Program Development and Award Advisor, Asia

The Program Development and Award Advisor (PDAA), Asia supports business development and award management for institutional donors in the IRC’s Asia region, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Thailand. The role involves managing donor relationships, ensuring compliance with donor rules and IRC systems, supporting proposal development, and advising country programs on partnership management and award implementation.

Responsibilities

• Manage a portfolio of awards for the Asia region including donors such as USG, UN, GAC, World Bank, Australian DFAT, and Gulf donors
• Review, provide substantive feedback and ensure timely submission of reports with input from technical and financial staff
• Guide country offices in design, production, submission, and quality assurance of award amendments and modifications
• Serve as first point of contact for country program staff on post-award issues and facilitate information flow between country programs and HQ teams
• Review and lead negotiation of award agreements with donors, IRC entities and partners according to policies and processes
• Guide and coach country offices on partnership management and donor compliance, ensuring IRC’s PEER System is followed
• Review and help process sub-grants/partnership agreements in alignment with internal processes
• Provide support and monitoring of projects to ensure progress against objectives and compliance with donor guidelines and IRC requirements
• Provide technical advice on donor compliance issues and escalate high-level matters to leadership
• Participate in regular meetings with country teams to provide support and updates on donor compliance and award management
• Ensure lessons learned from finalized projects are fed into the Business Development team
• Stay informed about programmatic, security and political developments in the region affecting program implementation
• Advise and lead country programs to follow internal IRC policies and procedures
• Travel to provide additional support or cover short-term gaps for awards and partnerships teams
• Respond to data requests and ensure portfolio-wide data accountability
• Coordinate with Program and Award Support Team members for coherent awards support
• Support business development by providing proposal management, quality assurance and compliance support
• Review and advise on internal policy, donor requirements, budgets and supporting documentation for proposals
• Facilitate and participate in post-submission debrief sessions to collect lessons learned
• Maintain complete and accurate electronic files and internal trackers
• Manage donor relationships and maintain communication on contractual issues and program implementation
• Represent IRC externally at country/region-specific meetings with donors and stakeholders
• Support training of IRC in-country staff and onboarding of new team members
• Develop and maintain work-processes and checklists for award implementation and report review
• Contribute to AMU and regional strategic priorities and initiatives
• Actively participate as a member of the Regional Team engaging in strategy development and other initiatives
• Perform other duties as assigned by supervisor

Requirements

• Degree, preferably in a subject related to IRC’s work (International Relations, Refugee or Migration Studies, Development Studies, Public Policy) or equivalent experience
• Fluency in English, both spoken and written
• Experience with and a strong understanding of USG and UN donor requirements strongly preferred
• Understanding of other public donors is a plus
• Good understanding of humanitarian aid and development programming
• Ability to work collaboratively as part of a diverse team and handle a multifaceted workload
• Good financial management and budgeting skills
• Ability to analyze and synthesize information
• Proven organizational skills, detail-oriented, ability to prioritize tasks, and to learn quickly
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills: the ability to successfully and effectively liaise with people within and across departments in a multi-cultural environment
• Ability to work independently in a very fast paced environment
• A flexible work attitude and a calm manner
• International work experience in the Global South is a plus
• Excellent IT skills (Word, Outlook, Excel)
• Ability to travel internationally, sometimes on short notice and to insecure areas
• Experience in working at a distance and supporting field-based staff
• Experience writing, reviewing and editing narrative and financial reports and excellent attention to detail

Skills

• USG donor requirements
• UN donor requirements
• Humanitarian Assistance Programming
• Development Programs
• Finance Management
• Budgeting
• Information Analysis
• Organizational Skills
• Report Writing
• Narrative report editing
• Financial report editing
• Interpersonal Communication
• Cross-cultural Liaison
• Independent Work
• MS Word
• Microsoft Outlook
• MS Excel
• International Travel
• Remote Technical Support
• Partnership Management
• Award Management

Languages

English