Liaison and Partnership Officer

The Liaison and Partnership Officer supports DRC's access, operations, and partnerships across East and South Libya, facilitating relationships with local authorities, civil society, and humanitarian partners to support programming. The role involves liaison, coordination, partner mapping, contract tracking, and field follow-up to ensure smooth operations and compliance.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a focal point with local authorities including ministries and municipalities, and relevant entities in East and South Libya.
• Facilitate approvals, permits, and coordination required for operations, staff movement, and program implementation.
• Represent DRC in relevant coordination meetings and stakeholder forums to promote organizational interests and ensure alignment with local frameworks.
• Monitor and interpret local administrative and context developments that may impact operations.
• Liaise with sub-grant partners to ensure the process is clear and all documents are received and updated on the system.
• Support field teams in obtaining timely approvals for program activities, site access, and logistical facilitation.
• Assist in resolving access challenges, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and operational impediments.
• Coordinate with logistics, security, and program teams to ensure smooth field operations and staff deployments.
• Identify and assess opportunities for expanding or initiating programming in under-served or priority areas.
• Provide contextual analysis, local dynamics, and potential partners or entry points.
• Support needs assessments, field visits, and donor missions by organizing meetings and access arrangements with local actors.
• Support the mapping and regular updating of information on current and potential partner organizations operating in the area of coverage.
• Maintain and update the partnership database/tracker, ensuring partner profiles, capacity information and contact details are accurate and up to date.
• Ensure proper filing and archiving of partnership-related documents in line with DRC's document management procedures.
• Maintain an up-to-date tracker of partner agreements/SGAs, including start and end dates, budget lines, deliverables and reporting deadlines.
• Follow up with partners and relevant internal teams on the status of agreement modifications, amendments, no-cost extensions and renewals, flagging any delays to the Partnerships Coordinator.
• Support the collection and compilation of documentation required for partner selection, due diligence and capacity assessment processes.
• Support field visits to partner-implemented activities to follow up on progress against agreed targets and identify implementation challenges.
• Follow up on partners' compliance with agreement commitments and action points arising from monitoring visits, review meetings and audits.
• Document field visit findings and share reports/updates with the Country Director, relevant teams and the Partnerships Coordinator.
• Maintain records of key meetings, communications, and agreements with stakeholders.
• Support drafting of MoUs with partners, routing them for review and validation, and following up until finalization.
• Provide regular updates and analysis on access, coordination, and liaison matters to senior management.
• Contribute to reporting requirements for donors, clusters, and internal management as needed.
• Support the collection and follow-up of partner and community feedback related to partnership activities.
• Contribute inputs to internal partnership reports, trackers and dashboards for the Country Director and the Partnerships Coordinator.
• Flag any irregularities, compliance concerns or incidents identified during field visits or partner engagement to the line and technical manager.

Requirements

• At least 2-3 years of relevant experience in humanitarian or development sectors, with exposure to liaison, coordination, external relations or partnership/grants support functions.
• Strong understanding of the context and humanitarian landscape in East and South Libya.
• Experience engaging with local authorities, community leaders, and civil society actors.
• Experience maintaining trackers/databases and working with Excel or similar tools for data and document tracking.
• Excellent communication, negotiation, cultural sensitivity, and interpersonal skills.
• Willingness to travel frequently and work in dynamic field environments.
• Experience working with both government and INGOs and/or UN agencies in a liaison role (desirable).
• Prior experience in access negotiation, humanitarian coordination, or partnership/grant support (desirable).
• Knowledge of humanitarian principles and operational standards; knowledge of donor compliance basics is an asset.

Skills

• Humanitarian Operations Liaison
• Partnership Coordination
• External Relations
• Grants Support
• Humanitarian Contexts
• Stakeholder Engagement
• Local Authority Engagement
• Community Engagement
• Civil Society Coordination
• Data Tracking
• Excel
• Document Tracking
• Negotiation
• Cultural Sensitivity
• Humanitarian Principles
• Donor Compliance
• Access Negotiations
• Humanitarian Coordination
• Contract Tracking
• Field Operations Experience

Languages

English, Arabic