Childhood Development (ECD) will report to both the Ahlan Simsim ECD project and the MENA PAC team. In this role, the PPAC lead will spearhead regional efforts in partnerships, policy, advocacy, and communications, as well as guide and support country teams in adapting ECD strategies to meet PPAC needs in each country’s unique context.
The PPAC lead will lead a comprehensive regional strategy to raise awareness and visibility for ECD initiatives, ensuring alignment with IRC’s Ahlan Simsim achievements over the past six years. This role is essential in promoting consistent, high-quality messaging across MENA and HQ to enhance external relations and showcase best practices and insights. Through strategic communications, the PPAC lead will elevate the profile of ECD in MENA, emphasizing the impact of IRC and partner efforts, and will work to expand stakeholder engagement—including partnerships, networks, and coalitions—to position IRC and regional actors as leaders in ECD.
Additionally, the PPAC lead will collaborate closely with country teams to strengthen national advocacy and policy efforts, support targeted communications to elevate ECD achievements, and build capacity for effective partnership strategies that align with both programmatic goals and emergency response needs. This role will develop and implement capacity-building initiatives to enhance partners’ skills in policy analysis, advocacy, and campaign execution.
As a representative and spokesperson for IRC’s ECD work in MENA, the PPAC lead will also play a key role in producing influential advocacy materials, meeting donor communication standards, and fostering a principled approach to ECD policy, advocacy, and communications across the region. This position will empower Ahlan Simsim team members to effectively represent the mission and oversee knowledge management for partnerships, advocacy, policy, and communications across ECD initiatives in MENA.
Responsibilities include:
Partnerships
• Lead on regional partnership strategy for increasing usability and access to Ahlan Simsim’s host of high-quality ECD resources (content, curricula, trainings, etc.); Conduct a robust stakeholder mapping and maintain an updated contact list of key targets in-country.
• Advise country programs on partnership strategies that align with regional and country program goals to strengthen formal systems, reach the most marginalized and vulnerable children and response to acute emergencies as they come.
• Support ECD and partnership staff with strategy development and alignment, and capacity building.
• Lead the management of regional partnerships in alignment with IRC’s Partnership Excellence for Equality and Results System (PEERS).
Policy & Advocacy
• Expand IRC’s MENA regional engagement with ECD networks and coalitions.
• Work with country level ECD Coordinators and PAC Coordinators to identify national policy and advocacy opportunities.
• Advise country programs on ECD advocacy including public awareness campaigns, and national ECD policy development.
• Serve as the link between country level ECD policy and advocacy efforts and work across networks at the MENA regional and global level.
Communications
• Lead on ECD communications strategy for the MENA region, elevating visibility of our work on ECD (elevating the successes of partners) and increasing awareness of the importance of ECD.
• Advise country programs on strategic communications to boost visibility of ECD work within each country and raising up visibility of partners.
• Ensure compliance with donor communications requirements across ECD grants.
Overarching/Cross-cutting
• Produce high quality public and private policy, advocacy and comms materials including talking points, briefing notes, position papers, fact sheets and advocacy reports.
• Represent the IRC in humanitarian coordination and advocacy fora, conferences, lobby meetings, and other events as requested; or provide talking points for other senior representatives, including the Country Directors and Regional Vice President.
• Design and implement comprehensive capacity-building programs for partners, enhancing their abilities in policy analysis, advocacy strategies, and campaign execution. Develop tailored training modules to meet the specific needs and contexts of the partners.
• Promote a principled approach to policy, advocacy and communications for ECD in the MENA region among relevant internal stakeholders and ensure that external messaging is evidence-based and driven by field realities.
• Support Ahlan Simsim staff to monitor and evaluate advocacy, policy and communications objectives and activities.
• Knowledge management of Ahlan Simsim/ECD MENA partnerships, advocacy, policy and communications files, materials and records.
Key working relationships
Internal:
• Directly reporting to: Ahlan Simsim Regional Project Director/Project Lead (Amman)
• Management in Partnership with: Regional Director of Policy, Advocacy & Communications.
• Close collaboration with: Ahlan Simsim team leads, Program Coordinators, Partnership Coordinators, Field Coordinators, Humanitarian Access and Security Coordinator, Regional Context Advisor, Senior Regional Communications and Media Manager, Global Advocacy and Communications Colleagues.
External:
• Public and private donor agencies, international and national NGOs, UN agencies, partner organizations, foreign governments;
• Advocacy Coordinators or similar in other organizations, Policy and Advocacy Working Groups;
• Sesame Workshop ECD colleagues, regional partners (scaling partners, ministries, multilaterals such as the World Bank), and UN regional representation (WFP, WHO, UNICEF, etc.), other INGO allies
Position directly supervises: N/A
Indirect Reporting: N/A
Required experience/qualification/skills
• At least 8 years of progressively responsible professional experience crafting and delivering policy and advocacy work
responding to complex humanitarian crises and/or development contexts;
• Experience with advocacy in humanitarian and development contexts required; experience in early childhood development advocacy at the national, regional and global levels highly desired;
• Strong understanding of early childhood development (ECD), of the ECD context across MENA, and of key ECD stakeholders and national ECD policies across primary countries of focus (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria);
• Experience working on partnership and scaling in humanitarian and development contexts;
• Demonstrated creativity, ability to apply innovative thinking and problem-solving skills;
• Excellent analytical, presentation, communication and representation skills, including spokesperson skills;
• Fluency in both English and Arabic (written and spoken) is essential, with demonstrated exceptionally strong writing skills;
• Ability to navigate interpersonal and inter-departmental organizational dynamics to keep focus on goals and products;
• Ability to work well in unstable security environments, and under significant administrative and programmatic pressures;
• Flexible to adapt to changing requirements;
• Culturally sensitive, able and interested in working with a multi-ethnic team;
• Strong commitment to the IRC’s mission, purpose and values;
• Must be able to work independently while being a team player;
• Experience with training and staff capacity building.
Demonstrated skills and competencies
• A commitment to IRC’s mission, vision, values and IRC Way – Professional Code of Conduct.
• Credible written, presentation and verbal communication skills; ability to convey information effectively and solid experience providing training and staff development
• Validated sense of professional discretion, integrity, and ability to handle complex situations diplomatically and to effective resolution.
• Excellent management and interpersonal skills and a solid ability to promote harmonious/cohesive teamwork, in a cross-cultural context; Strong listening skills.
• Validated ability to plan long-term, organize priorities and work under administrative and programmatic pressures with detail orientation and professional patience.
• Highly collaborative and resourceful; ability to establish positive working relationships with senior level management, and with peers across departments as well as with all other partners to maximize cooperation and productivity.
• Curiosity, a desire to continually learn and develop and a sense of humor is a must.
• Analytical ability in creating effective solutions to complex matters while adhering to labor laws and internal policies.
Travel: This position is based in Amman, Jordan, with expectation of travel approximately 10%.
Standard of Professional Conduct: The IRC and the IRC workers must adhere to the values and principles outlined in the IRC Way – our Code of Conduct. These are Integrity, Service, Accountability, and Equality.
Commitment to Gender, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion: The IRC is committed to creating a diverse, inclusive, respectful, and safe work environment where all persons are treated fairly, with dignity and respect. The IRC expressly prohibits and will not tolerate discrimination, harassment, retaliation, or bullying of the IRC persons in any work setting. We aim to increase the representation of women, people that are from country and communities we serve, and people who identify as races and ethnicities that are under-represented in global power structures.
How to Apply:
