Partnership Coordinator (INT10044)

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Strategy:

·       Development, regular review and updating of the Partnership and Local Humanitarian Leadership elements of the response strategy in conjunction with partner organisations

Explore opportunities for innovation and out-of-the-box interventions and collaborations with impact.

·       Ensure a strong and enabling focus of the response on local actors’ leadership, capacity and influence, with a specific focus on refugee-led organisations, women’s rights and women-led organisations, disabled person organisations, and organisations working to protect and support the rights and wellbeing of the most vulnerable

• Ongoing mapping and engagement with (prospective) partners responding to the crises in the country – including civil society, government and private sector – and propose where and how Oxfam could potentially add value.
• Work with partners and allies to explore and seize opportunities for contributing to peace and sustainability – to influence immediate/intermediate responses (incl. influencing/our communications, innovation, capacity development, etc.)

·       Ensure country response is in line with Oxfam’s humanitarian approach (community engagement, local humanitarian leadership, safe programming and feminist approach). Ensure and support partnership-centric ways of working throughout the humanitarian project and program management cycles in close collaboration with the country response team

·       Quality. Support partners’ responses to ensure quality programming is supported by Oxfam resources (human, technical, financial). Liaise with Oxfam teams and stakeholders to ensure necessary and appropriate support is provided.

Leadership and Management:

·       Oversight and monitoring of others, to ensure open, transparent and two-way communication and collaboration, and broker or provide support to their ongoing needs and organizational and institutional development.  

·       Maintain oversight of partners’ programs, together with Oxfam technical leads and area manager, ensuring the implementation and quality of activities is monitored in ways that are aligned with equitable partnering approaches.

·       Make partnership decisions in complex situations with minimal back office support using a systems-thinking approach and in relation to general compliance in programs.

·       Strong coordination with other humanitarian actors in-country to enable local and national partners to be involved, active and leading in coordination and leadership spaces.

·       Support the development of appropriate MEAL for partners’ responses. Support regular learning exercises jointly with partners in various stages of the response cycle.

·       Lead on response reporting and information dissemination, in collaboration with partners.

·       Work in close collaboration with the Operational Lead and partners in the Ukraine – to identify eventual bottlenecks early on and collectively resolve them. Work together to identify opportunities for further collaboration or innovation.

·       Regularly report back to the Area Manager and the PMU Partnerships Lead on engagements with partners, issues to be resolved and opportunities for further strengthening partner-led response and influencing work.

Partnership Relations & Portfolio

·       Scope and build relations with potential and existing partners. Assessing mutual interest, potential, alignment, possible risks of engagement. Define Oxfam’s added value. Create   appropriate information management tools (e.g. a database incl. partnership assessments) to inform management decisions

·       Develop, manage and maintain the partnership portfolio. Identify short vs medium term relations; thematic focus; organisations vs networks/federation/consortia; cross-border vs national, etc.

·       Day to day management of the relations with partners, supported by other Oxfam staff engaged in the country response, to ensure a high-quality program response. Undertake regular ‘partnership health checks’ and enhance Oxfam’s ways of working in response to partners’ feedback

·       Ensure that Oxfam partnership principles, as well as Oxfam’s commitments to Local Humanitarian Leadership (incl. Charter for Change, Grand Bargain), are embedded within the ways of working and fully understood by Oxfam staff and partners. Propose and ensure improvements in Oxfam’s partnering practices as required. 

·       Lead in conducting partnership mapping to identify potential partners 

Partner Funding and Contracting:

• Ensure a transparent assessment process of potential partnerships
• Support partnership assessments and due diligence checks processes through the relevant Oxfam instruments, liaising closely with Oxfam stakeholders in the Program Management Unit and affiliates
• Support contracting, reporting and administrative processes (with partners’ teams and Oxfam teams) to ensure timely transfer of funds to partners and reduce administrative burdens of partners
• Where needed, in dialogue with partners, include options for technical support and mentoring to partners – individual or collective – to fill essential gaps in partner capacity. This can be by Oxfam or resourced elsewhere.